8 The EconomistJuly 22nd 2017
SPECIAL REPORT
INDIA AND PAKISTAN21north Indian Hindu base, which abhors the slaughter of cows.
This cast a shadow over India’slargely Muslim-run and highly
successful $4bn buffalo-meat-exportbusiness. And the govern-
ment did not seem to have considered the impact on the 2.5m
people working in related trades, from leather shoes to cricket
balls. (However, in mid-July India’s supreme court ordered a
three-month stay on the market ban.)
All this has accelerated a slide in domestic investment, es-
pecially in manufacturing. This does not mean that India’s econ-
omy is in serious trouble; its scale and diversity, its human capital
and its momentum all point to stronger growth in the medium
term. What worries India’s chattering classesmore is Mr Modi’s
apparent inclination, in advance of the next national election in
2019, to pander to his party’snationalist, conservative Hindu
base rather than to India’s merchant classes. “He has lost interest
in reform,” laments a Delhi businessman who voted for the BJP
in 2014. “His constituency is too broad, and he’s decided that
populism is what wins votes.”
Sectarian and caste tensions have risen, for which the BJP
bears considerable responsibility. In election campaigns, and
particularly in its successful pitch to Uttar Pradesh’s 220m peo-
ple, the party has harped on its predecessors’ supposed “ap-
peasement” of minority groups. In fact, India’s 14% Muslim mi-
nority is, by most measures, little better off than the 17% who are
dalits (the lowestcaste, formerly known as untouchables). But
that does not seem to matter. Indian Muslims feel they are being
penalised for having dominated India in the past.
After his party’s election victory in Uttar Pradesh, Mr Modi
appointed as its chief minister a saffron-robed priest, Yogi Adit-
yanath, who sponsors a right-wing Hindu youth movement.
State police now harass non-vegetarian restaurants and Muslims
who have allegedly seduced Hindu girls, but pay scant heed to
incidents such as an attack in May by upper-caste Thakurs on
low-caste dalits that leftone person dead and dozensof houses
torched. Elsewhere in India, cow “protection” vigilantes have re-
peatedly attacked Muslims suspected ofslaughtering cattle, of-
ten with fatal consequences. The response from BJP-run state
governments has been muted at best.
Mr Modi’s government has pursued a Hindu-nationalist
agenda in other ways, too. Religious conservatives have quietly
displaced India’s old, privileged secularelite atthe helm of uni-
versities and other state institutions. The BJPhas so far made less
headway with plans to reform the judiciary, which remains
wary of executive influence, but it has had some success with the
press, much of which isowned by big business conglomerates
keen to toe the government’s line. Indian television, in particular,
has been infected by a style of hyperbolic ranting that makes
some debate programmes hard to watch. Media that remain crit-
ical of the government have faced problems ranging from with-
drawal of government advertising to spurious tax raids, lawsuits
on the basis of antiquated rules and harassment on social media
by legions of pro-government trolls.
India’s press remains diverse, exuberant and healthily in-
quisitive, butjournalists now fear being branded “anti-national”
for suggesting such things as less harsh means of calming Kash-
mir, or a more accommodating policy towards China. The sense
that space for public discussion is closing up is so strong that doz-
ens of retired officials from the elite Indian Administrative Ser-
vice issued a public letter in June warning against “risingauthori-
tarianism and majoritarianism that does not allow for reasoned
debate, discussion and dissent”.
Other Indians have a simpler way of voicing their worries.
“It’s ironic,” sighs a Delhi dinner hostess. “We’ve come all this
way in the world, and have a strong leader and a strong govern-
ment, but this country is looking more and more like Pakistan.” 7RAJA UMAR KHATTAB speaks softly and carefully: “I
would not say Karachi is a safe city, but it is better now than
before.” Seven years ago, the police compound that houses his
wood-panelled office, with its photos of three different Pakistani
presidents decorating him for courage in the line of duty, was hit
by a truck bomb that left a 12-metre-wide blastcrater and 20
dead. The diagonal scar on Mr Khattab’s neck is another story; as-
sassins had planted a bomb near hishouse. Such are the hazards
of heading the elite counter-terror force in a steamy metropolis
of 20m with a reputation as the most dangerous city in Asia.
Ordinary crime is not so bad in Karachi. The trouble is an
explosive ethnic and sectarian mix, spiked with every flavour of
radical Islam, primed by repeated waves ofrural refugees, and
inflamed by law-enforcement tactics such as the “encounter”, a
disturbingly common event where the official report says the
victim died in an exchange of fire, but oddly enough his hands
are tied and no police suffered a scratch. In each of two big waves
of bloodletting, in the early 1990s and again from 2007 to 2013,
perhaps 10,000 people were murdered in the city. The worst epi-
sodes involved not terrorists but rival parties vying for control of
local government.
Things are improving. Mr Khattab notes that there have
been no bombings in Karachi since his team busted a terrorist
bomb factory last year. Politically motivated deaths have fallen
steeply, from 2,029 in 2014 to 474 in 2016 and a mere 89 in the first
quarter of 2017. One reason is the deployment since 2013 of the
Rangers, a tough paramilitary force that has used overwhelming
firepower, plusencounters, to arouse fear. “They don’t have fam-
ilies here like we do,” explains Mr Khattab.
Karachi does feel relaxed, if slightly battered. Shops stayPakistanThe pushmi-pullyu
Politicians pull in one direction, the army in the other