India on fire while Kashmir simmers

The new Indian citizenship law has apparently put the whole of India on fire. As the large-scale eruption of protests further grows, police are raiding Muslim universities, rounding up thousands. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands are on the streets, protesting against the discriminatory law. The growing scale of crisis, mobile and internet shutdowns, violence and several deaths, shows that the situation is fast getting out of control.

The target of this law is 200 million Muslim minority in the country. These Muslims have been part of the Indian society for the past 70 years but now they feel being alienated. The BJP government is trying to turn the country into a Hindu heartland where all the minorities, especially Muslims, will be made second class citizens, as if they are not already.

These Muslims are well integrated into the Indian society but extremist Hindu paranoia has made their lives difficult.

On the Kashmir issue, India was already facing escalating international pressure. Now the citizenship law and subsequent violence has intensified the world focus on the country. The restraining approach for international observers and communication blackout in occupied Kashmir has upset international human rights observers.

The world media, especially Western news outlets, are openly reporting that India is fast becoming a religiously intolerant Hindu nation in which all minorities, especially Muslims, are persecuted, even lynched. Analysis, reports, op-eds and news commentaries have talked about India’s terrible human rights abuses in Kashmir.

Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar has admitted that the “ideological and strong preset views of the Western media made his task harder” when he met American policymakers to explain India’s full integration of Jammu & Kashmir. The selling of Jihadist terrorism in the held Valley has few takers.

According to the Delhi-based Software Freedom Law Center, India has recorded the world’s highest number of internet shutdowns while the longest shutdown has been recorded in occupied Kashmir. On the other hand, there has been the slowest economic growth in more than six years and rising unemployment.

The BJP carries a heavy Hindutva baggage, its manifesto stating: “India shall remain a natural home for persecuted Hindus and they shall be welcome to seek refuge here.” Even after getting the second term, the Modi government is not out of the temple-mosque issues.

Sam Brownback, the US ambassador at large for international religious freedom, has said the US was concerned about the implications of the controversial religion-based citizenship law introduced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.

Will India’s federalism and secular credentials stay? Is one narrow-based ruling party representing one religious group is out to destroy India? The world wants to know if India’s secular credentials will survive BJP's onslaught or not.