Perspectivas / Perspectives

India’s rapid descent into xenophobia, violence, and irrationality
has an important economic dimension, but it takes politicians
to channel these emotions into nationalism, and to embolden
the nationalists to commit violence.  Now that the BJP has done so,
is it able – or willing – to exorcise the many demons it has unleashed?

New Delhi, Dec.10.– Injustice, discrimination, and violence are hardly unheard of in India. But today, they are being normalized, enabled, and even encouraged by the state, which is promoting an aggressive form of Hindu nationalism that looks increasingly like mob rule. India’s diversity and complex civilizational legacy are now under assault, and it is shaking the very foundations of Indian democracy. 

In August, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government stripped Jammu and Kashmir – India’s only Muslim-majority territory – of its special status, which had granted it considerable autonomy, and split it into two “union territories” over which the central government now wields more direct control.

 Bardarash, Iraq; Dec.8.– Hundreds of Syrian Kurds have returned home from Iraqi refugee camps over recent weeks despite fears for their safety, amid complaints that thousands have been ‘imprisoned’ with little access to food, healthcare and work.

Over the past month, around 100 people have been voluntarily returning each week from camps in Iraq after fleeing northern Syria at the start of a Turkish offensive in October designed to force out Kurdish forces.