Lynching is nothing but terrorism

https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/lynching-is-nothing-but-terrorism

 In Mob Lynching in India: A Record 2014-24, a team of eight Muslim editors and researchers led by Zafarul-Islam Khan, brings forth a dispassionate accounting of the phenomenon since Narendra Modi took office as prime minister. The 744-page tome sponsored by five Muslim and left-liberal NGOs carries a stinging analysis of the several hundred lynching incidents compiled.

The book is the latest in the series by publishers Pharos Media on human and minority rights in India. The collection forms a cogent counter-narrative to the officially propagated view on India’s internal security painting India’s Muslims negatively. The series is a resounding repudiation of the narrative bandied about at high volume in the strategic discourse.

The book presents a prominent perspective held by large sections of India’s Muslims: that lynching is a terror tactic designed to further marginalise Muslims. Lynching is mob violence indulged in on ascriptive grounds. If terrorism is minimally defined as violence with a political purpose to cow-down a target audience wider than the immediate target, then lynching wholesomely satisfies the definition.

Muslims have been in the sights of right-wing perpetrators under guise of cow protection, love jihad or for no other reason than their looks. Some non-Muslims have ended up as victims for being mistaken as Muslim. The targeting is amplified by social media to elicit a wider impact.

The political purpose is the physical, social and psychological invisibilisation of Muslims by constricting spaces of Muslim presence, articulation, visibility, economic activity, social engagement and national contribution. This Othering is a shaping of the battle-field for manufacture a majoritarian nation and state.

The tactic provides a distraction for the masses from the social inequity that revivalism foists on non-minority communities. Participation in collective activity – even if with a negative purpose - gives a sense of identity to substitute for the ennui of modern life and persisting lack of economic opportunity for participants, themselves largely deprived. The participants are conditioned to a ‘call up’ in short order as and when necessary. Having shed their inhibitions, they are ‘on call.’ Their leaders chalk up a manly image in local communties; while their handlers can claim political clout.

Its intellectual legitimation is to avenge historical wrongs. It is to (re)kindle machismo in the majority, considered servile in a particular narrow ideology. The purpose of crafting of a majority for electoral perpetuity and social revivalism is well served.

The impunity attending lynching indicates this larger game-plan, the unsaid part of viksit bharat. Antipathy for the illegal immigrant – read Bengali Muslim – alone is not the driver of back-to-back strategy benchmarks being rolled out: starting with the citizenship amendment bill, through the special intensive revision and set to culminate post-census in a national register of citizens and delimitation. No wonder Foreign Minister Jaishankar says that if he were to reveal the regime’s grand strategy to anyone, it would be necessary to kill the recipient alongside.

The book’s compilation of instances of lynching recounts what happened in each case and the aftermath. Essentially perpetrators were left-off on bail to begin with, before being allowed to proceed scot free; some being feted. Worse, it’s gone a step further with victims being charged for ‘provoking’ the attacks in first place, such as by transporting cattle or striking up relationships with non-Muslims. While laws for cow protection were enacted to place the minority offside, draft legislation prohibiting the proliferating phenomenon of lynching never saw light of day. The complicity of right-wing politics, police and lower courts is copiously documented, showing up state capture.

The book includes instances of lynching as part of one-sided mob violence, as occurred against Muslims in Delhi in 2020, including by members of security forces. It also counts the beating to death by mobs of non-minority victims, mostly from downtrodden communities and of women for alleged witchcraft. It shows the country-wide nature of the practice by including instances such as against alleged child-lifters, when even Hindus were preyed on. The book does not include the encounter killings, that now number in four figures, though any uniformed outfit indulging in such acts is no less than a lawless mob. Since the police that ought to maintain such records abstains from doing so - lest it let the cat out of the bag - the book is a necessary corrective.

In the decade covered, an outsourcing of societal surveillance and disciplining to vigilante groups has taken place. Their foot-print expanded in sync with the ascending electoral fortunes of the ruling party. In sum, the state abdicated on its responsibility of monopoly of violence to ideology-inspired and controlled micro-terror groups.

The result is evident across Delhi’s streets today, when saffronite foot-soldiers with police complicity go about intercepting youth protesting the chief election commissioner’s shenanigans. It also explains the boast by a right-wing heavy-weight once that his organisation can whistle up a militia in a mere three days.

Pharos Media’s preceding publications set out an alternative reading of India’s internal security. Dr. Khan’s earlier works dwell on the weaponization of the kanwar yatra against Muslims along its route and how the disinformation surrounding Covid was used to scapegoat Muslims and divert attention from the colossal tragedy akin to Partition that was the lockdown.

Also in the catalogue are works by intellectuals Shamsul Islam, Subhash Gatade and Ram Puniyani that unmask anti-Constitution ethnic nationalism. The security-centric volumes are by two redoubtable policemen, RB Sreekumar on the Gujarat pogrom and SM Mushrif on an under-studied angle to Mumbai 26/11.

Given the paradigm dominance-like status of the popular security narrative, such works are confined to the margins with mainstream publishing houses – never very steadfast - maintaining a discreet distance. For their part, strategic analysts are loath to give such findings credence, fearful of peer pressure and reputational costs of being termed conspiracy theorists. Settling the jigsaw pieces does not command the attention it deserves since the strategic community has fallen in line, as have all institutions. Thus, a dubious narrative gets a free pass.

What these publications do is to fill a gap in furnishing both facts and analyses to generate a democratically healthy scepticism of the received wisdom on internal security. These have a historical value and stand as an embarassing witness. But, in light of the recent flicker of hope generated by the ongoing street protests against the regime’s hubristic over-reach, such works acquire an immediacy. Civil society has stepped up where the state has stepped back to furnish the arguments against a viksit bharat forged in violence.

Dr. Khan, a product of Al Azhar, Cairo and Manchester universities, is known for the moral courage he demonstrated in his stand as Delhi Minorities Commission chairperson in turning the spotlight on the actual perpetrators in the commission’s investigation of the 2020 violence in Delhi. Clearly, he is unfazed by motivated actors seeking to silence him when he was last in the news lamenting the isolation of Indian Muslims. His book amounts to a guerrilla counter-action to reclaim security studies and strategic good sense.

Zafarul Islam Khan, Mob Lynching in India: A record 2014-2014, New Delhi: Pharos Media, 2026, pp. 746, Rs. 900/-, ISBN 81-7221157-0

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#NyaDeshMubarakHo!

Dedicated to – Vinesh Phogat

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled the Simha amidst vedic chants atop the then under-construction new parliament building, I had hazarded that was perhaps the inauguration of the Second Republic.

However, Modi’s performance this Sunday suggests that the new quasi-monarchy and proto-theocratic state will date in history to the dedication to the nation of the new parliament building.

Even so, since it is predictable that the forthcoming Ayodhya temple inauguration will be an even grander event - and infinitely more saffron - declaring Hindu Rashtra could perhaps wait till that event.

For now, any claim to this effect could invite a sedition charge. So, Modi is taking his time getting there. While the last time he had bowed to the Constitution when entering Parliament, this time he prostrated himself before a scepter.  

A road bump

Even as he did so, Modi encountered an unforeseen road bump on the road to Hindutva’s Hindu Rashtra with the wrestlers’ protest at Jantar Mantar, ongoing for a month till this weekend, suddenly acquiring momentum.

Unceremoniously dislodging the wrestlers from Jantar Mantar, the Delhi Police lodged a First Information Report (FIR) against them for rioting for their bid to get to the new parliament building for a Mahila Mahapanchayat. 

The Police have so far not followed up with arresting the Wrestling Federation’s chief, Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, on the two FIRs filed at Supreme Court behest, one of which is on sexual harassment of a minor. 

A hopeful perspective has it that the regime has finally overplayed its hand.

The wrestlers had originally wished to keep ‘politics’ from appropriating their cause. They suspected that if the liberals, feminists and opportunist politicians were to join them, it would be a red rag for Modi, giving him an alibi to look away. In any case, Modi proved oblivious.

With 1000 plus signatories to a condemnatory letter on police action, it appears the wrestlers might not be left to themselves hereon. Women who were turned away from the aborted Mahapanchayat at the gates of the new parliament, will also be on hand.

They’ve been joined by farmers. As the distraught wrestlers proceeded to consign their medals to the Ganga, leaders of the farmer agitation intercepted them. They’ve given the regime five days to make amends.

The wrestlers might yet take to the promised hunger strike. The Police has dismantled the protest site at Jantar Mantar. It has denied them the India Gate premises. There is the Ram Lila Maidan site available, though too reminiscent of the Anna Hazare protest for Modi’s comfort.

The farmers will likely lay siege to Delhi; not out of an intent, but because the Police will barricade Delhi. As with the Shaheen Bagh protest, the Delhi Police bandobast will be so designed that protestors are blamed.

Modi’s dilemma

Where Modi stands on sexual harassment allegations is clear.

If he had any inclination to woo the wrestlers, time sharing of the new parliament’s first day could have been done, with the wrestlers turning out in the first democratic protest outside its gates after Modi was done with his tamasha – over two sessions - inside it. A win-win solution was not to be.

Modi could yet defuse the matter from snowballing by having Brij Bhushan step down, if not arrested. Bhushan, though continuing in the chair, is keeping off his wrestling-related duties.

Modi has been proved flexible before. He rolled back the farm laws in face of an agitation. His histrionic ability can be put to good use.  

The Delhi Police already has its marching orders from the Supreme Court. They could claim that having conducted their investigation – for which they have been holding out from making arrest – they have enough prosecutable evidence.

It is easier for Modi to be rid of Brij Bhushan. The opinion of middle classes which he potentially stands to lose due to an underperforming economy might resonate to the wrestlers’ cause. The Nirbhaya case had brought them to the streets, which proved precursor for the soon-to-follow anti-corruption agitation.

It is also difficult to clamp down on the region engulfing Delhi, if the wrestlers plight catches popular imagination in these parts - as former Governor Satya Pal Malik claims.

However, compared to the votes Modi stands to lose, Brij Bhushan’s is a Rajput support base, that includes Dozer Raaj presider, Ajay Singh Bisht. Already trolls suggest that the western Ganga-belt Jats want to wrest the Federation from the eastern Ganga-belt Rajputs.

In anticipation, Brij Bhushan, has taken care to cover his flanks. He is to hold a gathering of seers at Ayodhya on 5 June.

He threatens to have the assembly upend the enlightened legislation protecting children from sexual predators. A seer has already piped up in support of such watering down of legislation, arguing that it is being used to target his ilk.

Modi can’t be seen as caving in to an agitation on the lines of an Indian version of the Woke and Western MeToo movement. A few months on he is to be the chief guest in Ayodhya for inaugurating the Mandir. More importantly, there is an election coming up same time next year.

An Indian Spring?

A recent perspective has it that anarchy prevails in the country. There are several unconnected zones of dissent bubbling away. The agitation last year at the introduction of the Agnipath scheme shows unemployed youth are restive. Evidently, there is much tinder out there, for which the wrestlers could provide a spark.

It is with reason that pedagogy on civil movements has been excised from the syllabus of political science. Modi’s security minders are wary of Colour Revolutions that have upstaged regimes elsewhere. The Arab Spring led to a coalescing of anti-establishment opinion across the Arab world. Indian security minders have drawn their lessons. The regime invective for George Soros shows as much.

Only if the wrestlers manage to spark off a sentiment in Indian public will Modi remove his patronage of Bhushan. The Intelligence Bureau and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) will be able to communicate to Modi when this stage is reached.

The RSS would not like its champion going under at the cusp of Hindu Rashtra. Though miffed by Modi’s narcissism, it is tolerating it since there is no other warhorse in sight, pretenders mounted on dozers notwithstanding.

Modi’s utility for the RSS is to use his political authority to make change indelible. Threatened in Karnataka, the gains made by the regime so far cannot be allowed to be rolled back merely by the voting public exercising its choice.

Modi has not disappointed. In his Karnataka showing, he has kept his flock together, the Congress managing to poach on the regional party’s dissident voters.

Modi has unambiguously shown what New India stands for. He remains unfazed by liberal notions at odds with beliefs of his regressive client base. Political correctness may require a go-bye. Perception management needs at best a sheaf from the hoax, Mother of Democracy.  As for the mouthing, Beti Padhao-Beti Bachao, Love Jihad can be commandeered, with a little help from Sahil, son of Sarfaraz.

Modi has also to show his grip on power. This has been tested and found loose in the external plane, with both China and Pakistan stealing a march on India, the contrary being but propaganda.

Modi’s forte, from his Gujarat days, is internal intimidation. Remember former state minister, Pandya; late Central Bureau of Investigation judge, Loya; and Indian Police Service officers Bhatt, Sharma and Verma; the ongoing plight of eye-witness in the Sohrabuddin case, Azam Khan; the detention of Father Stan Swamy and his comrades; and the false cases against the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act activists.

He could use the opportunity to crack down on dissent, with a dictatorial flourish. Whereas earlier the weak and vulnerable of the marginalized were scapegoats – Muslims and, more recently, Kukis - lightning appears to have struck closer home this time.

The end justifying the means, furthering Hindutva allows for use of a heavy hand.

He may have to replicate Emergency. Unlike with the Emergency, this would not be subject to a rethink. As it is, what obtains has been characterized as an undeclared Emergency, with India topping the internet downtime charts and investigative and enforcement agencies vectored on opposition.

RSS participation through its proxies in jackboots can be expected. Videos from opposition ruled Rajasthan on training and parading around by civilian paramilitary, including women, are viral.

Black operations can serve to manufacture the enabling public consent to crimes against humanity. For illustration, take for instance, the unexplained deaths by burns in a train in Kerala by a perpetrator from the north, who reportedly had never earlier travelled South; amateurish bombs going off prematurely in Coimbatore and Mangalore, conveniently though for a diplomatic meeting on international terrorism in Bangalore; and the killing of a tailor in Udaipur by two Muslim assailants protesting the anti-Prophet invective of the ruling party spokesperson.

Could Modi’s diplomatic engagements, that can be marketed domestically for his Vishwa Guru profile, persuade Modi to get back from ‘2023 BC’? Incidentally, these include an invited state visit to Washington, DC.

International opinion is bestirring, with the international governing body of wrestling taking a view. However, Modi has Quick-Gun Jaishankar on his side, who can undo the damage on social media and YouTube.

The first hint of the regime intent is the Shanghai Cooperation Organisaton summit going online. This cannot merely be due to China and Pakistan likely staying away.

Modi also would not want an international audience have a closer exposure to domestic discord. The G20 tourism meeting at Srinagar last month that turned out a hit-wicket of sorts, was a wake-up call.

When the farmers say they will ‘do something big’, they cannot be allowed an international spotlight. Recall, the farmer agitation was a year-long. Modi needs to wrap up the matter by when the G20 top guns troop down to Delhi.

The next series of state elections is due end-year. He requires nipping it in the bud this summer, lest it queer the pitch for whats seen as a dress rehearsal for the national elections next year. If Erdogan can, Modi shall.

When the going gets tough…

The wrestlers have provided India an opportunity to cast off the Modi-induced trance. Will their agitation prove a road bump or a road block on the road to Hindu Rashtra?

There are two imponderables: one is if their agitation will take on the proportion of a movement; and, two, if the regime preemptively caves-in or takes it head-on.

Whichever way the cookie crumbles, the coming week evokes the phrase, ‘A week is a long time in politics.’

India: three scenarios out to 2030

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The Kashmirisation of India, a phrase coined by Pratap Bhanu Mehta, is well underway. The mayhem by the police on the campus of Jamia Millia Islamia finally brought home to Indians in the mainland what Kashmiris might be undergoing on a routine basis, flooded as Kashmir has been with security forces for some thirty years. Alternatively, from events in Uttar Pradesh, with its chief minister out to emulate the prime minister in his initial days in the sun, it could be well be that Gujratification instead. The prime minister complimented the police for its handling of the unrest that resulted in over-a-score deaths. Taking inspiration from the approach to rule of law in Kashmir and Gujarat, three possible scenarios lie ahead for India.

The first is the visualization by the Hindutva-vadis in which they gain their ends through polarisation. The second is a contested one, in which the Hindutva rampage is checked by democratic means resulting in one-sided violence. The third is a benign one in which the largely Hindu support base of the right wing rethinks its ways, resulting in democratic displacement of the regime at the next elections.

Scenario 1 - A Hindutva triumph

The Bhartiya Janata Party’s eagerness to have a Congress-mukt Bharat owes in part to its reframing of the idea of India in saffron colours. It is also to defang the opposition, whereby there is no political fight-back to its Hindutva project. The reconfiguring of the environs of the central vista along the Rajpath is symbolic of the change to be brought about by the 75^th anniversary of the Republic and the centenary year of the mother ship, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, both in quick succession.

With most institutions (including – to its critics - the judiciary) already defanged and netted, a definition of majoritarian democracy will be deployed to justify further depredations such as the onrushing nationwide National Register of Citizens (NRC).  The vulnerable and defenceless minority will only be further trampled down. If the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) faces such ruthless implementation, what might be the rigour with which the NRC Citizens shall unfold? With the articulate and aware segment of the community - its student cohort - disarmed through ruthless means, the defences of the multiple Muslim communities clustered around the country will be inexorably breached. The final knocks administered would set in a flood of ghar vapsi, the choice being detention centers or a return to the Hindu fold. Eventually, quite like Andalusia is without memory of the Moors – which in the Hindutva imagination is a model for India - India too would be free of the blood of invaders of the last millennium.

A minority community divided within and unable to protect its pockets of habitation across the country will be unable to answer the call for peaceful non-cooperation against the NRC. There are several reports of Muslim readying their documents to present, preparing for the worst. The saffron tide shall enhance to tsunami by several gimmicks of the ‘triple talaq’ variety as the Uniform Civil Code, restriction to prayer venues and methods, sporting of identity markers etc. The ‘Go to Pakistan’ will currency with the argument that since India offers sanctuary for persecuted non-Muslim minorities from its Muslim neighbours, Muslim neighbours could do the same to Indian Muslims.

Scenario 2 – Hindutva contested

A contested ascendance of Hindutva has the possibility of going either way, with the degradation of Hindutva being as probable as its displacement. To preempt this, Hindutva minders may resort to the patented Chanakyan tactics of subterfuge, dissimulation, divide and rule, strong-arm policing, rationalization, propaganda, managing of the external environment, inducement within etc. Ahead it can be imagined that there would be instances of terror incidents of uncertain provenance, including bombings, to enable a security blanket to be put in place before the rollout of the NRC.

If the CAA launch has been greeted with such angst, the NRC aftermath will likely be more volatile, necessitating anticipatory measures of an escalated order on part of the state. Tried and tested ‘black operations’ will be back in use. The dividend for Hindutva perpetrators has precedence, including possible elevation to parliament as compensation for their pain and risk run. The energy on display on streets over the past few days after Mr. Shah rung up the curtains on the CAA-NRC in parliament indicates that Muslims may be less than accommodating to the one-sided brutalisation. There could be alliances forged in the struggle between the underclass, including a Muslim-Dalit one, symbolized by the firebrand leader of Bhim Army turning up at the steps of Jama Masjid.

This foregrounding of security would help the regime with diverting attention from a tanking economy, making for a self-reinforcing loop. The prime minister implied as much in his campaign speech in Dumka, Jharkhand, when he referred to arsonists in clothes making them easily identifiable as Muslims steeling his determination to follow through with the two-punch combo: CAA-NRC. A tactical pull back followed with Modi denying any thought of NRC, even though his government pushed through the NRC by the backdoor by doubling the budget for the National Population Register.

Authoritarianism may deepen and make academic the distinction between fascism and the complexion of the regime. However, as the counter CAA-NRC agitation shows, this is not a Muslim-only show. Most are out to defend the Constitution. The non-cooperation strategy can be expected to kick-in, if it does not cause a dent to the ruling party’s fortunes in the next elections, any repression could invite backlash. That national security miinders are not unmindful of this is evident from Modi’s reference to ‘urban Naxals’ at Ram Lila Maidan, a scaremongering on Maoists-at-the-wings set to grow if the repression-alieanation-backlash cycle takes off.

Scenario 3 – Benign exit of Hindutva

Neither of the two scenarios above are edifying for a secular democratic republic, as being noted in most capitals round the world. This should brighten prospects for the third scenario: of a democratic displacement of the Modi-Shah combine at the next elections. There are four years for the electorate to get its act together. The prospects have brightened with the set back to the ruling party in Maharashtra and Jharkhand. Returns from recent elections suggest diminishing marginal returns for the ruling party’s tactics of polarisation. The post election farce in Raj Bhawan Mumbai makes it possible to outflank them even at their Kautilyan best. If they are administered a defeat in West Bengal and Delhi, It would keep India safe from an authoritarian turn. However, this hopeful moment can prove as chimerical as that at the Delhi and Bihar elections in Modi’s last term, since the Modi-Shah-Doval combine can pull a Balakot act from its electoral hat any time.

The electoral strategy foregrounding the state of the economy, unemployment, farmer distress, state pullout from education and health etc was undercut by Balakot last time. Communalism and manufactured national security concerns remain handy for the regime. A worsening economy can well be blamed on deteriorating security. However, in this scenario, Hindu consolidation into a vote bank proves a chimera. Modi’s antics around the coming up, through this term, of the Ram temple at Ayodhya draw a blank with his development constituency. It’s very first promise of the current tenure of a $5 trillion economy has already fallen flat. The middle classes desert Modi for betraying his development pledges and making India look small on the world stage due to demise of secularism and democratic credentials on his watch. 

What next?

The juncture of Muslims expressing their reservations across India on a matter of community interest after a quarter century is pregnant with possibilities. The threat posed by the regime’s policies privileging its ideology over national interest is the primary national security threat and must be securitized by being recognized as such. The counter that its policies then instigate thus cannot instead be vilified as the significant national security concern. In fact, the counter must be seen as preserving the nation and state from a majoritarian take over.

Which scenario emerges as a result would depend on how the Muslims take forward the counter CAA agitation in face of the regime’s covert sabotage and vilification of the same. Muslims standing up to the regime to preserve the republic could over time help the Hindu brethren shed their blinkers. While Modi-believers cannot be expected to reform, the Hindus who voted for Modi for his development promises have now seen through his game. The Gujarat model is not so much in terms of Gujarat’s economic gains under Modi as much as its manner of authoritarian rule and policing extended to rest of India.  Muslims then, with students - and women students at that – at the vanguard, can emerge as the heroes of the second struggle for freedom, this time from an authoritarian and majoritarian threat to liberal, secular democracy.

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https://www.thecitizen.in/index.php/en/NewsDetail/index/4/18021/CAA-NRC-Those-Who-Voted-for-this-Regime-Need-to-Wake-Up
UNEDITED version
CAA-NRC: Those Who Voted for this Regime Need to Wake Up

The entry into the library and mosque of a university campus in New Delhi by the police and its proceeding to beat students, including women students, is a plunge by this nation into the dark. The ostensible reason given is that resort to stone throwing and arson by anti Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) processionists led to the police attempting to round up anti social elements.

Contrary to the police version, videos on social media indicate that the police set fire to the buses as a precursor to their heavy handedness that followed on campus. At the time of writing the police were shown on national television vandalizing vehicles on the campus of Aligarh Muslim University where sympathetic demonstrations broke out in solidarity with their student colleagues in Jamia Millia Islamia. This makes it easier to suspect the police version of events in New Delhi. 

The credibility of the police has never been high. It took a deep dive recently with a commissioner of police claiming that the law had done its duty while explaining the ‘encounter’ in which the police killed four alleged rapists in Hyderabad. Even if the police version is true, for the police to enter into a university campus in the national capital and rough up students in their search for the anti social elements who resorted to violence is the regime going overboard.

Only a perception of impunity in the armed police could have led to such high handedness. This can only be a result of their action being taken under orders. This line of thought begs the question: Whose orders?

By now it is evident that the regime is incapable of following through with implementing its hard-nosed, ideology-driven decisions with any finesse. The economic fallout and consequences on livelihoods of demonetization and Goods and Services Tax decisions is now fairly evident. The surgical strikes failed to deter the Pulwama terror attack. The Balakot aerial attack failed to hit its intended target. It is equally clear that no F-16 fell out of the sky in the aerial duel that followed. Kashmir is waiting to explode with each passing day of lock down adding to the potentially calamitous consequences when it does. The outcome of the register of citizens’ exercise in Assam can be visualized from the condition of detention centers there.

And now we have its failure to anticipate the anti CAA sentiment in the north east and in the Muslim communities across the country. Needing to divert attention from over reach and to delegitimize the emerging blow-back, it has resorted to its time-tested Gulf of Tonkin tactics. (The reference is to the incident engineered by the United States to enable and legitimize its intervention in the Vietnamese civil war on the side of its lackeys in the mid sixties.) Using the arson and stone throwing as excuse it has tried to paint the counter to the CAA in dark colours. It has already conditioned the media to loyally depict any violence as Muslim initiated and perpetrated.

The intent is to reinforce its narrative on the CAA cum National Register of Citizens (NRC) – its twinned answer to fool-proof homeland security. The Muslims objecting to the CAA-NRC pose a threat because they have much to hide, including some 20 million illegal infiltrators, in their mohallahs and qasbas. Tough handling at the outset of the demonstrations would help deter and divide Muslims. Else they may heed calls for non-cooperation by the community against the CAA-NRC. Besides, the strong arm would need to be much in evidence in case the ‘termites’ are to be accorded a burial at sea in the Bay of Bengal; Bangladesh, having cancelled the visits by its home and foreign ministers last week, being in no mood to welcome them back.  

The necessity of firmness is easy to swallow for believers; they believe anything including that their prime minister is a graduate. The wider public has also been worked on for over a decade during which the notion of convergence between terrorism and Muslims was fostered by the media and fanned by the strategic community. Perpetrators of the black operations that depicted Muslims in poor light were set scot free and at least one now graces parliament. Therefore, the expectation in the security minders who passed on the orders for mayhem on campus was that the rationale would be swallowed.

As with other implementation failures of misconceived policies, this time the regime has come up short. It has been exposed by the swirling social media clips that have found their way into mainstream media coverage of the incidents. Accountability is not with the khakhi clad superiors of the communalised armed police. They have received their marching orders and - being supine - have in carrying these out, have botched it.

Despite its inauspicious rollout of the CAA-NRC, the question still needs answering: whose orders? The deep state, comprising national security minders, is merely a link in the chain of command. Who does the deep state answer to?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech at a mega rally the same day on the campaign trail in Dumka, Jharkhand, is a dead give-away. Modi in his inimitable style said that it is possible to make out who those setting the nation on fire are by the clothes they wear. This is of a piece with his long standing dog whistle politics. In a piece of immaculate coincidence the demonstration in Okhla unfolding even as he delivered his address in early afternoon, culminated in arson a little while later, with the nearby campus being invaded by the police shortly thereafter.

Modi’s home minister during his performance in parliament warned that the NRC was coming. The CAA is but stage setting. The Muslim community is left with little recourse but peaceful demonstrations by its articulate members – its students – to register its reservations. The two – Modi and Shah - responsible for setting off the counter to the CAA-NRC are out to manage the pushback with the only methods they know: Kashmirisation of the rest of India, to borrow a phrase.

That the counter has acquired such dimensions owes to the urgency and significance of the juncture. The government for its part is not averse to the rigour of the counter since it helps it project the necessity – in its narrative – of the CAA-NRC double whammy and paper over the widening cracks in the economy.

The take away from witnessing the aftermath of the first act of its folly is that the largely Hindu support base of the ruling party needs to wake up timely. Only a shifting of the sands below the feet of the Chanakyan duo will enable institutions play their part in the system of checks and balances that constitutes democracy. The accountability for controlling Modi-Shah is with those who elected the two. The agent-principal relationship that underpins democracy implies that Hindu brethren who voted Modi into power need inclusion in the answer to the question: on whose orders. They can yet make amends