From Dexter Filkins in the New Yorker
The Prime Minister’s Hindu-nationalist government has cast two hundred million Muslims as internal enemies. Prime Minister Narendra Modi presents himself as an ascetic economic visionary. He is also a hero of anti-Muslim bigots.
In 1925, K. B. Hedgewar, a physician from central India, founded the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, an organization dedicated to the idea that India was a Hindu nation, and that Hinduism’s followers were entitled to reign over minorities.
These Muslims are Indians. They have been living in India for centuries. The ancestors were Indians.
Cannot give much of a summary here — it’s a long form article. But Dexter Filkins story is about
- Narendra Modi’s rise in Indian politics
- Rana Ayyub’s book “The Gujarat Files” about the 2002 Pogrom in Gujarat
- The current clampdown in Kashmir. Internet has been shutdown in Kashmir for 140+ days in a row now. Dexter & Rana went down to Kashmir to check it out. Even politicians from the opposition parties in India were prevented from even going to Kashmir for sometime. Many politicians in Kashmir itself have been under house arrest for these 140 days.