Islamic theocracies and de facto Christian democracies are baying for blood. They’ve smelled it and want more. Dependencies are leveraged and Indians with transnational allegiances are used as vehicles for making freedom of expression subservient to minority and foreign diktats.
It’s less about religion and more about cornering GOI to show India its “place.” That the same nations backed China at the UN on its repression of millions of Uyghur coreligionists should say more about realpolitik and leverage than anything else. cnn.com
Perhaps the Modi government believes that a tactical retreat is the best option given the country’s weak spots. But tiding over the short term with that strategy doesn’t come without costs. These costs will be long term, both in terms of domestic politics and security.
They have to an extent successfully cornered the government. It was some time in the making - there’s an army of white collared foot soldiers who build the narrative and set the stage and blue collared foot soldiers in the thousands who can be pressed into street violence.
Then you have the threat of curtailing oil & gas, abandoning FTAs, pulling the plug on investments, funding radicalization and harboring terrorists. That’s probably enough to give GOI nightmares. In their calculus, ceding some political ground at home is worth reducing this risk.
Have they thought through the second and third order effects of their actions? Quite likely. Do they know what form these effects will take? Probably not. But if recent walkbacks are to go by, the pressure will only mount. NRC/Shaheen Bagh, Farm Laws/Punjab violence…
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