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The imperative now is for both honesty and political will amongst all UN member states, in order to formally accept that terrorism or violent extremism is no longer restricted to jihadist violence alone.

Rampant populism, identity politics, widespread disinformation xenophobia and Islamophobia that fuel growing far right extremist violence around the world have created one of the most complex security challenges in recent years.

The United States considers white supremacist violent extremism a major domestic terror threat. US  intelligence and security analysts called the January 6, 2021 insurrection against the election results that led to Joe Biden’s presidential victory the perfect storm of a xenophobic ideology that was combined with armed extremist violence and mis/disinformation spread at scale through online platforms.

In Britain, at least five anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant Neo-Nazi groups have been banned under terror laws since the UK government first proscribed the white supremacist National Action in  2017.

Members of the Canadian government have called anti-Semitic, anti-Black and anti-Muslim white supremacist extremist violence a harsh reality.

As kindred individuals are connecting with each other across borders and continents, propagating conspiracy theories – such as the great replacement theory for example – the white supremacist threat is fast becoming transnational.

According to the Canadian terrorism analyst Jessica Davis, the current set of counter terrorism tools, geared towards tackling threats from global jihadist groups like Al Qaeda and Islamic State under UN Sanctions regimes are proving to be outdated when it comes to far right actors because they are aware of existing counter terrorism frameworks and how to evade them.

And yet, in spite of the growing evidence that emboldened ultra right-wing ideologies are becoming a significant threat to safety and security, there is no international agreement on either the definition of far right extremist violence, or on the terminology of the catch-all term of ‘racially and ethnically motivated violent extremism’ or REMVE.

While the west grapples with white supremacist violent extremism that seeks to overthrow elected governments and push for racially and religiously homogenous nations, the South Asian story is more complex, because right wing groups across the region don’t act against elected governments but in fact, receive ideological support from their governments, either tacitly or overtly.

Sri Lanka’s or Myanmar’s Buddhist majoritarianism for example has thrived on a hyper nationalist, hyper masculine religious or ethnic identity politics that aims to create a homogenous society in linguistically, religiously and ethnically diverse countries.

At home, the populist BJP government thrives on the propagation of this very brand of muscular politics that seeks to alienate and marginalise religious minorities, especially Muslims and Christians. As a result, lower down the food chain, local individuals and groups aligned with Hindutva politics increasingly assume the state’s silence and/or failure to punish crimes like mob lynchings , or tackle calls for genocide made by self-styled religious leaders or right wing politicians stringently, as ideological and political sanction for their crimes.

The breakdown of political consensus around defining terrorism is in itself an age old problem, especially at the United Nations. This is further complicated by the reality of our digitalized world in which tensions can travel across borders easily, as was evident most recently in the British city of Leicester in September 2022, in the aftermath of an Indian cricket win against Pakistan. The vandalisation of a local mosque, the procession of Hindu men chanting ‘Jai Shri Ram’, heckling British Pakistanis in turn caused retaliatory incidents and raised alarm bells within the UK’s security establishment. And while the Ministry of External Affairs condemned the violence against the Indian community,  it also condemned the vandalisation of Hindu religious symbols, significantly equating religion with national identity.

India’s own unwillingness to categorise militant Hindutva actors as racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists has been hardened by strong domestic political resistance against accepting linkages between violent actors who perpetrate hate crimes against religious minorities, and their ideological beliefs equating Hindu supremacy as national identity. In fact, as head of the UN Counter Terrorism Committee for 2021-2022 the previous Indian permanent representative to the United Nations, T.S. Tirumurti had said that the adoption of new terminologies “under the guise of “emerging threats” such as racially and ethnically motivated violent extremism, violent nationalism, right wing extremism” would be divisive, and urged member states to desist from a tendency to label acts of terrorism based on motivation. That position remains unchanged.

Further though, terrorism scholars Naureen Chaudhury Fink and Tanya Mehra write Indian diaspora communities in the United States and Britain have not helped mitigate the threat, but instead have begun to align, especially with anti-Muslim right wing politics in their adopted countries. For example Hindus rallied to form the Republican Hindu Convention that supported Donald Trump in 2016, and more recently, in 2019, the BJP’s supporters amongst the Indian diaspora in UK actively campaigned for the Tories in over 45 parliamentary seats. Both Trump’s Republican Party and the current avatar of the British Tories have swung further to the right, against inclusivity and pluralism in their respective countries.

Whether in the West or in the South Asian region, the far right “loves extremist terrorist groups like Al Qaeda because they make non-Muslim societies fear Muslims”, argues Bethan Johnson, a terrorism expert studying the spread of American white supremacist violence at Harvard University’s Kennedy School.

In fact, the parallels of the ideologies and practices of white supremacist movements – with the significant exception of access to arms and ammunition that violent actors in the West, especially the United States have – are obvious to anyone who cares to look. However, given global contestations on the subject of identity based populist politics that has led to a far right extremist awakening around the world, (India is no exception to extremist violence), it is next to impossible to designate such individuals or groups acting domestically as terrorists. Adding to the complexity is the nature of US laws. The US Constitution protects free speech and the right bear arms. Further, it doesn’t allow for the categorization of US citizens acting violently at home as terrorists, even though heavily armed White Supremacists are challenging internal security around the country.

The truth is that the world community is in a state of constant crisis, and a social contract that sought to prioritize harmony among communities is badly eroded. Whether it is the war over Ukraine, or the economic crisis in Sri Lanka, whether the arrival of the extremist Taliban in Afghanistan or the strain on civil liberties in authoritarian states, the world is littered with such crises, and it has become increasingly evident that violent extremist actors not only cut across the ideological spectrum, but take advantage of the ensuing chaos.

The imperative now is for both honesty and political will amongst all UN member states, in order to formally accept that terrorism or violent extremism is no longer restricted to jihadist violence alone, but recognise that other factors of history and economics fuel racially and ethnically motivated extremist violence in the world. To do so would pave the way for the designation of far right groups and individuals as terrorists who perpetrate violence on the basis of ideology and identity, even if a universally acceptable definition of terrorism per se continues to remain elusive.

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Politics of Hate, edited by Farahnaz Ispahani, brings together noted scholars and experts to analyse religious majoritarianism in South Asia.

To ask why a robust media industry can succumb to the proliferation of hate in such a manner is not a rhetorical question. Much of it is also tied intrinsically to problematic ownership and revenue models, licencing and inadequate funding. The value of television channels as propaganda tools cannot be overstated, and rich politicians have used personal wealth to further political messaging through ownership controls.

Worse, as both economic constraints and cheaper online options drive corporate sector advertising away from the more expensive, big mainstream media organizations, the latter have come to depend disproportionately on government advertising in the form of both public relations and ‘public service’ messages paid for by different arms of the Union and state governments.

It is no wonder, then, that big news organizations, eager to access the only real source of money in the markets today, appear to fall in line with the regime of the day, even if that means becoming a willing accomplice in the propagation of hatred in society. Prime Time anchors are instructed to avoid overly critical commentary, or at the very least, avoid naming the PM directly when being critical of the BJP’s communal agenda or policies ‘Hate trackers’, which gathered data on real crimes against minorities, were forced to shut down as they brought unwelcome global attention. News organizations have been willing to
participate in political propaganda for a price, and some, according to an investigative ‘sting’ operation by Cobrapost, even agreed to spread communal hate in return for cash from the ruling party.

Those who have resisted have been at the receiving end of tax raids, police complaints, charges of treason and government-backed lawsuits, either against the journalists themselves, or against their financial backers. In fact, in few democracies has a government so brazenly brought pressure to bear on private-sector advertisers or used its own financial instruments and cut off access in order to ensure the media only tells those stories that it wants told.

The tragic irony of today’s BJP government is that it has adopted all the tactics and media management toolkits of its earlier political opponents—the very systems that it claimed to fight against, in which bribery, intimidation and violence were the norm. Today several people who experienced the lash of the Emergency first-hand are among the PM’s cabinet colleagues.

Yet, they are only too willing to accuse any journalist not in agreement with their worldview of being biased and, worse, corrupt. The organized army of trolls often endorsed by the PM 35 and his cabinet colleagues have made abuse and invective the everyday currency of our political conversations.

The net result of these efforts is a wave of intimidation against smaller news organizations or independent journalists who try to swim against the tide, and a growing tendency to self-censor or seek ‘balance’ in the interest of preservation among bigger mass media
organizations.

For example, media discourse in 2017, especially on news television and in social media, around a fresh exodus of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, often skewed the narrative away from their plight as refugees fleeing a genocide to one that painted them as illegal immigrants seeking a better economic future or potential terrorists intending to threaten India’s national security.

In the interests of balance and objectivity, both arguments were given nearly equal space on TV and in print, even though the humanitarian imperative demanded much more urgent attention. In this case, too, vitiated social media discourse led by ‘influencers’ with hundreds of thousands of followers, divisive hashtags and viral comments found their way into the nightly news cycle.

The Indian mass media landscape today comprises over 300 TV channels (reaching 112 million households), 50,000 newspapers and magazines (with a readership of over 250 million), around 300 radio stations, 1,000 feature films in eighteen languages made each year, and a plethora of print, electronic, digital and telecommunications media. Twitter and Facebook have some of their largest consumer bases in India.

Across platforms, writers, journalists and citizen journalists opine and reflect prevailing moods, especially against minorities, rather than fact-check their rationale. That job has been left to a new genre of journalists, the fact-checkers, who call out members of their own fraternity for hate speech and disinformation. The pressure on the few remaining advertisers to stop the sponsorship of such programming in the media has mounted.

Over the last year, as scandals of rigged TV ratings come to light, some have made public statements36 against ‘toxic media channels’ that are creating a country which thrives on hate and withdrawn their advertising from such spaces.

While resuming office after winning again in 2019, Prime Minister Modi had repeatedly made clear his contempt for a media establishment he believes is biased—and worse, beholden to a corrupt elite. ‘Today the masks are off all journalists,’ he said, in an interview to—ironically—a journalist. ‘That is why your reputation is on the line.’

Modi’s many voluble supporters applauded his sentiments then, without acknowledging that the very critiques they consistently make of past dispensations apply to them today. Riding a wave of ‘antiestablishment’ sentiment since he first arrived in the PMO, Narendra Modi has succeeded in creating the most pliant, cowering media any leader since Indira Gandhi has enjoyed.

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Kintsugi is the fine Japanese art of repairing ― and strengthening ― broken, fragile ceramic with finely powdered and lacquered gold. The reference to its imperfect beauty comes quite early on in the latest Shahrukh Khan blockbuster, Pathaan. Along with the Bollywood demigod’s samurai warrior-esque look that lends both strength and vulnerability to his patriotic heroism, Kintsugi is a metaphor for our fractured times. Times in which Shahrukh himself has been a target, repeatedly caught in the crosshairs of growing anti-Muslim hate that derives legitimacy from a muscular right wing BJP led government.

Pathaan has already earned over Rs 500 crore. And videos of audiences ‘jhoomo-ing’ to its song ‘Jhoomega Pathaan’, or clapping to the beat of ‘Besharam Rang’ with Deepika Padukone ― the glam Mata Hari in an orange bikini ― are circulating across social media. Alongside are reports of right wing Bajrang Dal activists trying to disrupt screenings in different parts of the country. Given the film’s obvious success, isn’t it a good time to ask ourselves just how much we want our minds to be governed by the politics of an anti-Muslim, anti-minority narrative that trends hashtags like #BoycottBollywood when Muslim heroes are in the lead, or trolls leading female actors for the colour of their swimsuits?

How are they linked? Both religious minorities and women who show individual agency and independence of thought and action (Padukone stood in silent support of anti-CAA protesters at JNU in the winter of 2019), often run afoul of the toxic masculinity on display in our illiberal socio-political environment today. It is an environment driven by populist rhetoric, majoritarian sentiment and authoritarian governance. Look no further than the banning of the first episode of the BBC documentary which looks back at the role of Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he was chief minister in 2002 during the Gujarat riots, and the second, which highlights present-day systematic anti-minority, anti-Muslim policies and statements under the current dispensation, as an example of this world view.

An advisor to the information and broadcasting ministry tweeted about the ban being imposed under the government’s “emergency powers”. One wonders if the irony was simply lost on the advisor ― himself a former journalist who once railed against authoritarian press censorship during Indira Gandhi’s Emergency in 1975. But today, the slightest idea that counters those of the current crop of populists is, by default, illegitimate.

The political theorist Jan Werner Muller argues that the anti-pluralism which underscores the right wing’s opposition to the BBC documentary, or to Bollywood’s Khans, is perhaps the most dangerous and defining element of populism ― far more dangerous than the anti-elitism of populist politics that challenged establishmentarian corruption and brought them to power.

Muller argues that far right populists who derive public support and legitimacy from a history of Opposition politics, have come to power through a collaboration with mainstream, conservative right wing parties contending that they alone represent the public’s true interests. It is political, cultural and moral appropriation all at once.

On social media ― that venomous pit of hate and abuse ― support for the government’s ban on the screening or sharing of the BBC documentary is widespread, even though by banning it and calling it anti-Indian propaganda reflecting a “colonial mindset”, the government has shown its hand. The victims of the Gujarat riots are real, the victims of the Delhi riots are real, and the sense of fear and persecution amongst Indian Muslims ― from cattle traders to academics, from Kashmir to Kerala ― is real. By dismissing those concerns out of hand, the BJP government does itself no favours globally, where the BBC documentary is being viewed and circulated widely. By not censuring those spewing hate against Shahrukh Khan or Salman Khan or Aamir Khan or Saif Ali Khan ― some of Bollywood’s and India’s biggest brand ambassadors ― the Indian government does itself no favours. It is this sort of mainstreaming of right wing politics that has allowed India’s populists to legitimise their Hindutva identity-based, tribalist, exclusionary politics in an overwhelmingly young electorate now primed to hate, with impunity.

Tropes of Indian Muslims as the ‘other’ ― not real Indians at best, and anti-national, unpatriotic, even terrorists at worst – continue to circulate without relief. Despite its evident success, hate-filled memes like the one with images of the two Khans in one of the scenes of the film likened with those of two Islamic extremists in Udaipur who beheaded a Hindu tailor for his support of former BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma last year, circulate freely.

Old liberal democratic assumptions that populists are by definition the Opposition and therefore cannot govern; or that once in power, they would have to perforce relinquish old Opposition stances and moderate their politics to be more inclusive, are no longer applicable. The current BJP-led NDA government is a glaring example of the failure of these assumptions. Right wing populist politics in India has sustained itself by feeding the public a diet of majority persecution, cultural and economic ― due to policies that the BJP claims have “privileged” minorities in the past.

Against this canvas, even if we now collectively decide that celebrating Shahrukh’s success at the box office is after all a good look for India, the fragile pot of India’s multicultural, multi-ethnic, multi-religious society is cracked, and in desperate need of Kintsugi, to revive the depth of its beauty, resilience and strength.

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One thing that every US President since George W Bush has done is to promise to bring American soldiers home from what in September will be two decades of unending conflict in Afghanistan since 9/11.

President Joe Biden, determined to make good on that promise, wasted no time in setting a timeline for this as soon as he took office in January, even though it was amply evident by then that Afghanistan was descending rapidly into chaos. As violence flared up this past month, Biden was determined that the last US forces will be out of Afghanistan by August 31.

So clear-eyed is the US about this withdrawal that even though blood spills every day, it has barely reacted to its arch diplomatic rivals Russia and China playing a greater role in the war-torn republic. No wonder then, that US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said such a role by Beijing could be a “positive thing”, while in Delhi on a day-long visit that coincided with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s meeting with the Taliban’s Mullah Baradar in Tianjin last week.

The optics of that coincidence were not lost on anyone. Blinken’s reaction to the meeting between Wang and Baradar raises an important question. Setting aside, for just a moment, Delhi’s concerns over Pakistan’s proximity to the Taliban and the suspicion around China’s expansionist regional diplomacy, could Beijing – as an ally of Pakistan and a tough negotiator with the Taliban – become the moderating, stabilizing force that Afghanistan so desperately needs right now?

China’s motivations in engaging with the Taliban are many. Quite apart from the economic interests that make Afghanistan and its rich mineral deposits an invaluable link in the Belt and Road initiative, Beijing’s security interests in keeping Taliban influence away from its indigenous Uighur Muslims are a key priority.

In Dushanbe last month, on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Foreign Ministers’ meeting, Wang Yi asked the Taliban to make a ‘clean break’ with the Al Qaeda-backed separatist Uighur extremist East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), which is active along the narrow Wakhan corridor bordering the Xinjiang province. China also wants the Taliban to ensure that Chinese business interests and workers in Pakistan are not targeted by their Pakistan faction – the Tehrik e Taliban Pakistan or TTP. Though Chinese engagement with the Taliban is not new, the open arms with which Wang greeted Baradar gave the Tianjin meeting an illusion of high-level diplomacy among equals, as confounding as it seems. Perhaps that was intentional – a show of respect in order to extract a promise.

Naturally, words are just that and actions have to speak. The Taliban’s track record is hardly encouraging, and its commitment to the Chinese is contingent not only on the group having the stirrings of a diplomatic conscience, but also on its ability to negotiate a way out of the political impasse in Kabul to its own advantage.

The Taliban’s violent march across Afghanistan carries on as a beleaguered President Ashraf Ghani is increasingly isolated in the face of waning global support and worsening political factionalism at home. Those watching the developments in Afghanistan closely believe there is little time left to ensure that an interim administration takes over, or provincial warlords will resume fighting each other, and Taliban commanders on the ground could distance themselves from their leadership. In the interest of stability, therefore, China could be key.

In an interview to the Associated Press a week ago, Taliban spokesperson Suhail Shaheen said his group wants an interim administration it can engage with and it wants to see international pressure mount on Ghani to step down in the interest of a peace deal, or else there is no question of disarming. With leverage on both sides, the Taliban are now looking towards Beijing to play that role.

In all of this, what of India? Delhi’s fallback diplomatic strategy for Afghanistan, since the Doha process began in 2018, has been to wait and watch which way the chips fall. The truth today is that they are flying all over the place, and unlike either its friends or its rivals, India has waited and watched for so long that it seems now to have been left out. Delhi’s hesitant approach towards the Taliban is not without reason; memories of its atrocities against women and minorities when it was last in power and its close equations with Pakistan make India fundamentally suspicious of the group.

But Afghanistan’s unraveling is a source of mounting concern and necessitates firmer policy statements and action.

There is little ambiguity in Delhi about Islamabad’s intentions to try and influence Afghan relations with India as China’s proxy and with its own associations and interests with the Taliban.

India, notwithstanding the goodwill generated by its past engagement on infrastructure projects, military and police training, medical support or development initiatives in Afghanistan, needs to be a prominent player at the negotiating table if it wants to ensure both a check on Pakistan’s influence on the Taliban as well as a regime in Kabul it can rely on and engage with.

As China steps in to fill a vacuum the US leaves behind, using Pakistan to deal with the Taliban when required, Delhi’s hope that America will be willing and able to exert what little influence it has left to push a peace deal cannot be the guiding force of India’s Afghanistan policy.

Having sat it out for so long, India is now left with limited options. The question before Delhi – unless it is willing to engage openly with the Taliban itself – is just how much leverage and influence it may still have with other Afghan actors, including the current government, in order to help create and support a viable alternative for the sake of peace in Afghanistan and the wider South Asian region.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of NDTV and NDTV does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.

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By taking on big tech at a time when it tries to pulverize critics online, the BJP may have bitten off more than it could chew.

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GILLES VERNIERS & MAYA MIRCHANDANI

While the Trinamool Congress sails ahead of its opponents on fielding women candidates, the relatively higher numbers of women in Bengal politics is part of a longer trend of gradual inclusion, to which more than one party has contributed.

New Delhi: With 50 women candidates, or 17% of the 291 seats from where it is contesting a heated assembly election in West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC) has once again taken the lead amongst states that offer the largest space for women’s representation in politics.

In the outgoing assembly, 14% are women, well above the 8% national average across Vidhan Sabhas, though slightly below the 14.6% in Parliament and significantly below the 24% worldwide average presence of women in elected assemblies.

When Mamata declared ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections that 41% of her party’s tickets would be given to women candidates, she translated her commitment to women’s participation in politics into action. If the rationale behind the “magic figure” of 41% appears unclear, it could simply have been that the “percentage was based on the number of women already in her shortlist”, said Tara Krishnaswamy of Shakti, a non-profit organisation that works to enable and increase women’s participation in electoral politics.

Of the 23 women who ran on a TMC ticket, nine got elected—the second highest contingent of women parliamentarians in the Lok Sabha, after the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). That said, data suggest that while the TMC sails ahead of its opponents on this issue, the relatively higher participation of women in Bengal politics is part of a longer trend of gradual inclusion to which more than one party has contributed.

An examination of the profile of TMC women candidates over time also indicates that their inclusion in the party could well be the by-product of an instrumental approach to ticket distribution, rather than from the adhesion to a normative principle of equality that would prevail over electoral strategy.

TMC party members suggest that the inclusion of women in the party may be incidental to a selection strategy that does not consider gender to be either a particular advantage or an impediment to the party’s electoral prospect, even though Mamata has come out publicly in favour of women’s quotas.

“She is already committed to 33% reservation, but Mamata Banerjee has always tried to consider 50% women candidates,” said Dola Sen, the TMC MP in the Rajya Sabha, who has spent the last three decades as a trade union leader in West Bengal, and been a part of Mamata’s own efforts to develop and consolidate women’s solidarity into concrete electoral gains since the Nandigram and Singur movements.

Gradual Inclusion Of Women In State Politics

Since 1962, only 238 of the 4,119 individuals elected into the West Bengal State Assembly have been women.

Until the late 1980s, women barely made 2% of all legislators, a state of affairs to which both the Congress and the Left contributed equally. But starting in 1992 with the 73rd Amendment, which set up a three-tier panchayat system, women’s representation has risen steadily among candidates.

In the 2001 election, which took place after the split with the Congress and the formation of Mamata’s Trinamool Congress, women accounted for 9.5% of the members of the state assembly. From 1991 onwards, the percentage of women candidates has increased by about 1.5% in every election.

However, data gathered by the Trivedi Centre for Political Data shows that besides the TMC, other parties, especially the Left have also contributed to that rise.

For instance, even if the old generation of the CPM and its allies did not feel the need to extend their egalitarian views to women, the Left’s newer generation, led by Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, was more inclined to include women among their candidates. In 2011, the state’s Left combine, including Communist Party of India (Marxist), Communist Party of India, Forward Bloc and Socialist Unity Centre of India, gave 49 tickets to women candidates–higher than the 32 given by the TMC. And, significantly higher than the national parties: Congress has not given more than 10% of its tickets to women candidates to date, and the BJP, which has been fielding more women recently, increased its number of women candidates from 23 in 2011 to 32 in 2016.

Mamata Banerjee addressed a public meeting at Nandigram on 18 January 2021/ALL INDIA TRINAMOOL CONGRESS

As it opened the door to a greater inclusion of women in politics, the TMC took the lead in the past three elections. The party has also received considerable publicity for its inclusiveness–perhaps by virtue of getting many more women elected than its opponents. Sixty-two women from the TMC have been elected in the past 15 years; the Left has managed only 111 women in 54 years.

Profiles In Diversity

In the patriarchal world of politics, women politicians get easily stereotyped. While much of the media focus is on the five actresses fielded this year by the TMC, few are paying attention to the 46 other women contesting.

An examination of incumbency data reveals that men and women politicians in the TMC share the same turnover.

It is still early to make pronouncements about the 2021 candidates, but an examination of the 2016 women candidates reveals that the TMC recruits a diverse lot of women candidates. In 2016, only two of the party’s 45 women candidates were film or television stars; 17 belonged to political families (mostly wives of politicians); and 14 got elected.

In terms of occupation, 14 were self-declared housewives; the occupations of the rest were split between education (nine), social service (11) and business (six), among others.

That Banerjee consistently manages to identify such a large number of women candidates in the first place also must mean that she assiduously scouts for talent and sends out feelers to find the right women to offer tickets to, Krishnaswamy said.

As far as we could determine from the 2016 candidate list, only three of the women had any prior experience in local municipal bodies. A few others also seem to have emerged from the party’s organisation or familial connections while 18 ran for the first-time. Another 22 had already been elected twice or more times.

The TMC’s 2016 women candidates were also varied in terms of caste: 19 upper castes, 13 in SC-reserved seats and two in ST-reserved seats. There were only three women candidates from a backward class background, while nine were Muslims. It is worth noting that the TMC is probably the one party that offers the most representation to Muslim women in India. Like their male counterparts, most of the party’s women candidates were highly educated (24 graduates and above, while two were 8th pass candidates).

One cannot conclude that the TMC recruits “a certain type” of woman candidate, nor can we reduce their inclusion among the party’s candidates to a publicity stunt. But it is evident that the party chief believes that celebrity and star power help win seats.

Banerjee has “good equations with youngsters not only from film but also TV stars. She goes to their marriages and celebrations, spends time with them,” said political journalist Jayanta Ghosal. As a result, she has developed strong personal attachments with ‘Tollywood’, he said.

But could the candidature of these celebrities appear exploitative at times, especially in constituencies where strong local female politicians have been overlooked in spite of years of grassroots work?

While giving tickets to celebrities is a formula that has generally worked well for the TMC in the past (especially in heavily contested seats where inner party rivalries are at work) it also raises questions about whether this is a deliberate strategy to keep complacent old-timers on their toes and balance whatever power challenges they may throw her way with newcomers who will be loyal.

Like all political leaders, Mamata, too, puts a premium on personal loyalty. “People who are new, have the least expectations. Most candidates talk about the party, Mamata’s achievements and schemes. No one is campaigning on the strength of their own work,” said Krishnaswamy.

Compared to most other parties, the TMC stands out by making women political actors rather than mere figureheads for electoral mobilization. Unlike other women chief ministers who work in a quasi-exclusively male environment, Mamata has surrounded herself over time with women contributing to party work or to the cabinet.

Five of her 42 ministers are women, some holding several important portfolios or portfolios not immediately connected to women’s issues, like agriculture, fisheries, SMEs or land reforms.

Her party’s organisation includes large numbers of women office holders, and many women play a prominent role in campaigns.

That Mamata has consistently supported strong women in politics and led by example, is no secret. Nor is the fact that the TMC is one of the only parties on India’s political map that seeks to consolidate women as a powerful vote bank through political participation, rather than sops.

Her genuine desire for inclusion of women in politics is evident, and her supporters say a result of her own political struggles. “Unlike so many other Indian politicians who are women, Mamata Banerjee never had a man helping her – with due respect to others, she is no one’s daughter, wife, widow or girlfriend,” said Dola Sen.

“Look at me, for example,” she said, “We are independent, efficient and competent politicians with or without reservation!”

(Gilles Verniers is assistant professor of Political Science at Ashoka University and Co-Director of the Trivedi Centre for Political Data. Maya Mirchandani is assistant professor of Media Studies at Ashoka University and senior fellow at the Observer Research Foundation. Niharika Mehrotra, an undergraduate student in the Political Science major, assisted with data collection)

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Ripples in the India-Iran bilateral relationship have risen to the surface once again, forcing the question of whether India’s policy and commitment towards the development of the Chabahar Port project is unraveling. Three days after Iran’s announcement that it was starting work – finally, alone – on a crucial rail link between Zahedan and Chabahar that India had committed to developing jointly in 2016, the Foreign Ministry in Delhi was forced to clarify that it had, in fact, been left to Tehran to nominate an authorized entity to finalize outstanding issues – technical and financial – after a meeting between the two sides in December 2019 to review the railway project.

For most analysts of the India-Iran relationship, Tehran’s declaration that it would go it alone, seemingly because India had dragged its feet, was akin to a challenge, seeking a reaffirmation of India’s commitment to the development of Chabahar, and yet another example of the sort of hard negotiation Iran engages in with India from time to time.

Against the backdrop of a deadly pandemic, for which China is already on the mat, and subsequently, India’s efforts to rally international support against Beijing for its adventurism in the Galwan Valley of Ladakh, Tehran’s comments placed Delhi in a diplomatic conundrum in which both Beijing and Washington are key players. Iran’s declaration to start work on the rail line alone came on the back of reports of a mega 25-year, 400-billion-dollar-worth Sino-Iranian Comprehensive Strategic Partnership being negotiated between China and Iran that paves the way for Tehran to purchase weapons and military equipment from Beijing. The two countries already have a trade agreement in place, also signed in 2016, just months before the Chabahar Trade and Transport Corridor Agreement between Iran, Afghanistan and India. And now, even if there is both internal (led by the populist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran’s parliament) and international opposition to such a partnership, Delhi needs to evolve a better strategy on Iran beyond waiting to see how the US may react, beyond having to issue clarifications in response to Iran’s sudden provocations, and beyond allowing voids of partnership that China will readily fill.

Ever since the 2016 trilateral transport corridor agreement designed to facilitate trade in markets across the wider central Asian region, with the Chabahar Port as its hub, bilateral ties between India and Iran have been tested – on one hand by Tehran’s dangling of increasing proximity with Beijing as a geo-strategic challenge to India, and on the other, by Delhi’s sometimes awkward balancing of relations with US president Donald Trump, even at the cost of maintaining crucial regional partnerships.

While signing the agreement four years ago, Prime Minister Modi had referred to the Chabahar project as an engine of growth for Iran and India. The trade and transit corridor allows India to access Afghan, Central Asian and Russian markets over land, bypassing Pakistan. But staying on the right side of Donald Trump has meant obstacles in consistent engagement with Iran. As Washington walked out of the landmark JCPOA or Iran Nuclear Deal negotiated by the UN Security Council’s Permanent 5 and Germany soon after Trump assumed office (in spite of global opposition), imposed fresh sanctions on Iran, and most recently, killed one of its most prominent military figures, Qasem Soleimani, in a drone strike in Baghdad in early 2020, India-Iran relations have stagnated, and Tehran has begun to drive even harder bargains to ensure its own economic survival.

Civilizational ties that form the bedrock of the bilateral relationship notwithstanding, Tehran has since last year shed past caution on economic and domestic political matters. After India’s decision to nullify Article 370, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said “Kashmir’s Muslims must be able to use their own interests and legal rights and be able to live in peace”, and called on India and Pakistan to show restraint and prevent the killing of innocent Kashmiris. Tehran’s tone has only become bolder since. At the beginning of 2020, Iran sidelined India’s ONGC from exploration rights at its Farzad B Gas field, saying it will engage the company at a later date. Barely two months later, in March 2020, in the wake of Delhi’s communal riots, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini asked India to “confront extremist Hindus and their parties and stop the massacre of Muslims in order to prevent India’s isolation from the world of Islam.” Whether this is posturing or genuine concern, the reality is that a sense of deepening alienation among India’s Muslims who fear religious persecution gives Iran a new lever against India.

Given these realities, and the fact that Tehran is likely banking on a shift in the US political landscape come November, Delhi also needs to ask itself how it will reinvigorate its relationship with Iran if there is a change in the White House. With an increasingly unpopular Donald Trumps seeking re-election even as the Covid-19 pandemic claims more and more lives in America every day, Tehran is hoping for a Democrat win to lighten the sanctions and pick up where it left off in 2016. Any such change in Washington will necessitate a reassessment in Delhi to ensure it makes good on its commitments to an important regional partner, and revives its own definition of the very ‘strategic autonomy’ that drove the Chabahar project’s inception in face of global pressure in the first place, irrespective of how Washington or Beijing may leverage Tehran.

(Maya Mirchandani teaches Media Studies at Ashoka University and is Senior Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation.)

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This story first appeared in The Wire

The doorbell rings at 11 am, right on schedule. Delhi is still coming to terms with brutal communal violence that has left 53 people dead at last count, but Badlu Khan Nizami arrives for his weekly music class, determined not to allow the horrors of the previous week intimidate him in any way.

His metro journey traverses Rajiv Chowk in Central Delhi, where a group of men in white shirts and saffron bands marched through the station shouting ‘Desh ke gaddaron ko, goli maaro saalon ko (Shoot the traitors)’ the weekend after the riots. This is the slogan – used by several BJP leaders in the wake of protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act – that many believe provoked the worst communal violence India’s capital has seen since the Sikh massacre of 1984.

Born in Uttar Pradesh’s Mathura district in 1954, Badlu Khan moved to Delhi before his 10th birthday when his father, tabla player Ghulam Abbas, joined the capital’s Hindustani classical music scene. From a family of musicians (his grandfather Mohammed Khan played the soulful sarangi), originally from the Atrauli gharana, Badlu Khan’s own musical career has been intrinsically associated with the folk traditions of Benares. “Mai Brijwaasi hoon (I’m from Braj),” he says proudly, as he pulls out the harmonium and hits the notes to begin a Krishna bhajan for the class.

Badlu Khan has spent a lifetime accompanying Hindustani vocalists on concert tours in India and abroad, but his bread and butter earnings came as an accompanist for the late Savita Devi’s music academy, as she taught students the music of the Benares gharana. Considered a part of the ‘light’ classical tradition, the ‘purab ang’ consists of thumri, dadra, bhajans and a variety of folk songs dedicated to different seasons and festivals. A central theme through their often playful lyrics is devotion to Lord Krishna.

As a Muslim, Badlu Khan never thought twice about this. His ease with bhajans and horis that Savita Devi sang, the familiarity with the Guru Vandana with which she opened her classes, his annual participation in the students puja on Guru Purnima are all testimony to a composite syncretic culture that has allowed art to transcend barriers of faith and identity for centuries. And yet, it is this very culture that communal politics seeks to destroy. Its power to bridge differences and open conversations are a threat to the aggressively majoritarian, Hindutva politics of today that equates religion with national identity, culture with politics and politicians with country.

For many among Delhi’s Muslim population, the days that have followed the riots of North East Delhi have been ripe with tension, rumour and fear. Badlu Khan’s daughter lives in Sundar Nagri, near North East Delhi’s Dilshad Garden. The minute news of violence broke on February 24, he summoned her, along with her family, to his home near the New Delhi Railway station where they stayed for over a week.

While her neighbourhood remained unaffected by the brutal communal riots, he refused to take any chances. Overwhelmed with emotion, he breaks down as he recounts several phone calls from worried students calling to inquire whether his daughter was safe. “I have seen tension. I have seen Delhi go through the 1971 war, when Bangladesh was freed, seen the 1984 riots against the Sikhs, but I have never seen the kind of hate and jealousy against Muslims that I see around me today. It has become difficult to talk to people, to travel in buses and trains. Aadmi sehma rehta hai (People are afraid),” Khan says.

His fear and disbelief at the rise in hate is echoed, albeit in hushed tones, by many of North East Delhi’s Hindu families too. A local Residents’ Welfare Association member who rides his two-wheeler up to two of us walking inside the charred lanes of Shiv Vihar weeps silent tears in front of strangers. He recounts the horrors he witnessed, and speaks of how he ferried several of his Muslim neighbours to safety on February 24 and 25.

A Hindu Gujjar himself, he says he never thought he would see such hatred and brutality in a neighbourhood he has lived in for 35 years. “I can tell you the names of some of these boys, I have seen them grow up. I pleaded with them not to do this but they didn’t listen.” Today, he is unwilling to let me take a photograph or quote his name, because he feels his own life is now in danger, simply for an act of humanity.

For many who have followed the deteriorating, hate-filled political discourse of the last six years, these riots come as little surprise. A bombastic win in the May 2019 general elections has emboldened the BJP’s worst hate mongers, even those in prominent leadership positions, to constantly vilify all Muslims as ‘illegal’ immigrants, anti-nationals, even terrorists. They have been aided by a wilfully supine media that provides a nightly stage for hate-filled rhetoric, and by insincere and late statements of condemnation from the political leadership that seek to equate anti-Muslim violence as simple law and order problems.

The run up to the Delhi assembly elections, in the wake of the anti-CAA/NRC protests, weaponised the Indian Muslim’s concerns of disenfranchisement and statelessness to further deepen the divide.

From all accounts, some of the worst violence took place in mixed neighbourhoods, where Hindus and Muslims lived together in relative peace for decades. A cursory glance through Shiv Vihar makes it amply clear that Muslim homes and businesses were targeted specifically.

Salma, who carved out a small corner for herself on the rows of mattresses in a garage that became a makeshift shelter in Chaman Park, asks helplessly, “Why did they go after us in this manner? We celebrate festivals, weddings, occasions together, we mourn together, we lived not only as neighbours, but as families. Look at what they have done to me today.” She was preparing lunch when she heard loud noises from the street. “There must have been at least 200 men with sticks, lathis, pistols, swords. They attacked anyone they found, anyone who tried to save their homes or belongings. I saw them shoot with my own eyes.”

She likens the scenes to what she saw in the Bollywood film Gadar, set during the partition of 1947. “I had only heard that Hindus and Muslims killed each other brutally during the ‘batwara’. Today I saw them murder us, make us homeless.”

Homelessness and marginalisation are steps towards the disenfranchisement that Indian Muslims fear the country’s political leadership under Narendra Modi is aiming for. Their homes destroyed, their businesses burnt, the predominantly Muslim victims of Delhi’s riots are trying to pick up pieces of their shattered lives, and keep bigotry at bay all at once – a seemingly uphill task.

As Badlu Khan says, “Aaj jahan dekho sirf yeh – kaun Hindu hai, kaun Muslim. Itna zahar ghola jaa raha hai (Wherever you look now, everything is about who is Hindu and who is Muslim. So much poison is being spread). ” A 63 year old who has devoted his life to music and epitomises the very ‘unity in diversity’ that India has proudly showcased to the world, is now reduced simply to his religious identity – a Muslim man trying to live safely in the national capital.

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The real picture of today’s Kashmir is carefully kept out of the sight of the rest of the population. The government of India is doing everything in its power to present a supposedly ‘normal’ Kashmir. But in the name of economic empowerment how Kashmir is becoming politically dis-empowered is what journalist and SAWM India member Maya Mirchandani has seen in her recent visit to Kashmir & writes down her experiences.

If India wants to show the world Kashmir is back to normal, the downed shutters, empty schoolyards and unpicked fruit will make sure it hears a different story.

The drive from Srinagar to Shopian in South Kashmir on the sixth Friday since the nullification of Article 370 was calm. Barring a few locations, there are very few security personnel in sight. Shops and businesses remain shut, and people — mostly men — mill about. Even though a Friday — typically unpredictable and turbulent, and the area volatile, the uneventful drive makes it easy to believe that the tension we felt was perhaps more imagined than real.

However, it is precisely this contra-indication that lies at the heart of the story of Kashmir as it enters this new chapter that began on 5 August 2019. All shades of ideology and opinion in the Valley converge around a simple emotion — betrayal. The Centre’s decision and the manner of its execution to nullify Article 370 of the Indian Constitution that gave special status and privileges to the people of Jammu and Kashmir, as well as to split the state into union territories — has struck at a sense of dignity and identity of the Kashmiri mainstream political class. The loudest silence today is from them — the vanguard that kept Pakistan at bay and held on instead to the promise of autonomy or self-rule that they built their careers on. However, history is replete with examples of the mainstream’s failure to tackle political separatism — whether during the Vajpayee years, or during the Manmohan Singh years, and Modi’s move is as much a result of Delhi having had enough, as it is of an authoritarian, populist leader killing two birds with one stone. Effectively shown the door by Delhi, and abused by their compatriots for having been blind to India’s intentions, their silence today is borne out of humiliation. It is the ‘death of expectations.’

In Shopian, amongst a group of a dozen or so taxi drivers whiling away the afternoon, the reactions vary, but only slightly. The older men accuse the Centre of both — neglecting Kashmiri sentiments, and deliberately disrupting business during summer’s peak tourist season — which has come to a grinding halt. “India has shot itself in the foot with this decision.” Their MLA, from the PDP is in preventive detention like his party leader, Mehbooba Mufti — the former Chief Minister of a government in coalition with the BJP. These men have no love lost for their political leadership. In fact, they see their detentions as retribution for previous, doomed alliances with the BJP both in the Centre and in the State, and accuse them of bringing Kashmir to this pass. But the absence of any representatives at all now, is also unacceptable. The Centre’s action has seemingly collapsed the gap between the mainstream and the separatist, and an agitated younger man who joins the conversation says: “This is the final straw. The fight for Kashmir will now be a fight to the finish — Azaadi — once and for all, no matter what the cost.” None of them is willing to give us their names or take pictures for fear of reprisal by the state.

On the outskirts of Shopian, friends and relatives of a man who has been arrested and taken to Varanasi jail claim that he was taken in the middle of the night without reason or provocation. However, local police say Umar Bashir Naikoo is an over ground worker- a member of the now banned Jamaat-I-Islami, with links to terrorists and at least two open FIRs against him. He was taken on 7 August — two days after the Centre’s announcement, to ensure he would not instigate protests or plan militant strikes. Naikoo’s uncle, who has seen all his brothers, sons, nephews in and out of police custody for years, says Kashmir will never accept India’s laws. He believes Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan will speak on their behalf at the United Nations later this month. “Our religion binds us to Pakistan, that is why they supports us,” the uncle says, perhaps not realising it is precisely this sort of rhetoric that plays into the triumphalism around the Delhi’s decision. For him, the reinstatement of Article 370 is meaningless. In fact, Delhi’s actions are just more proof that India under Narendra Modi doesn’t care about Muslims, and even more reason for Kashmir to want independence. The millennials in the room, born after the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley at the start of the insurgency in 1989, know nothing of Kashmir’s syncretic history or its once thriving Pandit population.

Whether separatist or pro-India, this sentiment echoes in the Valley. Most of its predominantly Muslim population, see 5 August as the date Kashmir was targeted by the naked bigotry of a larger Hindutva project aimed to marginalise Muslims socially and disenfranchise them politically. A project, which historian Ramachandra Guha argues, weaponised the pain and suffering of Kashmiri Pandits forced to flee when the armed insurgency first targeted their small community. Today, as Kashmir’s population reconcile this assault on their dignity with a new reality of full integration, the sentiment that the Modi government’s actions are dictated by nationwide anti-Muslim politics; by motivations far less benign than empowerment and development, is widespread. “The Gujarat Model,” an observer says — “they will give us economic empowerment and political disempowerment.”

But will India be prepared to pay the cost of this political disempowerment?

The truth is that no one really knows what happens next. Until 27 September at the very least, when PM Narendra Modi addresses the UN General Assembly, the message to security forces and the administrative machinery seems to be to ensure that no violent protests erupt and that civilian casualties are avoided at all costs. Given the growing chorus of international voices demanding that India restore communications, release political leaders, and ensure human rights are protected, violent protests will only bring more bad press to a Prime Minister who wants the world to like and respect him as a democrat, no matter how authoritarian his government’s actions and style of functioning may be.

So far, the government, hiding behind the cover of security compulsions, has refused to restore mobile communications, even though the administrative and police apparatus has advised them to open up communication lines. However, while mobile networks may be opened soon under growing pressure from the international community, there seems to be no hurry to release mainstream politicians from preventive detention. If there was any doubt about the Modi government’s intentions, the slapping of the draconian Public Safety Act (used liberally on stone pelters) on National conference leader, 83-year-old Farooq Abdullah, for no reason other than to justify his detention and house arrest in the Supreme Court, clears things up.

The confusion in Srinagar today over how to comprehend or adapt to what has happened or what direction this new paradigm for Kashmir will take, coexists with uncertainty, even fear about what comes next. The shutdowns, communicated through whisper campaigns and word of mouth are as much an act of voluntary civil disobedience as it is an effect of militant warnings, is Kashmir’s way of expressing displeasure with Delhi’s decision. Flyers ‘advising’ the public to remain at home are put up as quickly as they are torn down. Rumours of militant threats abound and security in the city is heightened after sunset. Schools are open, but parents are afraid to send their children. There is no curfew, but most shops and non-essential businesses stay shut. Militants have already killed a shopkeeper in Srinagar and an apple farmer in Sopore as a message to those exhausted with the impasse and wanting to resume the business of living. Apple picking time is approaching, and the government has announced a minimum support price to encourage them to sell but farmers say they have been warned not to pluck ripe fruit from the trees. If India wants to show the world Kashmir is back to normal, the downed shutters, empty schoolyards and unpicked fruit will make sure it hears a different story. For the betrayed mainstream, this is their only way to be heard, through silence. There is nothing normal here, except the normalisation of conflict.

Betrayal, uncertainty and fear make a potent brew. In the absence of a spontaneous reaction over the last several weeks, several police and intelligence officials fear a structured one — an uptick in violence over the coming months. While Azaadi and Article 370 have no common cause, Pakistan’s posturing is feeding the Centre’s playbook on Kashmir. The aftermath of the attack on a CRPF convoy in Pulwama in February 2019 is proof not only that there is a paradigm shift in how the Modi government deals with provocations from Pakistan; but that in a majoritarian, communal climate across the country, ordinary Kashmiris — both within and outside the Valley — will end up as collateral damage each time violence erupts. Terrorism emanating from Pakistan will only fuel the Hindutva engine further.

It is this fear of majoritarianism that India’s minority, Muslim population feel across the country that is taking root in Kashmir, particularly among those who feel let down by Delhi in spite of a lifetime of support. To them, the intent behind the Centre’s actions is far more dangerous than the act itself. Six weeks into such a tectonic shift, with no attempt by Delhi to reach out, address this sense of betrayal and humiliation, and engage the mainstream, the alienation is only deepening. The longer it waits, the harder it will be to address a three way challenge — of reconnecting with Kashmir’s isolated, pro-India mainstream, ensuring the promised rehabilitation of Kashmiri Pandits into their original homes and working towards a lasting peace. Today, Kashmir is silent — its mainstream defeated, its separatists on edge. But as the Modi government revels in its ‘victory’ over Muslim Kashmir, it will be wrong in more ways than one to mistake this silence for acceptance.