Critics of Indian govt fear ‘wave of angry nationalism’ post-Pulwama: WaPo
WASHINGTON, Mar 09: Critics of India’s ruling party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are being targeted following the heightened tensions between New Delhi and Islamabad last month, a Washington Post report said.
Titled “In India, a search for ‘traitors’ after conflict with Pakistan,” the article stated that those criticising the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government or the Indian military have been sacked from their jobs.
It noted that folks in India slamming the leadership were being cyber-harassed and trolled. “When dozens more [of messages calling him a traitor] followed, he knew something was wrong,” it mentioned.
After a Facebook post in which Sandeep “Wathar, a 29-year-old professor of civil engineering” in Karnataka “vented his frustration”, a group of people including “right-wing Hindu group gathered outside his office demanding he apologize for his ‘anti-national’ comments”.
The Washington Post talked about how “a wave of angry nationalism has swept India in recent weeks, triggered by a Feb. 14 suicide bombing that killed 40 Indian security personnel in the disputed region of Kashmir and then by a military confrontation with Pakistan, the country’s oldest foe”.
It also underscored that the Indian media was leaving no avenues unused to call “for revenge and portrayed any questioning of the Indian government or armed forces as equivalent to helping Pakistan”.
“In recent weeks, some of those publicly critical of the government or India’s military have been suspended from their jobs.”
According to a journalist that the American publication quoted, the Indian government had spearheaded a move that “had ‘stampeded the country into a volatile, edgy, anxious nationalism'”.
The social media ‘war’ that is being waged post-Pulwama attack has left a large number of people shocked and scared, including a teacher, who, when “publicly stated in the wake of her husband’s death that war should be the last option”, was “criticized on social media”.
The threats and intimidation, the publication highlighted, were so serious that some of them even included calling for the death of dissenters — or advocates of peace. (Geo Tv)