‘Under Modi, India has become a petty, vindictive nation’, says Indian journalist

• A prominent Indian journalist chastised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for remaining silent amid growing protests across the country.
• Rana Ayyub was referring to the backlash in Muslim countries
• following two leaders of India’s ruling party making blasphemous remarks against Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

Referring to the backlash in Muslim countries following two leaders of India’s ruling party, the BJP, making blasphemous remarks against Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), a prominent Indian journalist chastised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for remaining silent amid growing protests across the country and beyond.

“Throughout it all, the social-media savvy Modi, who is known for invoking pluralism values overseas, has kept silent while Indian democracy has plunged into hate and is humiliated by foreign outrage,” said Rana Ayyub in a Wednesday Washington Post story.

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“This global reaction was long in the making for me, a writer who has been reporting on the Indian government’s persistent onslaught on the country’s more than 200 million Muslims since Modi entered power in 2014,” he said.

“Under the BJP, India has seen the passage of a law that for the first time made religion a criterion for citizenship; restrictions on the slaughter of cows in many states; the construction of a Hindu temple on the site of a demolished mosque in Ayodhya; the abolition of the special status that granted the majority-Muslim region of Kashmir a measure of autonomy; a ban on the wearing of Hijabs in schools and colleges in the southern state

“The kinds of beliefs the BJP seeks to characterise as ‘fringe’ are, in fact, the vocabulary of the ruling party and state, uttered each night on the country’s top news channels,” Rana Ayyub, who is also the author of “Gujarat Files: Anatomy of a Cover Up,” stated.

“Members of the prime minister’s party crossed the red line of outrageously insulting (Prophet) Muhammad (PBUH),” Ms Ayyub said, adding that what was even more concerning was that the BJP’s actions against the two spokespersons came days after their remarks, and only after public rebukes from multiple countries critical to India’s strategic and economic interests.

“India has long been considered as a melting pot of cultures, religions, and customs; a leading light in the fight against tyranny and injustice; and a leader in the debate over secular and plural principles,” the journalist wrote.

“India under Modi, on the other hand, appears to be a petty, vengeful nation that delights in humiliating the disadvantaged and the less fortunate,” she remarked.

“On the global stage, the land of Mahatma Gandhi, Abul Kalam Azad, and Rabindranath Tagore is being reduced to a caricature of hatred.”

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