Torn Across the Oceans

Mourning from more than 11,000 kilometers away

Left: Vehicles on fire in Ahmedabad, India, February 28, 2002 (from The New York Times). Right: Protesters during a clash at Khajoori area, in Delhi, India, on February 24, 2020 (from The Hindu)

The deaths in India’s capital continue to mount — the official count is now forty. The news continues to be dark and darker still — the recently installed Delhi government, a political party that is altogether different from the prime minister’s party, appears to have capitulated and on Friday supported sedition charges against three activists against whom charges had been filed in 2016 by the prime minister’s party.

The Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, professes to be a simple man with a sweeping vision for the country, one that is primarily to make India a country that excludes Muslims. Unfortunately, there are far too many people who have hitched their futures to his wagon. While this policy of excluding Muslims has reared its ugly head several times over the last seventy years since the British colonists left India, it has taken on particularly grotesque forms in the last couple of decades — a period that has seen the rise of Hindu nationalism, and that has marched lockstep with the increasing espousal of social media. What destroys one’s soul is the reality that social media is merely an outlet for sentiments that existed; the reality that these sentiments are now shamelessly paraded because of the protection afforded by the state.