In India, a search for 'traitors' after conflict with Pakistan

[Eugene]

Source: Washington Post

In India, a search for ‘traitors’ after conflict with Pakistan

By Niha Masih and Joanna Slater March 8 at 4:20 AM

NEW DELHI — The first time Sandeep Wathar received a message on Facebook from a total stranger calling him a traitor, he was amused. When dozens more followed, he knew something was wrong.

After India and Pakistan nearly went to war last week, Wathar, a 29-year old professor of civil engineering in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, vented his frustration on social media. In a Facebook post, he used expletives to refer to India’s ruling party and said it had endangered millions of lives.

Two days later, students and members of a right-wing Hindu group gathered outside his office demanding he apologize for his “anti-national” comments. As a police officer looked on, the crowd ordered Wathar to kneel and beg for forgiveness. So he did. “It’s very obvious now that it can happen to anybody,” Wathar said.

A wave of angry nationalism has swept India in recent weeks, triggered first 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.

Television anchors have called for revenge and portrayed any questioning of the Indian government or armed forces as equivalent to helping Pakistan (one particularly strident channel recently pushed the hashtag #ExposePakLovers).

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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/in-india-a-search-for-traitors-after-conflict-with-pakistan/2019/03/08/b8fd98bc-416d-11e9-a44b-42f4df262a4c_story.html

[IronLionZion]

1. "This is a democracy," she said. "I have the right to say what I want."

That's wishful thinking these days. Many government leaders have been known to look the other way and allow RW mobs to violently harass and intimidate dissenters into submission. Or kill them under Modi's watch.