India's Building A "Hindu Rashtra" Through Large-Scale "Demographic Engineering"

India's unilateral "Israeli"-like moves in Kashmir, the planned expulsion of nearly 2 million mostly Muslim "illegal immigrants" from the restive Northeast, and the proposal to reintroduce the controversial "Citizenship Bill" for granting nationality to practically all non-Muslim migrants (potentially including illegal ones too) clearly shows that the country intends to build a "Hindu Rashtra" -- or Hindu fundamentalist state -- on its territory through demographic engineering at the expense of its hundreds of millions of non-Hindu people.

India is on the path to building a "Hindu Rashtra" -- or Hindu fundamentalist state -- on its territory through large-scale "demographic engineering" as evidenced by its unilateral "Israeli"-like moves in Kashmir, the planned expulsion of nearly 2 million mostly Muslim "illegal immigrants" from the restive Northeast, and the proposal to reintroduce the controversial "Citizenship Bill" for granting the eponymous to practically all non-Muslim migrants (potentially including illegal ones too). For as surprised as some observers are to hear about this scheme which for all intents and purposes will inevitably have an element of ethnic/religious/identity cleansing to it, the inconvenient truth is that Modi and the ruling BJP never made any secret about their long-term vision for the country after actually campaigning to carry out all of the three aforementioned policies during the latest elections. These fascist-inspired hyper-nationalists despise the hundreds of millions of non-Hindus living in their country who they blame for all of its contemporary and historical problems, which is why they want to eventually assimilate the non-Muslim ones while removing several million of their Muslim counterparts in order to set an intimidating example to the rest of their co-confessionals.

The de-facto annexation of Indian-Occupied Kashmir was done in order to facilitate the future large-scale influx of non-Muslim outsiders to the disputed region so as to shift the demographic balance there, whether "gently" with time or more likely disruptively through the local conflicts it could provoke if the new arrivals aggressively behave like the colonists that they truly are.

That explains why the valley is still under a strict lockdown enforced by nearly a million troops and why foreign journalists and even opposition members aren't allowed to enter the area because the occupying authorities want to maintain full control there as they use this operation as the test case for what might come next in the restive Northeast. Given the scale and enormity of the task that the state set for itself of deporting nearly 2 million people from Assam, it's very likely that some form of military intervention along the lines of the Kashmiri situation will have to occur, hence the timing of the de-facto annexation in order to serve as "training" for operating in a much larger and more demographically complex environment in the coming future. In parallel with those forthcoming plans, the non-Muslim migrants who remain in India will then be granted citizenship in a sign that those other moves are overtly anti-Muslim.

The difference between Kashmir and Assam, however, is that the lockdown could theoretically continue indefinitely in the former because of the "nuclear curtain" along the Line Of Control (LOC) and the disputed region's relative isolation from the rest of the country whereas the latter is much more dangerous for India in the larger sense because that populous state lies at the crossroads of its "Act East" strategy of comprehensive engagement with ASEAN and has porous borders with Bangladesh. The Northeast, colloquially known as the Seven Sisters, is basically the "Indian Balkans" because of its post-independence history as an ethnic tinderbox full of competing nationalities who fight amongst one another sometimes as often as against the central state itself. The political balance there is under threat after fears that the secret deal clinched between the government and Naga rebels a few years ago might infringe on the rights of the region's other people once it's finally made public, though that could also be why the authorities are preparing for a more muscular response to predicted unrest in Assam since they might also expect to have to resort to forceful means in Nagaland and elsewhere in that part of the country as well if a chain reaction of unrest is catalyzed by its policies.

History proves that the precedent to what's happening in Kashmir and which will likely be replicated in the Northeast too soon enough is the 1984 events in Indian Punjab during which time the central government imposed a draconian lockdown there as it hunted down Sikh separatists and carried out arbitrary acts of violence (including extrajudicial executions) against apolitical Sikh civilians as a form of collective punishment that arguably constitutes ethnic cleansing. In fact, speaking of Indian Punjab, a growing number of people there support the Sikhs For Justice's (SFJ) Referendum 2020 campaign for holding a peaceful plebiscite on the region's independence as the new country of Khalistan, to which the Indian government is forcefully overreacting by preparing for the application of the feared "Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act" (AFSPA) through the recently announced creation of a "joint counter operation centre" there.

As the world's fifth-largest religion that's also not constitutionally recognized by India as separate from Hinduism, it's understandable why the Sikh community fears the impending imposition of a "Hindu Rashtra" just as much as the Muslim minority does, which means that they too might soon be victimized by the state again just as badly as they were during 1984.

Altogether, the Indian government's three interconnected moves of de-facto annexing Kashmir, planning the expulsion of nearly 2 million mostly Muslim "illegal immigrants" from Assam, and attempting to promulgate the "Citizenship Bill" for granting the eponymous to practically all non-Muslim migrants runs the very high risk of destabilizing India's western and eastern borderlands, be they Kashmir and Khalistan in the former or the "Indian Balkans" in the latter. In such a volatile situation, a stereotypical "democracy" can't properly function or address the security challenges, though India -- contrary to its false reputation -- isn't actually the so-called "world's largest democracy" but really one of its largest authoritarian states that's only become more worse in this respect since Modi's rise to power in 2014. This "politically incorrect" state of affairs suggests that India will continue to use increasingly forceful means for suppressing the dissent that its ruling religious ideologues are provoking through their efforts to create a "Hindu Rashtra", which could potentially lead to a spiral of violence that naturally accelerates the country's authoritarian descent but could also leads to international pressure being put upon it if the scale of its ongoing and forthcoming human rights abuses becomes better known.

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DISCLAIMER: The author writes for this publication in a private capacity which is unrepresentative of anyone or any organization except for his own personal views. Nothing written by the author should ever be conflated with the editorial views or official positions of any other media outlet or institution.