Push to silence Modi’s critics hits Arundhati Roy

Narendra Modi recently won a third term as Indian prime minister after his BJP was returned to power, albeit as part of a minority government leading the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) coalition. Having expected to win another majority from which to pursue his Hindu nationalist – or Hindutva – agenda, Modi will have to operate within the constraints of a considerably reduced mandate.

His government – dubbed “Modi 3.0” in India – has plenty to do including completing its program of reforms and reworking foreign investment policy. Yet barely had the new government been sworn in than the BJP lieutenant governor of New Delhi was given the go-ahead for the prosecution of the noted author and public intellectual, Arundhati Roy for remarks she made as far back as 2010 about the disputed territory of Kashmir.

Roy and Sheikh Showkat Hussain, formerly professor at the Central University of Kashmir, have been charged under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) – an anti-terrorism measure. The charges relate to “provocative” speeches they made at a seminar in October 2010, which allegedly “propagated the separation of Kashmir from India.”

But all this was 14 years ago, before the BJP took power nationally in 2014. Why is the Modi government risking international opprobrium by persecuting such an internationally famous figure over what she said years in the past?

The answer is that picking a fight over Kashmir is an easy win for Modi’s style of Hindu nationalism. Anyone who insists on raising the myriad problems of militarization, mismanagement, human rights abuses and repression in Kashmir tends to be accused of being anti-national, seditious, pro-Pakistani or terrorist.

Modi’s BJP has been in power for a decade and has