Rolling South Asia News Thread

fuck this is horrible

Horrifying

xp

Over 200 million Muslims call India home. Widespread anti-Muslim mob violence has killed at least 27 and injured many more. Trump responds by saying, "That's up to India." This is a failure of leadership on human rights.https://t.co/tUX713Bz9Y

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) February 26, 2020

so incredibly grim

It’s grotesque and the coverage is almost universally lying about it too.

Soul-crushingly depressing, but I can't say I'm surprised, what with a fucking firestarter at the top.

Hard to even read: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/01/india-delhi-after-hindu-mob-riot-religious-hatred-nationalists

following events through arts/food/politics-related indian twitter is strange/bathetic/poignant, ppl talking about how to gently persuade modi-sympathising relatives, very dark humour, outrage with centrist platitudes... when the stakes are raised the discourse still follows the same rules. makes this piece about the media and discourse around the 2002 gujurat violence and rwanda in the 90s very interesting imo

https://thepolisproject.com/journalism-as-genocide/#.Xl4cL6j7SCo

lots of reports of dalits being attacked as well, par for the course I suppose

There's a strong anti-leftist / anticommunist element to this as well. RSS types are obsessed with the idea of 'urban Naxalites' undermining the country.

Waiting for the first cricket team to refuse to play India. You'd have thought New Zealand would have, if anyone. Maybe today at the WWC?

Tomorrow even

A cousin linked me this to correct the misinformation I have apparently been exposed to from the MSM. It certainly provides an, um, alternative perspective: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=140303730563256

Really alarming situation described here for vast numbers of people who are stranded under the sudden lockdown, with reports of widespread police violence: https://www.democracynow.org/2020/3/26/amitav_ghosh_india_coronavirus_lockdown

With this and his Kashmir actions I believe Modi's solidly in the lead and pulling away from the field as the most horrible authoritarian elected president right now. When you consider the field includes Duterte and Bolsinaro, that's quite an achievement.

leading the vanguard of never-letting-a-crisis-go-to-waste, uttar pradesh suspends almost all labour laws for 3 years to spur investment https://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/up-govt-to-exempt-businesses-from-all-but-three-labour-laws-for-3-years-120050701531_1.html

Tesla should move it's factory over there

Haven't brought myself to read the last story yet but this story seems to put the rest of the world to shame: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/14/the-coronavirus-slayer-how-keralas-rock-star-health-minister-helped-save-it-from-covid-19

It's fantastic! I posted that on the UK pols thread

Yeah, I thought of putting it on Canadian politics, esp as Kerala has basically the same population size as Canada (and is more dense). Our handling of this doesn't seem as satisfactory anymore.

Impressive!

Three Indian soldiers killed in a clash with the Chinese Army in Galwan Valley.

So this situation has been going for a while?

Since independence, i guess, but this is apparently the first time anyone has been killed in 45 years.

There was a Chinese 'incursion' about three weeks ago, i think, that kicked things off again.

Actually, to be more accurate, i think the incursion came as part of the Chinese response to India building a new bridge across the valley, against China's objections.

apparently now it's up to 20 casualties

The report I heard mentioned hand to hand combat, rocks and clubs used, it sounds as brutal and deadly as army combat gets without shots being fired.

I saw that too. 20 soldiers beaten to death strains credulity imo, but obvs it's too early to know anything concrete

yeah the subtext probably is shots were fired but neither side can admit that.

The two armies jostled and hand-to-hand fighting broke out – neither side armed in line with decades of tradition supposed to ward off the possibility of escalation between the nuclear-armed neighbours.

Then an Indian commanding officer was pushed, fell from the narrow ridge and plunged to his death in the gorge below.

Reinforcements from the Indian side were summoned from a post about 4km away and eventually about 600 men were fighting with stones, iron rods and other makeshift weapons in near-total darkness for up to six hours, Indian government sources said, with most deaths on both sides occurring from soldiers falling or being knocked from mountain terrain.

jfc!

https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-asia-india-52990324?

Not even the well connected middle-class are being saved. The BJP will be ramping up their culture war etc. to max levels to get auntie voting for bigotry at the next election.

afaict the main control in place to combat COVID is a 9pm - 5am curfew. idk what what's meant to do other than curb potential disorder.

xpost
ok wow I hadn't realized the insanity of fighting in that kind of terrain

It's off-the-scale crazy. These are two advanced, nuclear-armed superpowers fighting with sticks in the dark for six hours.

Looks like Modi has blinked. Says there was no incursion into Indian territory. China has subsequently reiterated that the valley is within their LAC.

Good to see it de-escalate.

Indian government proceeding with criminalizing intermarriage: https://t.co/3hdeBSMXpL

— Murtaza M. Hussain (@MazMHussain) December 5, 2020

Genuinely interested to see how far he can push stuff like this and still have Western leaders pal around with him.

In a country where love was meant to be a celebration, Narendra Modi has criminalised interfaith love because it is a regime that has survived and sustained on hate. My take on legitimising the dangerous and fictitious Love Jihad theory in @PostOpinionshttps://t.co/agSPBTm7vF

— Rana Ayyub (@RanaAyyub) November 29, 2020

Wtf? No way this is constitutional?

Likely not, but it will have to go to court first

Kerala High Court did rule this way: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/all-interfaith-marriages-not-love-jihad-court/articleshow/61147349.cms

Heartbreaking and believable: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/23/pollution-killed-nearly-17-million-people-in-india-in-2019-study

why aren’t we talking about this?! #FarmersProtest https://t.co/obmIlXhK9S

— Rihanna (@rihanna) February 2, 2021

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/18/indian-mosque-bulldozed-in-defiance-of-high-court-order

Ugh, that seems shockingly brazen, even for the BJP.

In other shockingly brazen, even for the BJP news...

Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have been put on notice in India and may cease to exist for failing to comply with Centre's new I-T Act. New social media rules to come into effect on May 26. @maryashakil shares more details with @ridhimb pic.twitter.com/wLvsSbbOqH

— News18 (@CNNnews18) May 25, 2021

The short version seems to be that they forged some documents suggesting Congress was planning to run a campaign that would ‘tarnish the image of the country’ over COVID, Twitter labelled it as ‘manipulated media’ when senior politicians posted it, the police raided Twitter’s offices yesterday and now they, and Facebook, have 24 hours to comply with new laws or face closure.

Wow.

I got a FB msg from a cousin in India today so I'm guessing they either complied or the rules aren't being enforced?