 Hello, this is Hamza Rift for the Sand. You're watching Islamabad today on Think Tech Hawaii. Today we're going to be speaking about India, world's largest democracy, but it's also a country which is witnessing state-sponsored Hindutva or a Hindu supremacy being unleashed by the Modi-led BJP government at the center. The 2023 Manipura violence is a grand example of inter-tribal conflict taking place, and the fact that many minorities all across India are being systematically targeted is a matter of concern. I have with me today one of India's leading journal, and he is going to be giving us valuable insights on whether democratic backsliding in India is a reality or whether it's a myth and what can actually be done about it as we move forward in 2023 and beyond. So I'm joined by president of ITV India and television journalist Mr. Karanthapur. Thank you so much for joining me on the show. Pleasure. Mr. Karanthapur, let's talk about democratic backsliding in India. I mean, that's going to be a recurring theme for quite some time. We talk about Freedom House, which initially designated India in 2021 as free, but now if you take a look at the latest indices, it's considered to be not free. As a journalist yourself who's been covering issues within India and looking forward to the prospect of writing columns for different papers, how do you see democratic backsliding in India as a concept and is there any truth to it? Well, there's a lot of sad and dismal truth to it. Of that, there can be no doubt. There's been very considerable backsliding happening on several fronts. You've mentioned what has happened in terms of journalism. India's position on the report of the World Press Freedom Index has fallen fairly substantially. We're down to 161 out of 180 countries at the moment. Four years ago, I think we were at 140, 142. In 2005, we were at 106, which means that since 2005, we've fallen by 55 places. We are today behind Pakistan, which is at 150 or 11 places ahead of us. We are behind Sri Lanka by 26 places, and we are only ahead of North Korea, arguably the world's worst dictatorship by just 19 places. So the backsliding or the downsliding in terms of journalism is deeply worrying, but it's happened in many other areas as well. Our institutions are not as free and independent as they used to be. I refer to the election commission, but I also refer to government agencies like the CBI and the enforcement directorate. Parliament does not function as effectively. The opposition doesn't get the same opportunity to raise issues, quite often on critical issues like the Chinese problems in the dark or issues to do with other concerns, such as statements and speeches made by Rahul Gandhi. Debate is not held. The government uses its majority to ensure those issues are not raised because they would be embarrassing. There's even been a certain measure of backsliding as far as the courts are concerned. We do have, in some respects, a very independent outspoken and forthright Supreme Court, but when it comes to tackling and hearing issues that the court believes would be embarrassing for the government, like the abrogation of Article 370, like the Citizenship Amendment Act, like electoral funding through electoral bonds, those are issues that keep getting kicked down the road and not heard. And these are all deeply concerning. So on a multiple level of fronts, I won't be named three, but there are others. There is a lot of dispiriting, depressing, and distressing democratic backsliding happening. Misuse of laws by the government to try and take journalists or other opposition leaders to court or to punish them for being outspoken. This happens fairly regularly, and it is very worrying. So, I mean, when you talk about government repression or freedom of speech, are you talking about censorship? Are you talking about incarcerations? Are you talking about dragging them to the courts, as you rightly mentioned? Was it a combination of a multitude of tactics that the Narendra Modi-led BJP government is actually using? It's a combination of all these tactics that you mentioned that are some journalists, not just a few that have had laws thrown at them like the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, like the Sedition Law, they've been taken to court, they've been jailed for up to two years, even more, and eventually they have got paid, but they've been through a distressing and troubling experience for very little things, such as reporting information or details that the government would rather not have reported. But you have multiple other levels at which censorship operates. First of all, there is commercial advertising that gets denied to you, like in Pakistan, a lot of ads that support the media come from the government, and if the government simply stops giving ads because it doesn't like your paper or your channel, a whole source of funding freezes up. So that is one concern that makes people careful and think twice about criticizing the government. The second thing is that proprietors who have other business interests that are dependent on the government lean on their editors to ensure that certain types of articles, certain types of information isn't covered. Journalists themselves begin to self-censor because obviously they need to keep their jobs, they can't afford to lose them, and so as they write articles, they themselves hesitate to go as far as they otherwise would. There's a whole combination of things that creates the environment that leads to an effective throttling of freedom of expression. All right, so let's come to the recent Money for Violence in 2023. Correct me if I'm wrong, but we've actually had two tribes who were feuding over land rights. I mean, you had the Kuki tribe, which is predominantly Christian, and you had the Meti tribe, which is predominantly Hindu. So what role did the BJP, I mean, now from democratic backsliding also targets minorities. We're talking about communal violence as well. What role did the BJP government in Manipur actually play in defusing the crisis or actually perpetuating an inflaming tension? I think before we bring in the role or the alleged role that the BJP government in Manipur has played, it's worth explaining that the Kuki-Maiti problems do have a certain history and do go back in time. The Metis are tribal, they are people who occupy the hill areas and they are largely Christian. Now the hill areas of Manipur constitute 90% of the state. The Kukis are roughly 16, 17% of the population. The Nagas who are also tribals but are not involved in this dispute are 24%. But the Kukis and Nagas are both Christian, they're both tribals and they both live in the hill areas which constitute 90% of the state. The Metis are not really tribals. They wish to be recognized as tribals. At the moment, they don't have that tribal status. They constitute 54% or 55% of the population. They live in the valley. The valley is only 10% of the state and the problem arises from the fact that constitutionally in India, in tribal areas only tribals can enjoy land right. This has been granted to tribals right across the country as a way of protecting their status and protecting their culture and ensuring because they're weaker, sometimes they're economically poorer, they don't get pushed out or overtaken or flooded out by non-tribals. This means that in 90% of Manipur, the Maite who are 54% of the population cannot acquire land. They are restricted to the 10% of the valley but the tribals can acquire land in the valley because obviously there's no bar on them doing so. And therefore that is clearly in the eyes of the Maite a imbalance which they have been seeking to rectify for a fairly long period of time. It blew up recently because the Manipur High Court possibly wrongly ruled that the state government should immediately take up with the central government an earlier attempt to give tribal status to the Maite. There was no such earlier attempt. The High Court had made a mistake in believing that a petition had been sent from the state government to the center in 2013 requesting tribal status for the Maite. That petition never went, it wasn't the case. Nonetheless, the High Court passed this ruling that expeditiously, possibly within four weeks, the state government should act to get the center to agree to give tribal status to the Maite. And this of course infuriated the tribals, in particular the cookies who felt that their status as tribals was being threatened. They then took out a rally. It was in some eyes said to be totally peaceful, in others it was perceived as a blockade and not peaceful, this led to the trouble. The cookies have accused the Maite of ethnic cleansing. Some of the reported facts do seem to support that allegation. For instance, disproportionate number of cookies have died, something like 10 times more than Maite. Cookie homes have been and cookie villages have been attacked in some cases burnt out, but similar things have happened to the Maites as well. So I don't want to go into the details because the details become a question of who do you believe and whose allegation is stronger. The role that the Manipur government played was said to be prejudicial by the cookies, not by the Maite, because the cookies believe that the chief minister has been in silent but subtle ways targeting them. He's been accusing the cookies of permitting foreigners and Burmese refugees to become Indian citizens because the cookies are very closely related to the chin on the other side of the border who are crossing over the border. If you allow me to interject here, so what you're trying to say is that the chief minister of Manipur was exercising plausible deniability. No, I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying to you that there is an allegation that has been made by the cookies that the chief minister has been taking sides. Obviously, the chief minister denies it. There is no clear evidence one way or the other, but the cookies that I've interviewed are convinced this is true. And a cookie, BJP MLA, has gone on record in an interview to me. A gentleman called Mr. Paul Neal Hickop to say that we didn't think that the chief minister has been anti-cookie. He's prejudiced. He says, I've lost faith in my chief minister and I want my chief minister to move. Given that this is a cookie, BJP MLA speaking against his own chief minister, I tend to believe that he has the facts to justify the allegation he's made, but he didn't give those facts to me. Nor have I seen them in so many black and white terms in the papers. So I'm not really saying plausible deniability. I'm saying these are allegations that are made and refuted by the other side. But when there is communal discord, distrust, loss of faith, these allegations become terribly important because they acquire a life of their own. And that is what had happened in Manipur. A breakdown of the relationship, a breakdown of the faith between the two sides. But there is at least genuine grievance on both sides. The cookies feel they're being threatened. Their tribal status is being threatened. Their lands are being encroached upon and they believe the chief minister's anti-cookie. The Mayte on the other hand believe that we're 54% restricted to just dead. Even that 10 is not in violent because the tribals can buy land in our tents but we can't go anywhere outside that 10%. We can't go into the tribal lands. So there is a sense of grievance on both sides that it needs to be tackled. It hasn't been effectively tackled by this government. Ideally you would actually call for inter-communal dialogue. Speak about forums where both tribes can actually lay out their grievances and try and make sure that they can- The Mayte are not a tribe. The Mayte are not a tribe. The Mayte want tribal status. That is the reason why the cookies are opposing it. So don't call the Mayte a tribe, they're not tribe. Okay, all right. So when you talk about communal, you could say discord, which is actually taking place. Ideally, then you would want to make sure that there's some sort of dialogue between the two parties to try and make sure that the crisis is diffused. So when you talk about BJP's inability to actually initiate that. So- I don't think I would use the word inability to initiate it because the first important step was once the troubles broke out, I think around the fifth or sixth of May was to calm them down. The situation has improved in the last four or five days. Curfew is being lifted every day for about six, seven hours. That does mean that there is pretty close to 17 hours of curfew, but it is a better situation than it was earlier. Talks are essential. They're unavoidable. They're the only way forward, but talks will only begin to happen when the situation improves, when temples are cooler, and when there is a certain lapse of time and this trouble that happened fades into the background. So I'm not talking about months. I'm talking about you have to give it at least a couple of weeks, and then it'll happen. However, will the cookie talk to the metis while the chief minister does a metis and happens to be bitter and saying a man that they believe is anti-cookie? I don't know. How could, who's a BJP MLA? I keep mentioning that he's a BJP MLA, has gone on record to say his own chief minister is unacceptable. Now, if that is a positional reflective of most cookies, which I imagine it is, then you may need a change in chief minister. But whether the BJP will be willing to change their chief minister is another matter, because remember, changing a chief minister, sending a message to the MLA as well about how they view that 54% of the population. So these are not easy things to handle. The truth is there have been, and this is why India's track record of handling communal discord until pretty recently is very good. We've had similar problems in many other northeastern states, Tripura, Mizoram, Assam as a whole, we've had them in other states. And India has always traditionally and historically, after moments of violence, moments of rioting, actually brought some following parties together and sorted the issue out. It happened in Punjab, it happened in Mizoram, famous Rajiv Accord. There are a couple of areas where it's failed. One is Kashmir, although the problem in Kashmir goes back to 89, the problem until 89 was very different. And another area where problem now is getting worse and starting all afresh is the increasing disharmony, discord, distrust that is being deliberately sold between Hindus and Muslims, I would say almost single-handedly by the BJP and the Modi government. But that is deliberate strategic policy to polarize the country in the belief that such polarization unites Hindus behind the Modi government and guarantees electoral victory. All right, so when we talk about the Modi government in general, so what is the way forward for journalists, for activists, for people who believe that India should retain its secular democratic character? I mean, as a journalist yourself, you think that most initiatives would actually do take place, they're either suppressed or they're actually pushed down to the ground. So what do you think is the way forward? Because if you take a look at India's, and this is generally internationally, which many of them the Modi government doesn't even recognize, you do see this downward trend. So it has to stop somewhere. Well, the way forward for journalists and just limit ourselves specifically to that subject is for journalists to continue to write, to speak, to investigate, to expose. Individual journalists would have to decide for themselves how far they're prepared to go. That in turn will be a reflection of the support they get from the editor and the proprietor. It will be a reflection of their own individual standing. Some journalists will find it more difficult because of the economic situation or because of other individual concerns. Others will find it a bit easier. It is important for the opposition also to stand up to the extent to which it counts to voice support for journalism, for free press. It's important for the courts to step in and ensure that when journalists are wrongly charged with terrorism or UAPA and Lawful Activities Prevention Act or suggestion that the courts step in and correct it, there have been one or two great instances where the Supreme Court or high courts have done that. It needs to happen more often. But obviously this is a situation that requires a change in government eventually for the atmosphere to alter. And that will only happen when the people of my country collectively or at least in a majority vote out the government and ensure a change. It has happened before we went through the emergency if you recall 75 to 77. In many ways the censorship of the emergency was more upfront and explicit and therefore in some ways was, in some ways this is worse because it's insidious and subterranean. But the emergency was ended in 77 because the people of the country voted in the Raga and the out. You need something similar. Whether that happens in 2024 is very hard to say. At this moment, if I'm honest, I think it looks pretty unlikely. I think a third term for Mr. Modi, most people believe is fairly certain. Yeah, I mean, if you take a look at the opinion polls, most Indians do have a favorable view of them despite whatever is actually happening in the country. But when we talk about, is it a change in- Is an extremely popular private. Yeah. Is an extremely popular private. Right, so are we talking about a change in government or are you talking about a change in prime minister? Because when we talk about Modi in general, there are lots of analogies which are actually drawn between Mr. Modi and maybe the late Otto Bihari Vajpayee. Do you think Vajpayee's, the BJP under the Vajpayee government was a bit more different in its orientation towards handling affairs, particularly with communal nature? Completely different. I thought just a bit more different. There was a huge difference in terms of the attitude to Kashmir, in terms of the acceptance of dissent and criticism and the acknowledgement that free press and free expression is fundamental to a democracy, in terms of the treatment of all the opposition or parliament, in terms of the attitude to institutions, completely different. And the answer to your first question, we're talking about a change of government. It is at this moment absolutely inconceivable to believe that whilst Mr. Modi is able to contest him in elections, he will not, and the BJP wins, he will not be the BJP prime minister. In fact, it is Mr. Modi's personality and personal popularity that most times brings the BJP to power. Certainly it is the dominant factor at the national election level, but it is a very powerful factor even when we have state elections and we will know just how powerful when the Karnataka election results are announced tomorrow. The expectation from the exit polls, which came out two days ago, is that in fact Congress is ahead of the 10 exit polls, eight showed either an outright Congress victory or Congress being the single largest. Only two showed the BJP ahead, but there's no doubt that if the BJP does well, it will be entirely because of the effort Mr. Modi personally put in. He spent three days as prime minister campaigning and I think actually living in the state, he carried out road shows, endless rallies, he's a very, very powerful speaker and obviously Indian people do like strong, effective charismatic leaders. He is charismatic, he's a great speaker, he's a strong leader and that communicates itself. So Mr. Modi will always be the prime minister while he is in a position to hold that job if the BJP comes to power. It's inconceivable that you could have a BJP government without Mr. Modi as prime minister if Mr. Modi is able to win elections and come to power, which he will be while he contests them. Mr. Thapar, final question when we talk about, so can we safely say that this combination of state sponsored Hindutva and you could say economic prosperity, a promise of economic prosperity would always have traction with the Indian voters for at least five years. I think what you can safely say is that there are three elements to Mr. Modi's popularity, two of which you have named, first of which is Hindutva, the appeal to Hindu fundamentalism, which obviously given that 80% of this country is Hindu, does work at a level with them. It's completely the opposite of the secular political tradition that continued right after 2014. It is a complete breach with the constitution, but nonetheless, that is an element of Mr. Modi's appeal. The second element of Mr. Modi's appeal is nationalism. The capacity and the rhetoric that I stand up for India, whether it's against China, whether it's against Pakistan, it was particularly important against Pakistan in 2019 because that election happened literally two and a half months after the Pulwama attack and the Indian retaliation at Balakot. The third element, which is often not recognized or not given the importance it deserves is the economic welfareism. I'm not talking about economic growth, although the BGP insists that India is under them, the world's fastest growing big economy. I'm talking about welfareism, which is the delivery of meaningful goods such as bathrooms, toilets, healthcare systems, health insurance, free gas cylinders or subsidized gas cylinders, roads, bank accounts to the poor. Mr. Modi has in many instances taken up policies that the Congress initiated, but taken them further and deeper, far faster than Congress was doing. And these are now all identified with him. And this has made, in many ways, a big difference to people that often urban or middle-class Indians don't recognize. There's also direct benefit transfer to farmers. Every single Indian farmer received 6,000 rupees a year in three installments of 2000 a year. That began in 2019. These welfare measures, welfareism, as I reported, is a very important element of Mr. Modi's appeal. But you would agree that if you take a look at the farmer's protest, which have actually taken place, where we talk about exaggerating income and equality under Modi-led BGP government in India, I mean, these are also realities which, you know, kind of, I wouldn't say puncture the argument, but actually challenges the argument that there is welfareism, which has actually taken place in India. Well, all developing countries and all fast-growing economies do have a measure of inequality and increasing inequality because when a country or an economy grows, it doesn't necessarily grow at an equal pace right across the classes. And therefore, there is no doubt about the facts and details put out by Oxfam to take that as an example, that a very small fraction of the Indian population is the owner of pretty close to 50% to 60% of the country and the remaining 50% bear the owns debt. Those facts are true. Nonetheless, do not overlook the fact that four people who didn't get that 6,000 a month earlier, who didn't have that health insurance, which is now available to address, look at it, 500 million people, people who've had bathrooms built for them because they had to defecate outside in the open. Now they've got our toilet. Whether they use it as a toilet or they use it as storage room is their prerogative. That provision has been made. Houses have been built. Roads have been built connecting villages to towns and speeding up the capacity of farmers to take their goods to Mondays as they're called to be able to sell them. And yes, you do have farmers protest from time to time, but farmers protests are not regular. They're not happening at the moment in a way either. They happen from time to time. They happen in all third world countries, but they're not a major problem at the moment. So don't undermine the impact of his welfareism alongside, not saying this is the only thing, alongside the Hindutva, alongside the nationalism. This combination is very difficult and what makes it precarious and awkward for the opposition to counter is that you counter Hindutva by stressing secularism and you end up sounding too many Hindus, either as if you are not Hindu or as if you are repeasing minorities, particularly Muslims. And clearly the opposition, whilst wanting to stress its secular credentials doesn't want to offend Hindus and lose their vote because if that happens, 80% of the country will never vote for you. Equally on nationalism, it is very hard to take a stand different to Mr. Modi's because you sound anti-national, unpatriotic. Those are very difficult things to counter. And at the moment, the opposition hasn't found a rhetoric. They haven't found a strategy. They haven't even found the manner to do it. They're struggling and they've been struggling for pretty close to nine years. But not even Rajiv Gandhi's long march. That's an analogy to do it. Sorry. Even Rajiv Gandhi's long march. No, I think Rahul Gandhi's long march established him personally as serious, as a good man, as someone that you would want to know and meet. It overcame the Pappu image, which is what the BJP had called him for eight, nine years. Very few people now call him Pappu. Whether it's convinced the Indian people that this is our next prime minister is another matter. The qualities that define goodness and the good nature and character of Rahul has been established by that. Bharad Joro long march. But the qualities that define leadership are not the same. Goodness and leadership are different things. And I don't think Rahul Gandhi has really convinced people he's a leader. I think that true opposition in terms of popularity with the people, but also in terms of providing leadership exists at the state level. Mamta Banerjee in Bengal, Naveen Patnaik in Urrissa, Tej Chandrasekhar Rao in Telangana, Jagan Mohan Reddy in Andhra Pradesh, M.K. Stalin in Tamil Nadu, Panari Vijayan in Kerala, arguably Nidhi Ditesh Kumar in Bihar. These are the people who will be able to deliver their states against Modi and possibly to the opposition. But that means that the best strategy for fighting Modi is not to try and create a national united single party opposition, but to fight Mr. Modi, preferably one to one, if you can, at the state level. And the catch there is that in many states, there are two or three parties that are so-called opposition parties. The ones that are weaker have to step aside in favor of the one that's stronger. Are they willing to do that? They will only do it if they can honestly answer one question. What is my aim in this election? To maximize the number of seats I win or to ensure Modi doesn't. If it's the latter, it means Congress has to not fight in UP at all because Congress has one seat in UP and the chances is gonna do well a minimum. But Congress in turn has to expect of Mamta Banerjee or the Amadhani party in Delhi that they will not be putting up candidates against Modi in states like Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Uttarakhand, Himachal, right? Where Congress is the stronger party. Those are sacrifices, strategic sacrifices that the opposition must make. Is it willing to make it? Indeed not worry too much about the fact that they don't have a powerful single individual to pit against Modi. Remember Indira Gandhi who was a dominant Prime Minister in 75 to 77 was defeated by a coalition of parties that came together. They did form a united party but there wasn't a single person there who was a prime ministerial equivalent. And they certainly had problems choosing their prime minister after they'd won. But it doesn't mean that you need a prime ministerial opposition figure to defeat Modi. What you need is strategic one-to-one fights carefully chosen at the state level because Mr. Modi's strength is largely limited to what's called the Hindi-Hindu heartland of Northern India and the West. He has nowhere near that measure of support in the East which is largely Bengal and Orissa. Very little support in the South other than Karnataka which he could lose tomorrow. But in the Hindi-Hindu heartland he can easily acquire 250 to 60 seats. You need 272 for the majority. That's where you have to ensure he loses. And that's best done if you can put up strategic one-to-one fight. Obviously not just in the Hindi-Hindu heartland but all over the country. We'll leave it at that. Television journalist and president of ITV, Mr. Karanthapur, thank you so much for your time. It was a pleasure. Thank you very much indeed. Well, that's it for me. Hamza Rifat on Islamabad today for Think Tech Hawaii. Until next time, it's goodbye for now. Do log on to our social media pages. Get all the latest updates on India, the world and whatever is happening all across the globe. Take care.