Prior to that was the criminalisation of triple talaq by the enactment of the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act in July 2019. The court’s unwillingness to stay this controversial law is inexplicable. It paled China’s soft power because of India’s liberal, democratic and inclusive vision that the founding fathers embedded in the Indian Constitution. The BJP has also lost control over a number of critical states at the heart of India — including Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Maharashtra. Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla even wrote to his European counterpart protesting against the move. Lord Buddha and his follower Emperor Ashoka showed the path of a moral and tolerant existence. Bangladesh’s foreign minister has twice postponed visits to India and trustworthy Indian ally Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina sounds worried. It essentially runs three big states, Bihar being an alliance where ally JD(U) faces an internal revolt by its urbane faces. Again, India does not have yet a $12-trillion economy, nor does it hold a permanent seat at the UN Security Council. Snubbing Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest person, and denying him access to the Prime Minister, perhaps because he owns The Washington Post, is at best churlish and at worst a total misreading of how the American media actually works. Adding to the BJP’s troubles are a flagging economy, rural distress, inflation and unemployment. External affairs minister S. That it was not a “private” tour, as claimed, was apparent even before the trip as its promoters had limited financial and political mith its strength as a producer and inventor of products, not as paragon human rights and tolerance. The Supreme Court’s Ayodhya verdict (in November) took care of the lingering demand for a Ram temple in Ayodhya, but it mercifully did not trigger communal violence. London’s conservative magazine The Economist ran a cover headlined “Intolerant India: How Modi is endangering the world’s biggest democracy”, above a lotus blooming from a barbed wire.The uproar over the CAA conflated with the initial police excesses against the students of Jamia Millia Islamia, that soon spilled over to other campuses in New Delhi and elsewhere.It is natural that India’s friends abroad, who earlier bemoaned India as a socialist under-performer, now worry that an economically rising India is a progressively degrading bastion of freedom of faith and equality. Finally arrived the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, tweaking the 1955 law to permit the adherents of all Indic religions plus Christians to legitimise their stay in India and obtain citizenship, providedthey came from Pakistan, Afghanistan or Bangladesh. Thus, the Delhi election has become a do-or-die battle, both to oust an irrepressible Arvind Kejriwal as indeed throw the dice one last time to test the failing formula of communal polarisation.There are two counterpoints. Publicly, the government and its spokesmen maintained that it was an internal matter of India’s, and that no foreign Parliament had any locus standi. The European Parliament generally vocally defends human rights, including beyond the EU’s borders.
Thus, its resolutions can influence the EU’s decision-making. The bullet fired at Shaheen Bagh on Mahatma Gandhi’s martyrdom day dramatically symbolises this paradox. Jaishankar unnecessarily invited the American Democratic Party’s ire by skipping a congressional foreign affairs committee meeting over a member-critic of Indian origin.Against this background has risen overseas a crescendo of media and political criticism of the Prime Minister personally and his politics. It began with the August 5 abrogation of Kashmir’s special status, lockdown of the Valley, security alarm cable with ground wire and the arrest of three former chief ministers. Thus, unlike member states and the European Commission, the EU Parliament is less transactional and more values-driven. One, that leaders like US President Donald Trump ignore the liberal media and demonise it tweet by tweet, and yet thrive. (Photo:AP)The European Parliament’s move to debate and subsequently vote on a resolution, moved by an overwhelming majrly miscalculated the depth of people’s anger, which fuelled the protests. But the clash between sectarian domestic politics and foreign policy, which for the past five years has maintained the fiction of a secular India, is finally manifest. It pointedly excluded Muslim refugees or illegal immigrants from these nations. However, the Narendra Modi government, after its decisive victory in the Lok Sabha elections last year, has single-mindedly pursued its core agenda of reshaping the nation’s polity in line with the long-held views and sectarian biases of the BJP-RSS. Outgoing British high commissioner Sir Dominic Asquith, on the day the UK exited EU, echoed the EU’s concerns over CAA
