{"id":52469,"date":"2023-02-08T21:00:15","date_gmt":"2023-02-08T12:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2023\/feb\/08\/narendra-modi-anti-muslim-strongman-global-leader-india-bbc"},"modified":"2023-02-08T21:00:15","modified_gmt":"2023-02-08T12:00:15","slug":"narendra-modi-is-struggling-to-be-both-anti-muslim-strongman-and-global-leader-mukul-kesavan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=52469","title":{"rendered":"Narendra Modi is struggling to be both anti-Muslim strongman and global leader | Mukul Kesavan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Indian prime minister\u2019s attempts to suppress a critical BBC documentary show how sensitive he is to his international reputation<\/p>\n<p>The clue to the Indian government\u2019s thin-skinned response to the BBC\u2019s two-part documentary, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/programmes\/p0dk9z6x\">India: The Modi Question<\/a>, is in the name. The documentary lays out the evidence for the argument that the anti-Muslim bigotry that characterises India today is rooted in Narendra Modi\u2019s alleged decision to rein in the police in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2010\/mar\/28\/gujarat-narendra-modi-massacre-inquiry-india\">Gujarat in 2002<\/a>, giving anti-Muslim rioters a free hand, leading to the killing of hundreds of people.<\/p>\n<p>The first part explores the 2002 pogrom as the ideological foundation of Modi\u2019s power and political persona. The second part surveys the actions of Modi\u2019s government after his re-election in 2019, and tries to show how both formal policy and informal violence have been deployed by the state to reduce Muslims to second-class citizens. It was the documentary\u2019s unequivocal framing of India\u2019s recent history as \u201cModi v India\u2019s Muslims\u201d that has infuriated Modi\u2019s government.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2023\/feb\/08\/narendra-modi-anti-muslim-strongman-global-leader-india-bbc\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Indian prime minister\u2019s attempts to suppress a critical BBC documentary show how sensitive he is to his international reputationThe clue to the Indian government\u2019s thin-skinned response to the BBC\u2019s two-part documentary, India: The Modi Question, i&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1047,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1762,62,447,433,371,61,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bbc","category-india","category-islam","category-narendra-modi","category-religion","category-south-and-central-asia","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1047"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52469"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52470,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52469\/revisions\/52470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}