, Columnist
India Is Shooting Itself in the Foot in Kashmir
The costs to the country’s image overseas are higher than government boosters want to believe.
Still under lockdown.
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As each week goes by, India’s crackdown on Kashmir deepens. Not content with cutting phone lines and the internet, detaining top political leaders and imposing a curfew which has now lasted three weeks, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has reportedly imprisoned thousands of Kashmiris, including businessmen and students as well as human-rights activists.
This suppression of an ethnic-religious minority has met with mass acclaim in India. One has to go as far back as Serbia under Slobodan Milosevic to recall a similarly ecstatic upsurge of vengeful nationalism.