🧵Thread: Indians fleeing Ukraine are being assaulted, harassed.
The US had been mulling evacuations since December, repeatedly told its citizens to leave.
India’s ‘advisory’ came only on 15 Feb.
But across BJP-run WhatsApp groups, none of this matters:
In this parallel world, the Ukraine evacuation of Indian students is a smashing success. So smashing that it has never been done before.
All on the basis of a video by ONE student who said he was treated warmly as he travelled across Ukraine.
“Why this was not before 2014?”
In this parallel world, the last few days have shown what a superpower India is.
Where Ukraine called PM Modi “the world’s most powerful leader” (nope) and where the world is asking India to intervene and “help” and where Russia has promised to bring Indians to safety. (Nope)
In the parallel world, all this is possible because of PM Modi.
“Kuch toh dum hoga chai wale mein.”
Sadly, the reality is very, very different.
No food, no aid, no intimation.
A solid thread that lays out the evidence of how the Indian government delayed planning for #IndiansInUkraine :
Maharashtra over the last 2 years has seen a systematic, coordinated attempt by amorphous Hindu right-wing units to target Muslims, polarise Hindus and inject communal hate.
All this has visible BJP support. A thread:
Between January and October last year, there were 41 communal instances, and at least 10 were killed. In 2023, 30% of all hate speeches in India were delivered in Maharashtra.
That’s one hate speech every 2.5 days. I wrote about it for @Article14live
But this has only intensified in 2024, led by various BJP leaders.
Nitesh Rane is one of them. What's special about him is that he's been delivering hate speeches across Maharashtra, even as his father served as a Union Cabinet Minister in the Prime Minister's cabinet till June 2024.
There's no action against him. Just a growth in his stature.
New Work: Before the polls, PM Modi made a big annoucement--he had been silently working on a development roadmap and had consulted more than 15 lakh people.
I decided to file RTIs with the Prime Minister's Office to know more about these consultations.
This statement was circulated widely--tweets went viral, news reported it and it was even a part of a PIB Press Release.
PM Modi, then, repeatedly the claim in April. "I contacted all the universities, I had contacted different NGOs."
He even spelt out what had happened after these suggestions had come in: He had used AI, classified it subject-wise. He even made a dedicated team of officers.
All this made me curious, and I asked the PMO to tell me the details, the dates of these meetings.
Like this charity-funded hospital in rural Maharashtra: the Bombay Sarvodaya Friendship Centre (BFSC) funded it to ensure it could perform crucial surgeries for locals. The nearest hospital is at least 50km away.
But the Centre’s FCRA was not renewed. The hospital barely functions now.
In the case of one Delhi NGO that recently lost its FCRA, 220 of its 250 staffers had to be laid off.
They are all struggling to find jobs now, especially those not involved in core NGO programming work, like the admin staff, the helpers, office staff.
The #MiraRoad riots lay bare a thinly disguised secret:
After having put the 1992/3 riots behind, Mumbai has been, yet again, actively transformed into a communal cauldron.
This has been in the works for the last couple of years. A thread:
Last year, an investigation around Maharashtra’s communal politics for @Article14live I did revealed that of the 41 hate incidents reported from Maharashtra, 13 happened in Mumbai and Thane (where Mira Road is).
From people being assaulted for not saying Jai Shree Ram to clashes around Ram Navami, it’s all been happening:
The BJP and its leaders have actively stoked this.
Mangal Prabhat Lodha, made Guardian Minister, has floated conspiracies around “land jihad”, “love jihad” and “Hindu exodus” without offering any evidence.
BJP leaders barged into a school last year, disrupting an all-faith prayer meet because it also featured an Ayaan.
Apart from this, other leaders like Nitesh Rane frequently deliver hate speeches outside Mumbai which get widely reported in the media here.
From Nepal to Bangladesh, from Brussels to Washington DC, India is increasingly facing a pushback from friendly powers, uncomfortable with the Modi government's Hindutva politics.
Sources engaged in Track 2 diplomacy told me how whispers were growing louder in foreign diplomatic circles about India's slide.
The result can be mixed: from parliamentary resolutions to full-blown protests, from subtle digs by friends to whispers in the corridors.
There's increasing evidence for this:
While the Modi government was publicising the US trip as a success, the European Parliament approved a Parliament resolution on Manipur blaming "divisive policies that promote Hindu majoritarianism in the area."