BBC offices in India raided by tax officials amid Modi documentary fallout

I would hesitate to characterize everything happening as fascist since that's a loaded term and I think it brings in a lot of baggage when transposed cross-culturally that confuses more than it clears up. I think there has been a rise in extremism and political violence that is largely, but not exclusively, driven by the hard right. And I think Modi has a particularly callous, realpolitik approach to governance that enflames social tensions and imposes burdens on marginalized members of society in pursuit of a "development and superpower status at any cost" agenda.

But I don't think it's accurate to say the majority of Indians are threatened by this. The BJP enjoys fairly strong support among Dalit communities (about 40% in the last election IIRC), with a decent amount of the remainder voting for Dalit organized political parties due to communal affiliation rather than categorical opposition to the BJP as a party. The party as a whole is not minoritarian or fringe (though it has such factions within it), and the attempts by English language media to treat them as a sort of pariah government will backfire.

The party's attacks on civil society are troubling and, while, the presence of roving goon squads running around terrorizing people over random slights didn't start with them (and is usually more by junior local parties like the Shiv Sena), their selective approach to meting out justice and slow-rolling investigations has begun to normalize this behavior. This will only mean further ratcheting up of communal tensions across the country and making the social trust and cohesive political culture necessary for democratic institutions to work more brittle.

But all that said, they don't seem to really be engaged in the kinds of election rigging we see from right-wing parties in other countries with creeping authoritarian movements (like the USA). They actually win fair elections straight up, without leaning on counter-majoritarian institutions or voter suppression schemes like our own GOP rely on. Nor do they engage in the same extent of corrupt, clientelist political organization that the opposition Congress Party is dependent on (there is plenty of corruption, but it's India and we apply a normalized scale). I think a lot of the English language commentary on Indian politics has trouble grappling with the fact that this is a political party with a broad-base of popular support across the country. They try to cast it as a minority faction that is playing unfairly, characterized by its most lunatic fringe elements, but that is simply not the case. It's a mainstream institution with serious statespeople in it that mostly engages in consensus-seeking approaches to enacting policy.

I also don't really think the BJP is in the driver's seat with the ratcheting up of rhetoric and political violence as much as it is victim of some sort of societal radicalization loop as everyone else (though Modi, and particularly some of the goons under him, are a bit of an accelerant). I think the conflicts about national identity is a predictable consequence of globalization and a colossal generation of poor and rural communities being fast-tracked into structured, urban, capitalist lifestyles and all the social dislocation that brings.

You actually see the same kinds of hardening of identity lines and empowering of regressive and conservative elements across all religious groups in India. It's just that the Muslims and Christians aren't numerous enough to push that agenda as effectively in the political arena. But internally Muslim and Christian communities in India have also begun to adopt more fundamentalist and hardline approaches to practice. Many of the traditional, indigenous Indian Christian traditions are losing ground to more aggressively evangelical Churches (largely bankrolled by American missionaries). The traditionally syncretic Islamic traditions in India have become increasingly strict. Even the vaguely atheistic, educated secularist set is enamored of Marxism and other dogmatic ideological positions. It's an endemic social disease that seems to be even worse in India than it is here.

The size of the Hindu population creates a disparity in power dynamics in a democratic country that makes the same tendency extra problematic. But characterizing this as just being a "Hindu" thing is missing the underlying driving force and mistaking a symptom for the disease. The pluralist country of my youth, where everyone was kind of loosey-goosey about these boundaries seems to be gone. I just hope this is some sort of temporary mania brought on by all the social dislocation I mentioned and not the new status quo.

Amit Shah using the Tax department or the Enforcement Directorate as tools is clumsy because it makes it obvious that it is a hatchet job.

BJP's social media attacks on Rahul Gandhi and the Congress are effective because they seem to be more organic.

Agree. I don't want to use a free VPN, and I don't want to oay for VPN. I also want to own my copy.

And in only one of those cities are you at risk of being drafted as cannon fodder.

This is an awful take. Western media covers scandals in western governments regularly. You could also always check out Al Jazeera, if you know what their slant is on middle east coverage.

Also comparing anything going on in the US for the last 60 years to the genocide happening in Xinjiang is ridiculous on its face.