Will Arundhati Roy be arrested?

On June 14, Narendra Modi told world leaders gathered at the G7 summit in Italy that India’s election results were a “victory for the democratic world.” But within India itself, there are every sign that his fascist style is intensifying as he begins his historic third term in office.

On the same day, Delhi Lt. General Vinai Kumar Saxena gave police permission to prosecute Booker Prize-winning author Arundhati Roy and former Central University of Kashmir professor Sheikh Showkat Hussain under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), which could lead to their imminent arrest.

Roy is one of the world’s most famous and admired writers and has long been considered as sheltered from state repression as one can be in India. The 62-year-old author could be charged for a speech she gave 14 years ago in Delhi at a conference on Kashmir. That followed violent unrest in the region after Indian police killed more than 100 demonstrators protesting the death of a 17-year-old Muslim boy who was gunned down with a tear gas grenade days earlier. In her remarks, Roy said Kashmir, India’s Muslim majority country, was never an integral part of India. A Hindu right-wing activist reported her and four other speakers to police for allegedly making anti-India remarks.

In October last year, Saxena said police could prosecute Roy for her statement under two sections of the Indian Penal Code. Now he has said she could be prosecuted under the draconian UAPA, which allows detention without trial.

Since the Indian election results were announced ten days ago, commentators around the world have been celebrating voters’ deprivation of Prime Minister Modi’s parliamentary majority and declaring that “democracy is saved.”

During the election campaign, Modi claimed that he was born by divine providence and that his party, the BJP, would win an overwhelming majority of up to 400 of the 543 parliamentary seats. If that were the case, there would be no stopping the aggressive drive to undermine India’s core values ​​of secular democracy and establish a Hindu nationalist hegemony in India. This “Hindutva” has grown rapidly in strength over the past decade, relegating the country’s many minorities, including its 200 million Muslims, to second-class citizens, targets of state intimidation and violence.

But the opposition, led by Rahul Gandhi and his Indian National Congress party, fought hard for national unity and the defence of constitutional values. They did so despite having fewer financial resources than the BJP (their bank accounts were frozen for weeks during the campaign) and despite the threat of arrest. In the end, Modi’s ruling party lost 62 of the 303 seats it had previously held. Indian voters gave the Hindu right wing a sharp rebuff.

Commentators claimed that a more moderate Modi was now in power, that he had been “resized” and that his magic had worn off. His government will now have to rely on coalition partners that many Indians hope will weaken his authoritarianism. There was also optimism that India’s decades-long slide into fascism had been halted.

But now it is time for a sobering reality check. Modi, his party and its parent organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which seeks to build a Hindu-first state, may have suffered a setback at the ballot box, but the BJP’s vote share has barely changed since the last election in 2019. Over the past decade, they have inflicted enormous damage to the country’s democratic institutions and to the relations between the country’s various peoples that will be difficult to repair. They have taken over many of the most important institutions – from the judiciary to the media to academia – and subverted them by appointing judges and university officials with RSS sympathies and turning the media into a loyal mouthpiece of the regime.

The government has also weaponized anti-terror laws for the mass incarceration of dissidents. Roy’s potential incarceration under the UAPA would be just the latest and most high-profile example. Perhaps the most notorious case is that of Bhima Koregaon – a diverse group of 16 professors, lawyers, artists, journalists and human rights activists fighting for social justice and against inequality – who were thrown into jail without charge or trial under the UAPA starting in 2018. This happened despite some of the world’s leading cyber forensic experts from the US proving that the evidence used to incarcerate them was planted on their computers. More than six years after the initial arrests, many of the 16 are still in jail without trial, and one died in custody. Judges have repeatedly recuse themselves from presiding over their bail hearings, or cases are being withdrawn at the last minute from judges who might grant bail and transferred to those known to toe the BJP party line. Two Supreme Court judges declared their ideological loyalty to the RSS after leaving office. Such affinities among ideologically motivated civil servants may be too deep-rooted to be easily eradicated.

Officials who have spoken out against Modi have been jailed, sometimes for life on questionable charges, or faced other dire consequences. Media outlets that do not comply with the regime face closures, while individual journalists have been jailed or silenced, sometimes because they have been targeted by tax or anti-corruption authorities. The same has happened to research organizations, charities and NGOs. The targeting of Roy is a sign that this repression will not stop, but will only get stronger.

Perhaps the most disturbing thing about India today is the hordes of mostly young men radicalised by the Modi regime who believe it is their duty to patrol and protect Mother India from Muslims. Two days after India’s election results were announced, a mob in the state of Chhattisgarh reportedly attacked a truck loaded with cattle. Two men on the truck were beaten to death and their bodies thrown from a bridge. A third man was seriously injured when he jumped from the bridge to save his life. The victims were Muslims, and the attack was blamed on “cow vigilantes” – mobs of Hindus for whom the cow is sacred. Since Modi came to power a decade ago, hundreds of such mob attacks have taken place across the country, fuelled by the religious hatred of a generation of Hindu youth raised on Modi’s communal hostility, bigotry and violence. They are waiting with their tridents, pistols and daggers to monitor those who they consider to be violating Hindu supremacy.

A wounded tiger is a dangerous animal. Narendra Modi is known for seeking out those who defy him to teach them a lesson. Targeting Arundhati Roy seems to be a way for him to show his critics that no one is safe and to reassure his supporters that he is stronger than ever. India’s election result is certainly encouraging, but things could get worse before they get better.