Harsh Mander: When lawless cruelty becomes state policy – India’s casting of Rohingya into the sea

In 11 years of Modi’s stewardship of the Indian republic, the Indian people have become inured to sometimes numbing targeted cruelty, meted out by state authorities as state policy. Bulldozers raze Muslim homes without any legal process, people who raise voices of dissent are locked for years in prisons without due process, police bullets fell or permanently disable thousands, shrines are flattened, and the police stands by as men are beaten to death by lynch mobs.

But even by these abysmal standards of hate politics as state policy, the Indian state recently plummeted to new depths. Credible reports filtered in despite the thick walls of government-controlled media, of 40 Rohingyas – including women, teenagers, seniors and one cancer patient – thrown into the sea from a naval ship. They were abandoned to desperately swim to the shore of Myanmar. This is the land they had fled to escape genocide. When I first heard fragments of this news I responded with utter disbelief. With time this changed to shame and rage.

This travesty occurred in the wake of the storms of hate that followed the Pahalgam terror attack. Television studios and right-wing social media handles scalded with anger targeting not just Pakistanis but people they...

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