How civility in public life died under BJP rule

Why read this story?

Editor's note: Nupur Sharma’s tirade against the Prophet Muhammad—and the domestic and international furore provoked by it—is a fitting milestone for eight years of Narendra Modi’s reign. What is striking is the speed with which a country that not so long ago made a show of its secularity yielded to religious zealotry. Civility in public life, bruised but not extinct in 2014, became one of the earliest casualties of Modi’s ascent to high office. Since 2015, and particularly over the past three years, speech that was once deemed unacceptable on the margins has deluged the mainstream. We have all been spectators to unceasingly bigoted vitriol directed at Muslims by apparatchiks of the ruling party. They have sullied Muslims as fifth-columnists, terrorists and love jihadis. They have incited mobs to slaughter Muslim “traitors”. They have even sanctified sectarian savagery by garlanding Hindus convicted of murdering a Muslim man. This official conduct has precipitated a civilian reign of terror against minorities. We have seen murder reels of Muslims being lynched and axed to death by freelancers. We have seen calls for the eradication of …