INDIA continues to slide into chaos. On Sunday, a group of masked men stormed the Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi and unleashed violence on the students and teachers there. Armed with sticks and iron rods, the assailants broke into dormitories, viciously beat up people, damaged property and walked away without being challenged by the police. They have been identified as belonging to the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the student wing of the ruling BJP. The attack on JNU comes in the wake of earlier attacks on educational institutions in which many students were injured. Incidents of violence are spreading across India ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s right-wing government passed controversial citizenship laws that are seen as challenging the secular credentials of the country. India’s lurch towards intolerance, extremism and state-sponsored violence has led to scores of fatalities and triggered a political crisis that has pit the central government against many states and sections of the majority Hindu population against minorities.

An unstable India swirling in a whirlpool of fanatical beliefs is a danger to all its neighbours, and specifically to Pakistan. Unhinged from its secular moorings, the republic is swaying perilously in the storm generated by an aggressive Hindutva policy. With the state under Mr Modi actively promoting and propagating an exclusionary political and social agenda, the prospects of Indian society rupturing even further are increasing by the day. As Nehruvian India unravels, it may be critical for Pakistan and the rest of the world to try and contain the toxic fallout of this self-propelled crisis. The fires of hate, bigotry and racism burning in the BJP’s India must not be allowed to spread uncontrolled across that country and outside its borders. There is a considerable risk that the Indian prime minister could ignite a conflict with Pakistan to distract attention from his country’s rapid slide into totalitarianism. With the region already on tenterhooks after America’s assassination of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, the last thing we need is India drifting into further disarray and lashing out against Pakistan. An unstable and violence-plagued India does not suit Pakistan. Islamabad should stay alert against any misadventure by New Delhi but at the same time join hands with the international community to ensure that minorities in India are secured against state violence and persecution. India’s regression as a functional state should worry everyone, most of all Indians themselves.

Published in Dawn, January 7th, 2020