The ambitious Amit Shah comes out of the Gujarati crucible – birthplace of the current wave of violent Hindu sectarianism that is gripping India. He is a long-time confidant and friend of prime minister Narendra Modi, who rules India at the head of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Together they are architects of an increasingly authoritarian blueprint designed to overturn the country’s proud (if troubled) tradition of non-sectarian tolerance and developmental democracy. They seek to replace it with an autocratic religious nationalism that portrays all dissidents and minorities (particularly Muslims) as ‘anti-national’ outsiders – a fifth column against their chosen Hindutva vision of a religious state with a strong commitment to the market economy and captains of industry. To this end Shah, as Modi’s home minister, has crafted legislation to undermine the special status of the largely Muslim state of Kashmir and used a brutal regime of martial law to suppress dissent there. Recently he has been the moving force behind a citizenship registration scheme which has caused widespread alarm and protest as it is being seen as an instrument for disenfranchising Muslims and other disadvantaged groups. His party has been condemned for passing discriminatory legislation that would normalize only non-Muslim refugees from neighbouring countries.
Shah grew up in the ranks of the RSS – a paramilitary Hindu fundamentalist grouping with a long and spotty history of political violence against those who stood in its way. The RSS, which dates back to the 1920s, drew inspiration from the European Far Right and one of its members assassinated Mahatma Gandhi in 1946 because of his belief in nonviolence and a multicultural India. Despite being banned several times, the millions-strong RSS has gained new respectability under Modi and Shah and some of its members act as shock troops against anyone who opposes the BJP’s agenda – whether journalists, activists, minorities or just ordinary folk horrified by its intolerant fundamentalism.
