Daily Times

Remember when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi used flimsy excuses like “fake news” and “precautionary measures” to unleash the highest number of global internet restrictions (400 in the past decade) upon the residents of occupied Kashmir valley but no one around the world bothered to bat an eyelid. Well, the genie’s resolve to kick his shoes off and paint the town black just became fiercer.

In its search for a radical leader on the run most notoriously known for his fiery support to the Khalistani movement, India decided to severe mobile internet access and text messaging for as many as 27 million people across the state of Punjab for the second day in a row. This time again, the heated buzzword of “fake news” is in play as authorities are trying their best to silence the dissidents while keeping the common men and women out of the loop. To their misfortune, bad news travels like fire in a jungle. As in the past, their draconian obsession to cut the connection with the outside world would only serve to exacerbate the spread of unrest.

Hobbled reports from whatever scant resources are available would strike fear, even in the hearts of those who wish to remain in a united India. Though outlawed as the most serious security threat, the Khalistani movement continues to thrive and has sympathisers amongst the diaspora in the West. The terrifying sight of thousands standing in queues to vote in the Referendum prompted the tried-and-tested slander campaign against Pakistan, which New Delhi believes to have master-minded the entire conspiracy.

The knee-jerk hawkish sentiments very conveniently forget how it is their high-handedness and the repeatedly shown obsession with playing the saffron card that lays in the underbelly of all such movements. With swords and spears brandishing in Punjab, placards decrying bulldozer politics in Kashmir and alienated Naxalites ready to snatch back their rights by hook or by crook, isn’t it high time Modi Sarkar sat back and saw the error in its own ways? The propaganda machines to spew the seeds of hatred in the neighbourhood can always wait for another day. *