As published by the Deccan Chronicle, India, on January 3, 2020, facing unprecedented protests over the passing of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi on January 2, 2020, came down heavily against the opposition Congress party, and its allies. He said that agitators should, instead, protest against Pakistan for its atrocities on religious minorities committed during the last 70 years. Mr Modi said, “From time to time, religious minorities have faced humiliation in Pakistan, which has unleashed atrocities on Hindus, Sikhs and Christians, forcing thousands of them to take shelter in India. But the Congress and its friends have not uttered a single word against Pakistan.” He added, “I want to tell them those who are protesting against the CAA that if they have guts, they should expose Pakistan and its misdeeds before the world.” The above statement of Modi indicates that the Indian PM is trying to sustain his failing governance by blaming Pakistan for all the prevailing ills in India. Now, to neutralise wide-scale protests being held in India to oppose the CAA, Modi is blackmailing the Congress party and its allies by stating that they should protest against Pakistan. In the above context, giving such sweeping statements against Pakistan, without any evidence, indicates that the Modi government is only advancing the Hindutva ideology in India and not resolving the local issues based on justice and fair play. This is quite obvious as the whole of India is protesting against the CAA while Modi and BJP do not have the heart to listen to their voice. They are just saying that the CAA is discriminatory to the Muslim minority, and will harm India’s integrity by shaking its secular structure. But, instead of upholding the secular constitutional position of India, Modi is exploiting his Hindu-majority (Hindutva) voters to blackmail the Congress leadership. Previously, Modi blackmailed the Congress party, when it opposed the abrogation of Articles 52 and 370 of the Indian constitution; taking away the autonomy of the state of Jammu and Kashmir and illegally dividing the state into two union territories. The Congress leaders also asked for lifting the curfew and the telephone and internet restrictions imposed in the Kashmir valley. Modi responded by saying that the Congress leaders were speaking Pakistan’s language. After Modi’s such statements, the Congress leaders stopped talking about Jammu and Kashmir. Modi government is only advancing the Hindutva ideology in India and not resolving the local issues based on justice and fair play Against Pakistan, in his first tenure as India’s Prime Minister, Modi had spearheaded the campaign of blaming Pakistan for supporting terrorism at all diplomatic forums to get major powers’ support against Pakistan. But Modi had badly failed to distort Pakistan’s international image. In that context, Modi had also tried to crush the Kashmiris’ peaceful freedom struggle by equating that with terrorism and blaming Pakistan for supporting that. Yet, he had again failed because his government was telling lies about the events. Finally, it seems that Modi and his Government functionaries are using their age-old hostility against Pakistan to exploit and get the support of their Hindu majority (Hindutva supporters) to suppress the Kashmiris’ freedom struggle and other religious minorities. In this context, the opposition of the Indian political parties and other sane voices in India to the Modi Government’s Hindutva-dominated moves will be silenced by the blame-game. Modi’s policies indicate that in future, Modi and BJP’s politics will thrive on exploiting Hindu-majority sentiment by blaming Pakistan for all ills of India. In this regard, Modi will use the anti-Pakistan card to undermine opposition political parties’ efforts to come out against BJP’s disturbance of the secular values of India. By doing this, Modi will prolong the BJP’s rule in India. Therefore, under the Modi/BJP rule, it appears less likely that India will make any serious efforts to have a dialogue with Pakistan to resolve the Kashmir dispute. Instead, the prevalence of India’s belligerent policies is more likely to grab Jammu and Kashmir permanently. Pakistan needs to respond accordingly. The writer is a former Research Fellow of Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI), Islamabad and Senior Research Fellow, Strategic Vision Institute, Islamabad