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Comment by lagolinguini | Hacker News Reader

The sad thing is they will probably win again in 2024. The damage that 15 years of BJP has done to the social fabric of India, and the undermining of the core founding principles of the republic will last for generations. It's hard to imagine it going away :(

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Unfortunately BJP has compromised most of the pillars of democracy. Almost all the mainstream "journalist" openly support the BJP Government. You will find them insulting and fighting with opposition leaders in TV debates everyday. They will hold special TV shows to justify all the actions of government. They will show BJP as winning in most of the elections right till the last moment.

The judges of courts are getting post retirement posts from the government. For example, Ranjan Gogoi, served as Chief Justice of India and gave many decisions in favour of ruling party and he got nominated to Rajaya Sabha by president after his retirement. [1] He was also accused of sexual harassment, and the lady was found to be a target of snooping by BJP government through her mobile phone by using pegasus spyware. [2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranjan_Gogoi

[2] https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/delhi/pegasus-proje...

I sadly don’t see any true way to move past the BJP. They’ve really captured the minds of the majority.

I don’t think any other party has anywhere near the might to stand up to the sheer might the BJP has created, not without compromising their morals.

How do you compete with a government that will distort reality like this, where the majority of people won’t listen to the actual truth?

It's not like other parties have any morals in the first place.

Well none of my state parties have morals and sure as hell Congress doesn't have any morals

While Congress and other parties have many faults, they’re still a damn sight better than the party that is trying to degrade human rights for non-Hindus.

Sometimes you just need to hold your nose and vote for the best option, even if they’re flawed. The road to a better tomorrow is paved with compromises that get us there.

>While Congress and other parties have many faults, they’re still a damn sight better

This is clearly an inflammatory opinion with no substantial backing provided, I'd love to hear your reasoning for coming to this conclusion. Indian politics isn't as black and white as you're making it out to be.

I'm sorry, but OPs comment is not an inflammatory opinion. Congress does not stand opposed to the core founding principles of the republic.

> It's not like other parties have any morals in the first place.

This is the line of thinking that has led to the BJPs success. The fact that people have been convinced that the opposition is not a viable alternative is a shame.

While it's true that the opposition has many faults, no other party has undermined the core founding principles of the republic the way the BJP has, except for perhaps Indira Gandhi.

I think that any "Tom, Dick, and Harry" party is better than the Nazi party.

We are used to a time when constitutional rights were suspended and state governments were dismissed on the whim. Regardless of what happens to BJP, India will continue to move ahead.

We also used to a time in Germany in 1940s. We should not let that happen again anywhere in the world.

India has its own examples. Foreign examples only leads to whataboutism.

Most Indians were never secular. Before, they hadn’t got a voice or representation. BJP came into power by tapping into the latent sentiment in majority of Indians.

It's much like how Trump was elected.

If you think that majority of Indians were ever secular, I think that you never left the bubble of upper middle class, city based society.

Hindus are, generally much more advanced than Muslim in terms of education, finances, etc. and couldn’t be bothered to cause communal violence because they have much more to lose. And the ones that are left behind, didn't have a uniting force. BJP/RSS has accomplished that.

The people lynching Muslim for eating beef are very rural, very uneducated Hindus with much less to lose. And the rest of them openly support them.

I will say, 80-95% of Hindus were never ever secular. BJP is creating new zealots now, but they didn't need to do so to come to power.

BJP is also hard at work at creating a single, homogeneous Hindu and Indian identity, where something more of a cultural sphere existed, to create fanatics to their cause. They're re-engineering Indian society in a way that we've seen end up in tears for everyone in the past, in other places.

>BJP is also hard at work at creating a single, homogeneous Hindu and Indian identity

can you give particular examples of actions or legislation you think they've taken that exemplifies this?

BJP brought the Citizenship Act and the National Register of Citizens to act against the minority.

>> "Will remove every single infiltrator, except Buddhists, Hindus and Sikhs: Amit Shah" [1]

Archive.org snapshot of now deleted tweet from BJP official account [2]

[1] https://indianexpress.com/elections/will-remove-every-single...

[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20190520193044/https://twitter.c...

I'm not Indian, but I heard that there is also a rift between south Indians (Tamil) and the northerners. Are Tamils Hindu as well? Where do they play into this?

Tamil Nadu is also a majority Hindu state.

Calling it rift is a bit of a stretch.

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