Page 73 - EducationWorld March 2022

and liberty of citizens. how a small coterie This volume specially mastered and is utilising
The impact of the calcu- vested with draconian investigates the Gujarat the advances of technol-
lated acts of omission and powers, can bring India’s carnage of 2002, termed as ogy like the internet and
commission of the deep democracy to its knees. “a crime against humani- spyware, to silence voices,
state establishment has During the 19 months of ty,” how encounter killings crush dissent, marginalise
been devastating. Joseph the Emergency, Parliament became a norm, how a cop minorities and extinguish
maintains that 400,000 enacted a barrage of who spoke out is languish- NGOs. The attack on
people are in jails across new laws investing huge ing in a Gujarat prison, Mother Theresa’s Sisters
the country, over 76 per- discretionary powers in while the perpetrators of of Charity has survived
cent incarcerated without the bureaucracy which has the massacre of thousands because of international
trial. Over 2,000 intellec- gradually diluted all the are ruling the country to- outrage, but most other
tuals, artists, activists, dis- rights of citizens. day. It recalls the mystery NGOs have been stifled or
senters are in jails under The BJP/NDA govern- of the daylight murder of have exited the country,
UAPA, also without trial. ment, the author posits, Haren Pandya, encounter leaving the poorest of the
In 1990-2000, NHRC (Na- has learnt a lot from the killing of Shorabuddin poor and marginalised at
tional Human Rights Com- Emergency. It has enacted Shaikh, murder of Justice the mercy of the State.
mission) reported over an artillery of legislation Loya, with the principal ac- The Silent Coup, which
1,093 custodial deaths. and unleashed the army of cused a respected member as the sub-title denotes,
Subsequent reportage has enforcement agencies on of Parliament today. It also delineates the rise of
been muted, but the death the people of India. The reveals how over a period India’s powerful Deep
of Father Stan Swamy in pages of The Silent Coup, of 20 years Gujarat became State is recommended
2021 is a grim reminder of recount the resuscitation a laboratory for the BJP reading for every citizen
the excessive power of the of the RSS, spread of the majoritarian ideology and concerned about freedom
deep state. ‘Us versus Them’ narrative how the “Gujarat model” and democratic rights.
Joseph traces leading to the Babri Masjid dominates the current By harnessing the powers
the rise of the deep demolition, dissemina- political discourse. of advanced surveillance
state establishment tion of the Hindu mindset After giving the reader technologies, the new
to the Emergency through the Gujarat car- his take on Kashmir which establishment is eroding
when Indira Gandhi nage, the Mumbai bomb he describes “a betrayal the fundamental rights of
usurped the powers of blasts, Malegaon bomb of the Muslim people of the citizenry and enabling
the State, invalidated blasts, the Samjautha Kashmir by the Indian the rise and entrenchment
the Constitution and Express and the several State” and tracing the his- of a demagogic, theocratic,
unleashed a reign of bomb blasts in cities across tory of the Punjab imbro- majoritarian ideology. It’s
terror and lawlessness the country that injected glio, Joseph brings us to a wake-up call to citizenry
across the country. The fear into the minds of the the present. According to that should not be ignored.
Emergency demonstrated population. him, the deep state has ANIL THAKORE

MARCH 2022 EDUCATIONWORLD 73