India’s façade of secularism has crumbled, exposing a history of covert violence and global assassination campaigns orchestrated by RAW. As Modi’s regime intensifies its aggressive policies, the world must reckon with India’s descent into transnational repression and authoritarianism.

India has long and rather successfully hidden its heinous character behind the farce face of secularism. The cosmetic portrayal has however been exposed to the world, in fact abundantly now, with the spree of assassinations perpetrated by its intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). The very title of the organization speaks of the inherent duplicity of Indian political system. RAW, a very academic identification, given to an agency involved in everything totally opposed to academics, from espionage to killing. And most ironically, it’s not a new phenomenon, neither is it just the deeds of one particular agency. The reality is that the very nature of Indian politics on the one hand and Hindu history on the other, is deeply rooted in violence and love for bloodshed, which the founders of modern India somehow very cleverly kept concealing from the world under the disguise of secularism, but for how long? Modi is at least being honest by coming out of the artificial outer and openly declaring the historically held ‘creed’ of Hinduism, with a terrorist crusade. Good, the curtains are finally drawn, to let the innocent and gullible see the reality.

the very nature of Indian politics on the one hand and Hindu history on the other, is deeply rooted in violence and love for bloodshed, which the founders of modern India somehow very cleverly kept concealing from the world under the disguise of secularism, but for how long?

Hinduism, as analyzed in The Penguin Dictionary of Religions, is not indeed a religion, “having no founder, no single creed, no single universally accepted scriptures, no single moral code or theological system, nor a single concept of god central to it. It is rather a tradition that embraces a wide variety of religious positions—each of which could be considered a ‘religion’ in its own right”. However, there is one constant theme that runs throughout its various scriptures, like Mahabharata and Ramayana, as well as in its dynastic history, from Ashoka to Gupta, and that is the love for war and violence. 
Nirad C. Chaudhuri, a celebrated scholar, honored by the University of Oxford and the British government for his academic contributions, and himself a Hindu, in his 1965 Duff Cooper Award winning book, The Continent of Circe, undertook a socio-psychological study of Hinduism, from prehistoric to modern times and proved with evidence that violence is ingrained in Hindu mind. Mincing no words, Nirad emphatically stated that, “few human communities have been more war-like and fond of bloodshed”. 
However, the founders of modern India, to capitalize on the Cold War context, systematically trumpeted M. K. Gandhi’s ‘Non-Violence’ legacy, enticing the West in particular. On the one hand, they played the card of Non-Alignment, and benefited from Soviet support in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) as well as the supply of military hardware; on the other, they propagated the secular spirit of Indian society to win sympathy from the West.

RAW unleashed a series of killing ventures in Pakistan, employing each and every possible instrument, from Dubai based smugglers to Afghan criminals, to strike terror and undertaking assassinations of at least 21 individuals from poor Tamba to Zahoor Mistry. According to a Washington Post special report published on April 29, 2024, RAW envisaged a “methodical assassination program”, and that “in 2021, two years after Modi had won re-election, touting his tough-on-Pakistan bona fides, a spate of targeted killings began”. 

Their covert operations against the neighboring states from Pakistan and Sri Lanka to China, and discriminatory policies against their own minority population, particularly the Muslims, though continued unabated. From the violent annexation of Kashmir to showdown with China in 1962 by the ‘Ahimsa’ advocate Jawaharlal Nehru, and the carnage perpetrated by his daughter Indira Gandhi in East Pakistan, bear ample witness to the true nature of India’s ‘state policies’. The lurking hatred for everyone non-Hindu, however could not be kept covered for eternity and did come out rather blatantly, when India openly expanded its terrorist network in the neighboring states, particularly Pakistan, after Ajit Doval’s thunderous declaration of “war against all” in 2014, at his appointment as National Security Advisor to Modi government.

India today stands fully exposed before the world community, accused by reliable institutions such as Freedom House—a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization (NPO) focused on human rights—of engaging in "transnational repression," a term used for governments that employ violence against their own citizens as well as dissidents living abroad.

And onwards there was no going back. What was covert earlier, such as the bombing squads run by General V. K. Singh and espionage network established by the likes of Commander Kulbhushan Jadav, to stir separatist sentiments in various regions of Pakistan, became overt. RAW unleashed a series of killing ventures in Pakistan, employing each and every possible instrument, from Dubai based smugglers to Afghan criminals, to strike terror and undertaking assassinations of at least 21 individuals from poor Tamba to Zahoor Mistry. According to a Washington Post special report published on April 29, 2024, RAW envisaged a “methodical assassination program”, and that “in 2021, two years after Modi had won re-election, touting his tough-on-Pakistan bona fides, a spate of targeted killings began”. 
The terror game, however, became an addiction to its perpetrators, who, emboldened by their killings record in Pakistan, decided to expand its scope. This time, the targets were Sikh leaders based in North America, Europe, and elsewhere. Having been subjected to extreme racial discrimination since 1947 and enduring the traumatic events of October 31, 1984—when countrywide rage aimed at annihilating their entire community was unleashed—they had begun demanding a safe and separate homeland for their people.
Drug traffickers, human smugglers, and all kinds of criminals were hired by RAW operators—perhaps with the explicit approval of the agency’s head at the time, Samant Goel, as well as the National Security Advisor, Ajit Doval, and other top officials in the country, including the Indian Home Minister, Amit Shah—according to The Washington Post. According to Canadian officials, he was named by Indian diplomats in private conversations as the senior government official who directed the covert efforts. Amit, in fact, is on record arrogantly stating in a television interview, 'The agency will do its job. Why should we interfere?'
Well, the job assigned to the ‘Agency’ was to eliminate all those on the wrong side of Narendra Modi. However, the tactics did not work in North America. With highly advanced technology, the relevant agencies quickly connected the dots, uncovering irrefutable evidence of RAW’s involvement in the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada, as well as other similar successful or foiled attempts, such as those targeting Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in the U.S. and Avtar Singh Khanda in the United Kingdom (UK). Christopher Clary, a professor of political science at the State University of New York at Albany, in his book, “The Difficult Politics of Peace”, substantiates this fact, stating, "RAW had been succeeding in Pakistan for a full year before they started developing this effort in the West—but the tactics, techniques, and procedures that worked pretty well in Pakistan didn’t necessarily work in the West."
While Canadian government came all out with strongest possible condemnation of Modi regime, the Biden administration in U.S., in view of its strategic interests in Indo-Pacific, remained rather reluctant in publicly reproving these undeniable acts of cross-boarder terroism. Though U.S. Department of Justice did acknowledge a grand jury indictment of Indian involvement in killings in Canada and U.S. In fact, according to a report by Australian journalist Daniel Flitton, published in December 2023, in the Interpreter; Director Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), William J. Burns flew to India to confront New Delhi with the indictment, but unfortunately nothing concrete came out.
India today stands fully exposed before the world community, accused by reliable institutions such as Freedom House—a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization (NPO) focused on human rights—of engaging in "transnational repression," a term used for governments that employ violence against their own citizens as well as dissidents living abroad.
What Pakistan had been saying for years about Indian involvement in terror activities in its territory, the world has seen happening now, crystal clear. Political Scientists Ken Booth and Tim Dunne in their detailed study of terrorism and its effect on future global order, The Worlds in Collision, define it as “a method of political action that uses violence (or deliberately produces fear) against civilians or civilian infrastructure in order to influence behavior, to inflict punishment or to exact revenge—its instruments are assassinations, bombing, kidnapping and intimidation. Such acts can be committed by states as well as private groups”. What India has been doing in Pakistan and is now replicating world-over are thus clear and incontestable acts of terrorism and blatant violation of international law, which every country and most of all the major world powers must stand against, irrespective of their political or economic interests. President Ronald Reagan is on record emphasizing the utmost importance of international law, stating clearly, "Without law, there can only be chaos and disorder." Similarly, President Bush refused to meet Yasser Arafat, labeling him a terrorist. So, what now?
At home India has been sliding back, on every socio-political criterion. Sadanand Dhume, Senior Research Fellow at American Enterprise Institute and a columnist for the Wall Street Journal, in his comprehensive analysis, How Democratic is the World’s Largest Democracy (Foreign Affairs, September-October, 20201) states that, “Since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rise to power in 2014, India’s ranking on global indexes that measure democratic health has plummeted”. Similar are the findings of the Sweden’s Variety of Democracies Institute, quoted by Dhume, which records that “India has ceased to be an electoral democracy altogether”. 
Arvind Subramanian, former Chief Economic Advisor to the Modi government, and Josh Felman, former Resident Representative of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in India, in their joint paper India’s Stalled Rise: How the State Has Stifled Growth (Foreign Affairs, January-February 2022), highlight several sectors of serious concern. These include a decline in female labor force participation "to its lowest level since Indian independence," the "revival of the policy of reservation" for jobs to accommodate favored individuals, and "an estimated 2.5 million to 4.5 million excess deaths" during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021 due to the government's inability to manage the crisis. Finally, they caution that “the (Indian) government’s growing recourse to majoritarian and illiberal policies could affect social stability and peace as well as the integrity of institutions such as judiciary, the media, and regulatory agencies” and that the ‘undermining of democratic norms and practices will have economic costs eroding the trust of the citizens and investors in the government’. This candid analysis of the situation in 2022 was, in fact, a warning to the regime—one that was not heeded. Today, India stands exposed before the world for its human rights violations, suppression of freedom of speech and religious practices of minorities, institutional deterioration from the judiciary to parliament, and its rogue, often bloody, adventurism across the globe.

French scholar Christophe Jaffrelot in his 2021 book Modi’s India, calls it an ‘ethnic democracy where authoritarianism and intolerance reigns and everyone who is not a Hindu has been relegated to second-class citizenship, left at the mercy of vigilante groups, with ties to the ruling BJP’.

When Bismarck spoke of "Blood and Iron," it was, first, a different era, and second, a policy that ultimately contributed to hurling humanity into two world wars. Today, with countries armed with weapons of mass destruction, a conflict on the scale of 1914 or 1939 could potentially obliterate life on Earth. The Indian establishment must recognize this grim reality and acknowledge that countries cannot change their neighbors. India and Pakistan are both nuclear powers, and while neither would intentionally seek total war, reckless actions could sometimes escalate beyond the point of no return.
"Independent India has a hoary history of blaming the ‘foreign hand’ for anything that goes wrong, a tradition that the Modi government has expertly revived," stated Sadanand Dhume, unabashedly. This has been India's consistent disposition toward Pakistan. Still, Pakistan has repeatedly made efforts to address disputed issues, but Indian intransigence has always thwarted the possibility of a peaceful future for both countries. This was, in fact, acknowledged by none other than veteran Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) politician and Professor Emeritus Ram Jethmalani in his book Maverick: Unchanged, Unrepentant. Jethmalani writes, "Since it is impossible to rewrite history, there is no point in revisiting our mistakes or lost opportunities since 1947."
Undoubtedly, there have been many missed opportunities, such as the minor one where my friend Inder Gujral failed to include Pakistan in the Gujral Doctrine for economic cooperation; the debacle of the Shimla Agreement between Indira Gandhi and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto; or Prime Minister H. D. Deve Gowda’s declaration that India was prepared to talk to Pakistan, but the talks would cover every issue except Jammu and Kashmir—to mention just a few," writes Jethmalani.
He goes on to advise the Indian government: "The more practical thing to do would be to discard the accumulated baggage of stated positions of decades that have multiplied and compounded into a complex web, and start afresh on a new slate."

Today, India stands exposed before the world for its human rights violations, suppression of freedom of speech and religious practices of minorities, institutional deterioration from the judiciary to parliament, and its rogue, often bloody, adventurism across the globe.

India must heed this advice and resolve all outstanding issues with its neighbors through sincere negotiations, in accordance with the will of the people whose lives continue to suffer due to Indian obduracy, particularly in the case of Kashmir.
Indian people and politicians need to realize that India today is in the global limelight and for very negative reasons. Amnesty International closed its offices in India in September, 2020, because of what it called “a concerted and vicious smear campaign (by Indian authorities) of spurious allegations, raids by various investigative agencies, malicious media leaks and intimidation”. French scholar Christophe Jaffrelot in his 2021 book Modi’s India, calls it an ‘ethnic democracy where authoritarianism and intolerance reigns and everyone who is not a Hindu has been relegated to second-class citizenship, left at the mercy of vigilante groups, with ties to the ruling BJP’. Ramchandra Guha, Distinguished Professor at Krea University at his own peril in his paper, India’s Feet of Clay (Foreign Affairs, March-April, 2024) has come up with a scathing castigation of Modi Regime, which he says, has turned India into a “majoritarian state, where politics, public policy, and even everyday life are cast in a Hindu idiom”. He goes on to say that “the Indian Supreme Court has often given tacit approval to the government’s misconduct” and that “the Modi government has worked systematically to narrow the spaces open for democratic dissent”. Professor Larry M. Bartels of Vanderbilt University writes in his recent paper, The Populist Phantom (Foreign Affairs, November-December, 2024) that ‘the populist policies of India’s present regime are ominous for whatever democratic values it is left with’. However, in the same edition of Foreign Affairs, Larry Diamond of Hoover Institution in his article, How to End the Democratic Recession, expresses hope that that the eroded position of BJP in the parliament in May, 2024 election, “might diminish the party’s readiness to abuse power to stifle dissent”. 
Whether its Modi’s BJP or any other political dispensation, India needs to come out of anti-Pakistan rhetoric. The country’s reputation and record, ranging from human rights violation to cross-border terror ventures has reached the lowest ebb ever since its independence. The above account is only a brief portrayal of world opinion about this so called ‘largest democracy’ in the world and if the present policies of the Indian government continue, they will have to face and fear a lot more than just an independent Sikh state, that though now appears to be an inevitability, and is not a question of IF but WHEN? What Indian establishment needs to worry about is that its xenophobic euphoria towards its neighbors and around the world, is flinging its people to hunger, poverty and extreme insecurity. India must break free from its rigid "beggar thy neighbor" mindset, respond positively to its neighbors' goodwill gestures, and foster a collaborative environment where pressing issues such as food insecurity, water scarcity, and climate crises can be collectively addressed.

The author is the Former Secretary to the President of Pakistan.