*How Democracies Wither: The BJP’s Constitutional Coup d’état in Kashmir

“History, in one stroke,” declared the Indian Express on August 6^th in a large headline extending across the width of the newspaper.  That, we may say, was an objective rendering of the decision taken by the BJP-led Government of India to remove the “special” status occupied by Jammu & Kashmir over the last seven decades and, in its own estimation, truly “integrate” it into the Union of India.  Though the word “historic” has been utterly trivialized in contemporary discourse, who can doubt, whatever the shade of one’s political views, that August 5^th marks a “historic” or red-letter day in the history of the Republic?  But, on a less objective note, the lines from Hamlet may resonate strongly for some:  “Foul deeds will rise, / Though all the earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes” (I.ii.256).