The Big Story: Dirty politics

On Wednesday, the chief minister of a northern state put out a video message telling citizens that he thought the prime minister was out to murder him. Accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of being “agitated”, Kejriwal warned members of his party that they should be ready to go to jail many times and more. The BJP "can go to any extent", he said. "They can get me killed as well.”

There is a sense of deja vu to this. In 2010, when he was chief minister of Gujarat, Modi had himself accused the ruling Congress of giving a “supari” (contract) to the Central Bureau of Investigation to “finish” him.

In the months before Kejriwal’s dramatic announcement, the Union government, using the Delhi police under its control, had arrested as many as 10 Aam Aadmi Party legislators in a series of moves that many believe is political vendetta. On Wednesday, the deputy speaker of the Delhi Assembly, Rakhi Birla, was herself summoned by the Delhi police. AAP has also accused the Modi government of now planning to arrest one of its members of parliament, Bhagwant Mann.

Federalism in India has always travelled a rocky road. Under the Congress, prime ministers such as Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi would dismiss opposition chief ministers at whim to further their own political agendas. With Indira Gandhi, in fact, the very institution of the chief minister was severely weakened, with puppet heads controlled by Delhi installed in many states.

Even by these standards, though, the AAP-BJP fracas is a new low. This simply isn't how Indian federalism is supposed to work. It's especially disappointing that this should happen under a prime minister who has often insisted that one of the main planks of his government will be "cooperative federalism".

The Big Scroll
Battle royale: Why Modi has launched such an energetic attack on Kejriwal and AAP.

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Political Picks
1. Humiliated by caste norms keeping them out of temples, 250 Dalit families in Tamil Nadu look to convert to Islam.
2. There has been a Chinese intrusion in Uttarakhand, as Indian and Chinese troops face off for 40 minutes.
3. Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment Thawar Chand Gehlot condoned the existence of gau rakshak groups, calling them “social organisations”.
4. The Union cabinet cleared two major hurdles for the Good and Services bill in order to address the concerns of states before the bill’s introduction in the Rajya Sabha.

Giggle

Punditry
1. Not only Kashmir, all of India needs greater autonomy from New Delhi, says Samar Harlankar in the Hindustan Times.|
2. Irom Sharmila’s decision to call off her fast against the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act reflects the state’s failure to engage, argues Deepti Priya Mehrotra in the Indian Express.
3. How can India bridge the gap between its middle and median class, ask Tadit Kundu and Udayan Rathore in the Mint.

Don’t Miss
Could gau raksha extremism help firm up a Dalit-Muslim pact in the Uttar Pradesh elections?

Unsurprisingly, after the Bharatiya Janata Party took power in Delhi, gau raksha extremists exploded into the headlines. In 2015, a Muslim man in Dadri, Uttar Pradesh was beaten to death for allegedly eating beef even as a Union minister condoned the lynching.

But Hindutva wasn't the only political movement that was growing: Dalits were mobilising too. The suicide of Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula in Hyderabad in January after being hounded by BJP Union minister Bandaru Dattatreya set off a storm of Dalit protest. So did the July 11 assault by gau rakshaks, with Dalits bringing large parts of Gujarat to a halt. While Dalit oppression is nothing new, the Dalit response was. This large-scale fight back was unprecedented.