Amid the escalation of Indian-Pakistani tensions around the Kashmir region, whistleblowing organization WikiLeaks reminded its followers on Friday of cables from 2009 featuring politician Rahul Gandhi's warning about the threat of radicalized Hindu groups within the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which became the country's ruling party in 2014 under Prime Minister Narendra Modi
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 09th August, 2019) Amid the escalation of Indian-Pakistani tensions around the Kashmir region, whistleblowing organization WikiLeaks reminded its followers on Friday of cables from 2009 featuring politician Rahul Gandhi's warning about the threat of radicalized Hindu groups within the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which became the country's ruling party in 2014 under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.Earlier this week, the BJP-led Indian government stripped that state of Jammu and Kashmir of its special status, which had granted the state a certain degree of autonomy for several decades, and split it into two union territories. This move prompted clashes on the Indian-Pakistani line of control and led Islamabad to downgrade its diplomatic relations and suspend trade with its neighbor. Pakistan has vowed to do what it takes to support Kashmiris, most of whom are Muslim, after accusing India's ruling Hindu party of racism.
"WikiLeaks publications revealed Rahul Gandhi told the US ambassador extremist Hindu groups could be a bigger threat to India than Pakistan-based Islamic extremists," WikiLeaks said on Twitter, referring to the cables it published almost 10 years ago.
In a series of leaked cables that attracted public attention back in late 2010, Gandhi, a member of the famous Indian political dynasty, told then-US Ambassador to India Tim Roemer that the growth of radicalized Hindu groups, which create religious tensions and political confrontations with the Muslim community, was even more dangerous to India than Islamist extremism coming from Pakistan.
According to the ambassador's comment, Gandhi was referring to tensions created by "more polarizing figures in the BJP such as Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi."
Modi has been prime minister since 2014. He led the BJP to victory in the 2014 and 2019 general elections.
India and Pakistan have contended for the Kashmir region, the southern part of which lies in India's Jammu and Kashmir state, since the end of British rule in 1947. Despite a ceasefire being reached in 2003 following several armed conflicts, instability has continued, leading to the emergence of various extremist groups. Tensions spiked earlier this year when the Indian military conducted airstrikes in the region in response to an attack orchestrated by a terrorist group based on the Pakistani side of Kashmir.
