The nationalist bandwagon

The inescapable fact is that, like Lady Macbeth's "damned spot", the blood stains in Kashmir show no sign of vanishing

The fraught fortnight of February that ra­­ised India-Pakistan hostilities to fe­ver pitch may have subsided but th­eir e­f­­f­­ects won’t easily go away. They are now the ce­n­tral focus of Narendra Modi’s ele­ction ca­­m­­­­paign as he galvanises nationalist fe­r­v­o­u­r du­ring breathless nationwide tours. Go­ne is the development-for-all promise of “Sa­­b­ka sa­ath, sabka vikas” underpinned by a plea to v­o­ters of “Ab ki baar, Modi sarkar” that sw­e­p­t the Bharatiya Janata Party to power in 2014 wi­th an unprecedented mandate. In an av­ala­nche of advertising aimed at winning he­arts and minds the new slogan is “Na­m­u­m­kin ab mumkin hai” (The impossible is