Shocker from a governor

It’s incomprehensible how the governor of one state passes a negative comment about another, and no action is taken by the Centre. Meghalaya governor Tathagata Roy said in a shocking tweet Tuesday that the rest of India must boycott Kashmiris and goods and services emanating from Kashmir.

It’s not clear why Mr Roy has forayed so far from the state of which is he is the constitutional head. But it can be surmised that the recent Pulwama attack by a Pakistani outfit is the reason for the governor’s obnoxious remarks, that make him wholly unfit for any government service and certainly for high constitutional office. Evidently, Mr Roy inhabits an area of darkness and equates Kashmiris with Pakistanis just because both are followers of Islam. This is the communal assumption which has lately caused Kashmiris to be attacked by Hindutva-inspired mobs in different parts of the country, making a mockery of the idea of national unity and integration at a time the government is considering military retaliation against Pakistan.

In the past too Mr Roy has made observations full of communal venom based on his Hindutva makeup, originating in ideas rooted in

RSS thought. He extolled the 2002 pogrom in Gujarat. In his myopia, in 2017, he also urged a “civil war” between Hindus and Muslims in order to quell the latter.

Recently, the Union home ministry recommended that the West Bengal government strip Kolkata’s police chief of his awards and medals for being around chief minister Mamata Banerjee when she sat on a dharna. Will this ministry countenance a governor spitting communal poison?