This week on NL Hafta, Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, Mehraj D Lone are joined by Josy Joseph, an investigative journalist and author of The Silent Coup.

Josy explains the central idea of his book, that India is in the hold of the “Deep State”, by citing the “actual Gujarat Model” that Narendra Modi implemented nationally after taking power in New Delhi. “Those officers who are willing to serve the causes of their political masters have great careers," he says, explaining the model. He points out, by way of an example, how the police officials who investigated the Godhra train fire and subsequent anti-Muslim carnage in Modi’s Gujarat went on to have national careers.

Commenting on how the security and intelligence agencies have been left to essentially operate with impunity, he says, “Across India you will find a lot of Muslims who were police informants and ended up being framed as terrorists.” Abhinandan remarks, “So they are disposable people, you just use them."

Mehraj notes that America’s FBI has employed the same ploy of driving vulnerable Muslims to hatch “terror plots” and arresting them. “The difference is,” Josy replies, “in the case of the FBI or British intelligence, they would entice you but they wouldn't let you do the actual act. In a country like India, they would let you go all the way." That’s why, he adds, “there “are question marks about most terrorist attacks in India”.

Why would they do so, Manisha asks, “what is the final goal”? Josy says one is obviously to get acclaim and rewards. As for “the ultimate aim”, he adds, it’s difficult to say, “but the fact is that there is a pattern".

The panel also talk about the Reuters report about the death of their Indian photojournalist Danish Siddiqui in Afghanistan, the Taliban’s takeover of the country, and the American withdrawal.

Listen.

Text by Utkarsh Tripathi.

Hafta letters: Afghanistan crisis, national identity, climate change