India’s land grab

Frank Johnson, editor of The Spectator until cruelly sacked to make way for Boris Johnson, never wasted ideas. He liked to reuse them. Often. Every summer he would write the same column attacking the silly season.

August, Mr Johnson maintained, was not silly at all. The first world war started in August. The Nazi-Soviet pact was signed in August. Hitler ordered the invasion of Poland in August. Saddam Hussein marched into Kuwait also in the horror month of August. Once again August has vindicated Mr Johnson — and not only because of Brexit. Darkness has descended on the former princely state of (British-controlled) Kashmir. Meanwhile freedom is dying in the former British colony of Hong Kong.

These two events are reported as if unconnected. Yet they are part of a global pattern: centralising states crushing minorities while liberals impotently wring their hands. Narendra Modi’s India is following the model of authoritarian populism pioneered by Putin’s Russia, Netanyahu’s Israel (West Bank, Gaza), Erdogan’s Turkey, Trump’s America, Duterte’s Philippines and Xi’s China (Tibet, East Turkestan, now Hong Kong).