And while liberals and secularists throughout India despair that Hindu nationalism and fear-mongering have prevailed again, the B.J.P.’s victory in this distant corner of the country doesn’t mean what it seems. This is the kind of sentimental factoid that appeals to bureaucrats in New Delhi, where the sun rises a good hour and 20 minutes later. Ten years, or two elections, ago, I was in the small mountain-town of Hawai (not too far from Dong), walking up the serpentine driveway of Kalikho Pul, a member of the state’s Legislative Assembly. The cemented driveway was long and steep, and every 20 feet, on either side , stood a wooden pole topped with the blackened skull of a massive “mithun,” or bison (bos frontalis). I must have passed dozens of skulls before I got to the house on the hill.

Source: New York Times May 24, 2019 10:02 UTC