Monthly update: 53 Dec 2023 Muslims in
This
page updates news related to the plight of Muslims in India
.
1 Babri Mosque: Dec 8, 2023;
The demolition of the Babri Mosque
remains a contentious issue in India as on the anniversary of this event, the
country grapples with its legacy and the ongoing struggle for religious
harmony. 16134971https://www.trtworld.com/discrimination/indias-black-day-31-years-since-babri-mosque-demolition-16134971
2 Gyanvapi mosque;
3 Prof Christophe Jaffrelot :
4 USCIRF ; Dec 6 2023;The U.S. religious freedom watchdog on
Friday again called on the Biden administration to designate India as a
"country of particular concern" under the U.S. Religious Freedom Act,
citing its alleged targeting of religious minorities overseas. The U.S.
Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), an independent federal
government commission, said "recent efforts by the Indian government to
silence activists, journalists, and lawyers abroad pose a serious threat to
religious freedom."
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-religious-freedom-watchdog-implores-biden-administration-designate-india-2023-12-16/
6. Cleansing of Muslims from
Uttarakhand begs National Attention: Dec. 7. 2023: by Syed Ali Mujtaba: The hill state of Uttarakhand is
the first state in
pricking the national
consciousness. No one is calling for ‘national chintan’ which is
necessary because today 14 percent of Muslims are being driven out
from Uttarakhand tomorrow, 14 percent of Muslims from
shakhas in
Uttarakhand. The Hindu religious leaders are calling for the
expulsion of Muslims even advocating acts of violence that include mass
rape and genocide. This is amplified through right-wing
publications, local press, and social media platforms. One can recall the
notorious Dharm Sansad, a religious parliament that was organized in
Haridwar, on December 17 -19 2021 where speakers urged people to keep
their “swords sharpened” at home
to kill the
Muslims. Some even gave a call for a “safai abhiyan”, or cleansing
drive of the Muslims, and asked the police, army, and leaders to take part
in the drive out Muslims from the state. The prominent among those who made
hate speeches were Prabodhanand and Darshan Bharti, who continue to spout
hate and instigate violence against Muslims in Uttarakhand even
today “Members of the Muslim community are creating a ruckus here, spreading
non-vegetarianism, throwing meat and cow meat in the
families from
Purola, local Hinduta organizations joined
hands to force
Muslims to leave the state in Barkot, Uttarkashi, and Haldwani. A similar
campaign to drive out Muslim residents was tried in at least three other
towns – Ghansali, Augustyamuni, and Satpuli. Newspapers reported that a
letter was sent by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad to the Tehri District
Magistrate giving an ultimatum to
the Muslims
Community to leave the place or forcibly get expelled. There is a common
chorus across the Hindutva
organizations that
Uttarakhand is a sacred
and Muslims should
be barred from living there. The
objective of the campaign is to expel Muslims from
the entire “holy” state. The Hindu zealots are also threatening to close
mosques and stop Namaz prayers in the Muslim
place of worship. Darshan Bharti, founder of the Devbhoomi Raksha
Abhiyan, said “Do you want Dev Bhumi to be the land of gods or the land
of shrines and mosques?" he urged to stop namaz there.Muslims in
Badrinath town were asked by the administration not to hold Bakrid
prayers inside the town. They were asked to offer prayers in Joshimath, a
neighboring town, nearly 25 miles away from Badrinath. Muslim residents of
Badrinath are mostly migrant laborers working on reconstruction projects.
In places where there is no mosque, people gather for
collective prayers on the terrace for Friday prayers. But Hindu
residents demanded the sub-divisional magistrate to end this practice of
collective prayer. Muslims who constitute about 14 percent population
in Uttarakhand have been living there as far back as the
13th century. Muslims in the state mostly run small businesses like
fruit and vegetable stores, barber salons, and motor repair garages. Many
trace their residence in the state back at least two or three generations.
Muslims across Uttarakhand are grimly contemplating their futures in the
state. As Muslims are warned to leave Uttarakhand or face violent
consequences, many are no longer able to trust the local police
administration to protect them from violence. They are quietly fleeing
their homes and the lands where many were born and raised, where they
have studied, played, and worked to raise their families. Some
lamented, “Today they are driving us out of Uttarakhand, tomorrow, they
will drive us out of
Monthly update: 52 Nov 2023 Muslims in
This
page updates news related to the plight of Muslims in India
.
1 Bollywood; Nov 2 2023;
Muslims are looked as suspicious people in and outside India, and the
phenomenon has increased manifold after the Hindutva government of Bharatiya
Janata Party led by Narendra Modi came to power since 2014, said a recent
study. Indian film industry, Bollywood, played the main part in adding fuel to
the fire by making a lot of movies on Muslims and presenting them “as terrorists
and negative ones”, the report said. https://www.kmsnews.org/kms/2023/11/01/bollywood-played-main-part-to-defame-muslims-in-and-outside-india.html
2 Aligarh to be renamed; Nov 9 2023; As part of its campaign to erase the
footprints of Muslims from
3 Halal food bans:
4 False Muslim identity;
5 Elections and
Muslims:
Monthly update: 51 Oct 2023 Muslims in
This
page updates news related to the plight of Muslims in India
.
1 Hate
speech in Indian Parliament; Oct 2023; On September 21, Kunwar Danish Ali, an
Indian Muslim member of parliament with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), was
subjected to Islamophobic
comments and communal slurs by a legislator
from
2 caste census; Oct 5
2023;
The findings from Bihar, one of India’s poorest yet politically significant
states, have the potential to upend the country’s politics, with demands being
made for a similar nationwide census, opening the doors for a revamp of the
country’s affirmative action plans amid calls to grant proportional benefits to
marginalised castes in line with their share of the population. These demands,
however, threaten to weaken Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu
nationalist party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s hold over many of these
marginalised castes, just months before the 2024 general elections https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/10/4/how-a-landmark-caste-census-in-india-threatens-modis-grip-on-power
.
3 Indian government is the
aggressor; Oct 2023; Silence engulfed the audience
when The Wire’s Arfa Khanum Sherwani told them that
the biggest producer, director and actors of hate as well as violence in the
country is the Indian government itself. The silence made Arfa ask them if they
felt that she was exaggerating. She then moved on to say, “I have evidence to
support it. As a journalist, this is my work to have facts and figures to
support my statement.” The Delhi-based journalist was speaking to a jam-packed
audience at the West Bengal Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat’s (WBMEM) symposium
‘Violence Free India: The Way Forward’ in Kolkata on Sunday (October 1). The
senior journalist further said, “There is a report by Hindutva Watch that in
the first six months of 2023, there were 255 hate speech cases that took place
in
4
5 Senator demands India to end prosecution
of minorities: Oct 23: In an embarrassing move for the Government of
India, United States Senator Tammy Baldwin has introduced of a Senate
resolution calling for an end to religious and political persecution
in India in order to "defend" the principles of democracy and justice
in the country. The resolution underscores the centrality of religious freedom
as a fundamental human right and emphasizes the responsibility of the
https://www.counterview.net/2023/10/us-senator-floats-resolution-to-end.html
Monthly update: 50 Sep 2023 Muslims in
This
page updates news related to the plight of Muslims in India
.
1 Lynching of Muslims in
2 Modi and Israeli
policies; Sep 5 2023; The Hindu far-right’s
actions in Nuh, in
3 Have the Muslims in Nuh, Haryana Now Become
Persona Non Grata for the Judiciary? in India — by PIL Watch Group —
Orders pertaining to whatever little gets heard are
not being uploaded on the court website Media reports indicate that right wing
elements have put up posters locally at the demolition site ordering Muslims to
move away. “According to the affidavits, 443 structures were demolished, of
which 162 were permanent and the remaining 281 temporary structures. However,
the fact-finding report says that as many as 1,208 structures at 37 sites
spanning 72.1 acres were razed down.” [Source: Frontline
The corporate media is maintaining a deathly
silence on these developments.
4 Modi and Muslims ; Sep 12 2023;Fanatic supporters of BJP
(readers must know that it is not representative of an average Indian) have
torn down mosques, burnt shrines and graveyards; they have stopped Muslims on
the street and have tortured them until they would yield to the demand of
chanting praise for Ram, the Hindu deity; there are evidencing footages, when
upon refusal to chant, the Muslims are mercilessly beaten and clubbed to death.
Recently, a schoolteacher, possibly a devout follower and disciple of monstrous
Modi, asked the entire class to slap their Muslim classmate as a punishment—
the pupils queued up and laid their innocent, yet perennially damaging the
self-esteem and respect of their classmate, a tight slap on the innocent
victims face. That’s India of Modi. The world prefers to turn a blind eye to
its farce of being secular.
5 Hindu Mob kills a youth
Muslim; Sep 16 2023; Ayesha is seven months pregnant and has been
inconsolable for four days nowThe 29-year-old has been oblivious to her own
wellbeing and has stopped eating properly as she grieves the loss of her
husband, Nurul Hassan, who was killed after a Hindu mob attacked a mosque in
Pusesavali village in Maharashtra’s Satara district. About
6
USCIRF Religious Freedom in India; Sep 7 2034; on During a
Congressional Briefing held on Capitol Hill, Washington DC, Nadine Maenza,
former Chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom
(USCIRF), has wondered why the Biden administration should raise issues of mass
anti-minority mob violence -- particularly in Haryana and Manipur -- with
Modi. Modi should be told that if such violence continues, the
It stated, in August, an armed "Hindu militant procession
wreaked havoc in Muslim-majority areas of Haryana, resulting in arson, stone pelting,
and physical violence", adding, "Tragically, this violence claimed
the life of a 19-year-old imam and five others. Concurrently, Manipur's
predominantly Christian Kuki-Zo tribe has faced violent attacks by the majority Hindu Meitei population
since May, including beheadings, immolations, and horrifying gang rapes." Maenza
said that for the past four years, USCIRF has been calling on the US Department
of State to designate
7
8 Arundhati
Roy on minorities in
9 India’s Justice System: Sep 22 2023; India’s Justice System Is No Longer Independent: Part I: In the first article of a 3-part series on the erosion of India’s judicial independence, Saraphin Dhanani discussed the structure of India’s judiciary and the pivotal moment in 2018 when four justices alerted the world about the institutional decline of the Indian justice system resulting from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rule. In well-functioning democratic systems, the judiciary plays a crucial role as a counterbalance to autocratic tendencies. But the Modi government has deftly deconstructed the scaffolding of the judiciary by refusing to appoint judges, influencing the outcome of watershed cases, quashing political opponents using the executive’s leverage in courts, and capitalizing on judges’ self-interest and identity politics. The court’s management of the citizenship verification project in the state of Assam and the lawsuits initiated by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) against leaders of opposing political parties serve as stark examples of the dismantling of the judiciary’s scaffolding in Modi’s India.
Monthly update: 49 Aug 2023 Muslims in
This
page updates news related to the plight of Muslims in India
.
1 Muslims killed: Aug 1, 2023: A Railway Protection
Force jawan on Monday (July 31) morning shot dead four people who were on
a train near the Palghar railway station in Maharashtra. Among those killed was
an assistant sub-inspector (ASI) and three passengers – all Muslim men with
beards – across nine carriages.The accused RPF constable has been identified as
Chetan Singh. According to the PTI and Hindustan Times, Singh first
shot dead a senior officer, Tikaram Meena in coach B-5. He then shot and killed
a passenger, Abdul Kaderbhai Bhanpurwala, a passenger in the same coach. Singh
then walked through four coaches without using his weapon until he came across
a passenger in the pantry car, identified as Sadar Mohammed Hussain, and
killed him Singh then walked through two
other coaches before shooting his third victim, Asghar Abbas Shaikh in
coach S-6. A purported video of Chetan Singh speaking to passengers while
standing over Asghar’s bloodied body was went viral on social media in which
the RPF constable says: (‘They operate from Pakistan, this is what the media of
the country is showing, they have found out, they know everything, their
leaders are there… If you want to vote, if you want to live in
2. Muslims
targeted:
3. A
Warning About
3. India going to extreme right: Aug 3, 2023:Since 2014, under the rule of the Modi-led
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a new chapter has being authored in India’s
history, whereby the country has come to deviate from the basic principles of
democracy, minority rights, and executive accountability. This needs greater
recognition and urgent action. Democracy is
under increasing threat from authoritarianism in
4.
Residents flee:
5. Ethnic cleansing: Aug 7 2023: The ongoing violence in Nuh and
Gurugram, Haryana which reportedly led to the killing of five people at the
time this article was written, including a masjid Imam, as well as the
destruction of a mosque and shops is only the latest in a long list of similar
“communal incidents” and lynchings across India. In another simultaneous act of
gut-wrenching killing by ethnic profiling of three Muslim men including a
tribal superior officer by an RPF constable Chetan Kumar in a moving train, is
emotionally very distressing and unsettling. Similarly, the killings, rapes,
and displacement of another tribal Christian minority community taking place in
Manipur for months bear to the testimony that minorities are neither safe in
their houses nor in public places anymore. However, to characterize such
repeated bouts of targeted violence against Muslims as merely “communal riots”
is a gross misrepresentation. It downplays and normalizes what are essentially
acts of a slow and systematic ethnic cleansing aimed at intimidating and
dispossessing the Muslim minority community. Paul Brass, in his seminal book
‘The Production of Hindu-Muslim Violence in Contemporary India,’ introduced a
framework called the “institutionalized riot system” to comprehensively
understand Hindu-Muslim violence in contemporary
6. Muslim homes bulldozed; Aug 8
2024; Abdul
Rasheed says police locked him in a bus as a bulldozer demolished his shops in
India’s northern Haryana state where a Muslim-majority district saw communal
clashes last week.“I was heartbroken. My family and children depended on the
rent we received from the shops. We had rented shops to both Hindus and
Muslims,” he told Al Jazeera on Sunday, adding that the authorities “gave no
notice or showed any order, and bulldozed everything”. Rasheed’s
is among more than 300 Muslim homes and businesses bulldozed by Haryana’s
right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government since Thursday in yet
another instance of collective – and selective – punishment of a community
over religious violence. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/7/vengeance-muslim-homes-shops-bulldozed-150-arrested-in-indias-haryana
7 MOdi and upcoming elations; Aug 12
2034 ; The only
one that springs to mind is his growing fear that, with opposition unity
solidifying from month to month, the BJP is in danger of losing the 2024 Lok
Sabha elections. So he has gone back to the one antidote with which he is
familiar, and which worked unfailingly in
Throughout this tragedy, Modi has maintained his
sphinx-like silence while his advisers worked out how to convert the resulting
increase in Hindu-Muslim animosity into votes for the BJP in 2024. The first
fruit of their cogitations has not taken long to ripen. On Wednesday August 9,
a bare 48 hours after the Muslim property destruction drive began, the Haryana
BJP chief, Om Prakash Dhankar, had the brazen-faced gall to accuse the Congress
and the Aam Admi Party of having instigated the riots. He and his five-member
delegation did this without even having visited Nuh, but after the police had
prevented a Congress delegation from going to the town on Tuesday and an AAP
delegation from doing so on Wednesday. The causes of the communal conflagration
in Manipur may have been local, and the violence unplanned, but the same cannot
be said of the tragedy that has befallen the Meos of Nuh. Judging from Modi’s
past actions, Nuh is likely to be followed by more communal violence triggered
by the VHP and the Bajrang Dal, but blamed upon local Muslims. As the BJP feels
more threatened by the
8 Arundhati
Roy on Indian women;
9 Muslims in
10 State managed violence;
This yatra swiftly seized control of the annual Hindu religious
“kawad yatra”, with VHP and Bajrang Dal leaders making provocative declarations
online, hinting at violence against Muslims in Nuh. All of this escalated
into an organized pogrom which started at Nuh and quickly spread to Gurgaon,
Sohna and Palwal, where in Gurgaon particularly, Hafiz Saad, an imam at Anjuman
Jama Masjid was murdered by Hindutva mobs. The organized nature of this
violence is exposed by how Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal members
continued to provoke Muslims of Mewat through their social media outlets while
also carrying weapons during the supposed religious procession. The
carrying of swords and other weapons has even been questioned by BJP’s own
Minister of State and Gurgaon Member of Parliament Rao Inderjit Singh. Over the
years, Hindutva forces have particularly targeted the Mewat region, a
Muslim-majority area.The Mewat region also happens to be one of the most
impoverished areas in the country, with Mewat being declared
11 Muslim lynched;
12 Arundhati Roy on Democracy in
13 Dozer policy;
Monthly update: 46 June 2023 Muslims in
This
page updates news related to the plight of Muslims in India
.
1 Hindutva ideology
and the Nazis: June 111 2023: A US-based human rights group “Justice for All” has drawn
a parallel between the Hindutva ideology and the Nazis, citing the ongoing
persecution of the minorities in
2 FIR: June 113
2023: The Vashi Police on Sunday registered a First Information
Report (FIR) against a 29-year-old man for allegedly sharing Mughal Emperor
Aurangzeb’s photo as his status on WhatsApp. The accused, a resident of
Navi Mumbai, is a manager in a private firm had put Aurangzeb’s photo as his
status on WhatsApp and someone took a screenshot of it and shared it with some
people on WhatsApp. A right-wing organisation’s worker got his hands on the
screenshot and approached the local police to file an FIR against him.
3 Anti Muslim
Cinema:
4 Muslims
forced to flee town: June 14 2023; Muslims in a north Indian town have been asked by Hindu
groups to abandon their livelihoods and the homes they have lived in for
generations About a dozen families have fled Purola, a small town in northern
India’s Uttarkashi district in Uttarakhand state, after notices were pasted on
homes and businesses asking them to vacate the town. The threats, issued mainly by two far-right Hindu groups – the Vishwa
Hindu Parishad (VHP) and its youth wing, the Bajrang Dal – follow an alleged
attempt by two men to kidnap a 14-year-old Hindu girl on May 26. The two
accused in the kidnapping case were immediately nabbed by residents and handed
over to the police. They have been charged under the Protection of Children
from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and other laws. One of the accused in the
kidnapping bid was a 24-year-old Muslim man, leading to allegations by Hindu
groups that the kidnapping attempt was a case of “love jihad” –
an unproven conspiracy theory that accuses Muslim men of luring Hindu women
into romantic relationships in order to convert them to Islam by marriage. But
residents of Purola say the May 26 incident was used by the Hindu groups to
intensify their years-old movement that seeks to free the Himalayan state,
known for its many Hindu pilgrimage sites and temple towns, of the Muslim
community.There are about 400-500 Muslims in Purola, a town 140km (87 miles)
from state capital Dehradun with about 10,000 residents.On May 27, government
officials allegedly asked Muslim traders to shut their shops as some Hindu
groups had planned a rally to protest against the attempted kidnapping of the
girl.“We had to shut our shops because we had no
option,” Mohammad Ashraf, 41, who has a garment shop in Purola, told Al
Jazeera. On May 29, the Hindu groups and hundreds of supporters
organised another rally, calling for the expulsion of Muslims from the area.
According to the residents, provocative slogans were raised against the
minority community at the rally. The mob also vandalised some shops and removed
signboards bearing Muslim names. Since then, most Muslim-owned businesses have
been shuttered in Purola while the rest of the market is buzzing with activity.
Muslim traders approached the local administration for help and urged them to
act against people threatening their livelihoods,
but they say their requests fell on deaf ears.“The [Muslim] boy has been
arrested. The police are investigating the matter. What more do they want? Do
they want us to leave our homes and shops? Where will we go? We have been
living here for years,” a Muslim trader told Al Jazeera on condition of
anonymity for fear of reprisals by the authorities. In Barkot, another small
town about 30km (19 miles) from Purola, an “X” sign was seen on the doors of
some Muslim-owned shops, an act reminiscent of the Nazi-era targeting of Jews
in pre-World War II Germany. For decades,
right-wing groups in Uttarakhand have mobilised Hindus to create a “Devbhoomi”
(or land of the gods) and exclude Muslims. Dehradun-based journalist
Trilochan Bhatt told Al Jazeera the continuing tensions in Purola and adjoining
areas were a consequence of the anti-Muslim hate politics that has engulfed the
state over the last few months. Bhatt blamed leaders of the ruling BJP for
giving a free hand to Hindu groups in holding rallies where open calls for
violence against Muslims were made. It was in Uttarakhand’s temple town of
5 Anti- Muslim
Cinema, a new trend nurturing under Hindutva Culture by Syed Ali Mujtaba: In recent years Indian cinema is
being fed on the growing trend of anti-Muslim hate movies. The Bollywood film
industry is churning out the distorted portrayal of Muslims in the last
nine years or so and such plots have matured to their real structure after the
BJP government came to power under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra
Modi in 2014. Movies made in these years include; The
6 Dargah demolition:
7 Injustice:
8
9 Muslim
persecution in Uttarakhand: In Uttrakhand, there is an “alarming rise of
hate speech, vigilantism, and targeted communal violence against the Muslim
community. In Uttrakhand local Hindutva groups are openly inciting religious
hatred and hostility and violence against Muslims. This is to instigate fear
among the Muslims so that they can run away from there.
Muslims' homes and shops are marked with an
‘X’, and residents are forced to vacate the place. Many very
old-time residents, including BJP and Minority Cell leader Mohammed Zaid,
have fled their homes due to the threat of violence. Newspapers have
reported that a letter has been sent by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad to the Tehri
District Magistrate giving an ultimatum to members of the Muslims Community to
leave the Jaunpur valley and in particular the towns of Nainbagh, Jakhar, Nag
Tibba, Thatyur, Saklana, Damta, Purola, Barkot, and Uttarkashi. If they don’t respond
to their ultimatum of leaving the areas themselves, Hindu organizations will go
on to forcibly evict the Muslims. The government, the judiciary, and the
media is not taking any proactive measures to prevent violent attacks taking
place against Muslims in Uttrakhand.
10 Human rights in
11 Muslim lynched;
Monthly update: 45 May 2023 Muslims in
This
page updates news related to the plight of Muslims in India
.
1.
US and
2.
Short film voices miseries of Muslim women in
3.
Cow related deaths: May
2023:
Inside the car were three young Muslim men: Waris, Nafiz and Shaukeen. Waris is
now dead. Nafiz is in jail. And Shaukeen is yet to come to terms with the
horrors of the night. Shaukeen alleges that his friend was beaten to death by a
group of Hindu men after they spotted a cow trussed up in the back of the car.
The 26-year-old claims the cow belonged to Nafiz, who was taking it back to his
home in Haryana from Bhiwadi district in neighbouring Rajasthan state. Shaukeen
and Waris were accompanying him when they were chased by a group of cow
vigilantes. These are Hindu men - mostly armed with sticks and other weapons -
who keep a watch for vehicles transporting cattle to prevent cow slaughter,
which is illegal in many Indian states. The police, however, say that there
were no visible injury marks on Waris's body. Police arrested Nafiz and
Shaukeen on cow smuggling charges because they "found a cow in the
car", Mr Singla says. But Shaukeen, who is now out on bail, says that
their car hit the van only because they were being chased by a vehicle which
belonged to the cow vigilantes. The BBC has accessed CCTV footage of the crash
in Tauru. It shows a four-by-four with a siren on its roof approaching the car
moments after the accident.Then, according to a
video filmed by a local man who was at the spot, a group of men who appeared to
be armed with weapons, including guns, pulled out the cow from the car's boot
and bundled the three Muslim men into the four-by-four. Shaukeen alleges he and
his companions were then beaten up by the gang, who later took them to hospital
and that Waris died on the way. "Waris did not die in the
accident. There was not a single injury from the crash," he says, adding
that it was a "targeted killing" against Muslims. At Waris's home in
Nuh, his family is still grappling with the shock of his death. He questions
why vigilante groups in the state were "given the right to take the law in
their own hands". Shaukeen alleges that a man named Monu Manesar, a
well-known cow vigilante who regularly uploaded videos of himself questioning
cattle transporters, was the leader of the men who assaulted them. On the day
of the incident, Mr Manesar had live-streamed a video of Waris and his friends
being "interrogated" by himself and some other men. In the video,
which has now been deleted from Mr Manesar's Facebook profile, the Muslim men
had visible injuries on their face. "Monu was saying 'beat them' and
everyone was hitting us. It was all done at the direction of Monu,"
Shaukeen alleged. Imran alleged that his brother's death was part of a larger
pattern of violent assaults by cow vigilante groups. He connected Waris's death
to another high-profile case - the murders of two Muslim men, Junaid and Nasir
- that made headlines in
4.
US on India: Mar., 15, 2023: The US State Department released a report on Monday
highlighting “continued targeted attacks” on religious minorities in India,
including Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindu Dalits, and indigenous
communities.The 2022 Report on International Religious Freedom came out a month
before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the US on June 22. The report
also names
5.
Demolitions’
6.
Congress and Muslims;
7.
The Human Rights Situation in the Indian Sub Continent.by
Pon Chandran — 03/05/2023 :I come from a Tamil culture which proclaims to the world
யா A ஊேà®° யாவ¶A ேகளnJ “Yaadhum Oore Yavarum KeLir”,
meaning “the world is one and all are my kith and kin”. I also come from a sub
continent which is proud of its diversity. Diversity in languages, cultures,
nationalities, faiths, regions and religions. Whereas, the present ruling
establishment in
Similarly there are several prisoners, particularly
Muslims, who are serving life sentence in
8.
Monthly update: 44 Aprii 2023 Muslims in
This
page updates news related to the plight of Muslims in India
.
1.
Gang rape condoned:
2.
OIC:
3.
Hindutva in the
4.
Library attacked:
5.
Muslims in Jail; Apr 16 2023; Based on casual
conversations with acquaintances and strangers both within and outside the
police force and as part of my field work and outside it, I gathered that the
general belief in India is that Muslims are more likely to commit crime than
other communities .The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data of convicts
across 19 states over the period 1998-2015 revealed something striking. In
almost all the states of
6.
Muslims
leaving
7.
Hindus acquitted; Apr 21 20 2023; An Indian court on Thursday
acquitted 69 Hindus, including a former minister from the ruling Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP), of the murder of 11 Muslims during communal riots in the
western state of
Monthly update: 43 Mar 2023 Muslims
in
This
page updates news related to the plight of Muslims in India
.
1.
Ro Khanna and Hindu nationalism;
2.
The Modi Question Calls for Press Truth Above all Else in
India — by Phil Pasquini — 10/03/2023: : Imran Dawood: WASHINGTON –
The National Press Club’s Journalism Institute last evening hosted a condensed
showing of the controversial BBC documentary, India: The Modi Question. The
two-part documentary banned in
3.
Mosque
to be removed;
4.
Cow vigilantes:
5.
Amnesty International on
6.
Time Ticking: New US Ambassador to
7.
Muslims in
This
page updates news related to the plight of Muslims in India
.
1.
Swiss Lawyers' Group Files Criminal Complaint Against UP
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath Over Murder And Torture Killing Of Muslims In
India; Feb 4 2023; A specialist group of international ;criminal and human rights
lawyers filed a criminal report with the Office of the Swiss Federal Prosecutor
against Uttar Pradesh chief minister Adityanath, alleging that he committed
crimes against humanity. The complaint was filed before the World Economic
Forum meetings took off at Davos in
2.
Owaisi ; Feb 12 2023;Member of
Parliament from Hyderabad and Presi-dent of All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul
Muslimeen (AIMIM) Asaduddin Owaisi has said Muslims in India are living under
constant threat and no month goes by without a threat to their lives. “An MP recently asked people to
use knives not only for cutting vegetables but also throats. One more MP asked
people to boycott the Muslim community.
3.
The world is
now learning about the major threat Hindutva fascism poses today. Riaz Haq ;https://theloop.ecpr.eu/hindutva-fascism-is-threatening-the-worlds-largest-democracy/;
In India, fascism is reinventing itself. It has crept
through Hindu nationalism – Hindutva – and now poses a serious threat to Indian
democracy, writes Amit Singh Frequently framed
as populist, nativist and nationalist, ‘Hindutva fascism’
has so farevaded the serious scrutiny of scholars and activists. But,
as Luca Manucci has argued convincingly, mislabelling such a
phenomenon could jeopardise the struggle against fascism and anti-democratic
regimes. Without accurate labelling, we will never develop an effective
counterstrategy against fascism. Fascism is manifesting itself in
4.
5.
Muslim men lynched ;Feb 17 2023; In what is being described
as yet another case of cow vigilantism leading to the loss of life, merely 100
kilometers from the national capital, two Muslim men from the Rajasthan-Haryana
border were allegedly attacked and abducted by a mob that later set them
ablaze, alive while they were inside their car. This is said to have happened
after accusations of cow smuggling were made against the victims. The dead have
been identified as Junaid and Nasir, both residents of Ghatmeeka village in
Rajasthan’s Bharatpur district. https://thewire.in/communalism/haryana-two-muslim-men-found-charred-to-death-in-alleged-case-of-cow-vigilantism
6.
UAPA ; Mar 1 2023; But Khan continues to languish in
jail as he has not been able to secure bail in a case under the Unlawful
Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), a controversial anti-terror law that has been
used against Khan and several other Muslims accused of allegedly “pre-planning”
the riots UAPA,
termed by critics and rights groups as a draconian legislation, was amended in
2019 by the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government to allow
authorities to declare an individual a “terrorist” and detain them without
trial for months, sometimes years. Previously, the “terrorist” tag was reserved
only for groups or organisations.The government last year informed the parliament
that nearly 4,700 people were arrested under the law between 2018 and 2020, but
only 149 were found guilty – a conviction rate of nearly 3 percent.Police
booked at least 18 Muslims, including student leaders and activists such
as Khalid Saifi, Umar Khalid and Miran Haider, under the
UAPA, alleging a “larger conspiracy” to create religious tensions – a claim
rubbished by legal and rights experts. “The reason why these people are still
in jail in spite of charges being dismissed on so many grounds is that they
have been booked under a draconian law like UAPA which calls itself an
anti-terror law but has always been used to suppress dissent,” rights activist
Kavita Krishnan told Al Jazeera.“Under this law, it is difficult to get bail so
the police just need to charge people under UAPA and delay the trial by saying
that they are investigating and so you are likely to remain in prison for many
years,” she said. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/2/28/india-terror-law-haunts-muslims-jailed-since-2020-for-delhi-riots
7.
Ro Khanna and Hindu
nationalism;
Monthly update: 41 Jan 2023 Muslims in
This
page updates news related to the plight of Muslims in India
.
1.
Homes demolitions ;January 4, 2023; The Indian American Muslim
Council (IAMC), a US-based organisation of the Indian Muslim diaspora,
“dedicated to social justice, peace, and pluralism”, has strongly
condemned the planned demolition of over 4,000 Muslim homes and dwellings in
Haldwani, Uttarakhand, a state ruled by Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP). Last month, the Uttarakhand High Court allowed these demolitions
while hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by Ravi Shankar Joshi in
2013. Joshi is an individual known for his partisan views in political and
public life, besides being reportedly a close sympathiser with the ultra
supremacist, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The Uttarakhand high
court, while passing an order on Joshi’s PIL, claimed that the families were
“unauthorized occupants” living on “encroached” land belonging to the Indian
Railways. However, reportds from the ground reveal that residents have been
able to prove this claim as blatantly false through sale deeds and copies of
leases, which would suggest that they are, in fact, rightful owners of
their properties. Controversially, the court ordered the demolition drive
despite pending appeals against the false encroachment claims by several
residents. Local authorities have announced that bulldozers will “pounce
on encroachers” while overseen by 7,000 police officers and 15 paramilitary
groups. Therefore, says the IAMC statement, these forces will likely use
violent tactics to brutalise Muslims who attempt to defend their
homes.Thousands of Muslims from across Haldwani city are presently out on tje
streets, holding protests, sit-ins, and candlelight vigils, demanding that the
demolition of their homes be stopped. https://sabrangindia.in/article/stop-demolition-over-4000-muslim-owned-homes-uttarakhand-indian-americans-muslim-diaspora
2.
Islam phobias in India; JAN 08, 2023; Between the 17th and 19th of
December last month, a large collection of major religious leaders, right-wing
activists, fundamentalist militants and Hindutva organisations came together at
Haridwar. The event they held, called ‘Dharma Sansad’or ‘religious parliament’,
witnessed an extraordinary outpouring of hate speech calling for a genocide of
the Muslims of India. But despite the violent exhortations hurled over the
course of three days, authorities in
3.
Copyright of Hitler’s agenda, infringed upon by Narendra Modi; in India — by Sumanta Banerjee;
I am raising a serious issue that touches upon a person’s legal right of
exclusive possession of his/her personal creation – whether a scientific formula,
or a literary piece, or even a political programme. This is known as copyright, or patent in relation with certain
products. If anyone uses that material without the permission of its original
author, or fails to acknowledge credit to its producer, he will be liable for
prosecution. Now, may be I am being the devil’s advocate, as I am raising a
hypothetical question. Suppose if Hitler were alive today (thank God, he isn’t
!), under the prevailing copyright and patent laws, wouldn’t he have been
entitled to sue Narendra Modi for infringement of copyright of the Nazi model
which Hitler alone designed in Germany in the 1930s ? After all, it’s Hitler’s
ideas and tactics that Modi has plagiarized from the Nazi text book. Modi’s
speeches, like those of Hitler’s are filled with misinformation, religious
majoritarian and nationalist chauvinist sentiments, and aggressively promote
his personal image to the mindless cheer of the mob. His lieutenants in the
BJP, in their public utterances and lectures, spread vitriol against Muslims,
and political opponents who are branded as urban Naxalites – in the style of
the same hate -filled anti-Jewish and anti-Communist propaganda that was spewed
by Goebbels and other Nazi leaders . Similar to Germany in the 1930s, we witness
today in India, armed marauders and murderous gangs of the Sangh Parivar, the
Vishva Hindu Parishad, Bajrang Dal and other outfits going on a killing spree,
in the footsteps of the Nazi Storm Troopers, shouting `Jai Shri Ram,’ almost
sounding like `Heil Hitler !’ Even
4.
Demolishment of Muslim Homes; Jan 4 2023;The normalisation
of various state governments’ drive to demolish homes of Indian Muslims and
low-income groups came under the scanner in the latest Human Rights Watch report released on Thursday, January 12. The US-based
global human rights observer in its annual report detailing human rights abuses
and concerns in around 100 countries took notice of how different provincial
governments of India in 2022 increasingly used home demolitions against
low-income groups, especially Muslims, as a measure of extra-judicial
punishment. https://thewire.in/rights/collective-punishment-for-muslims-human-rights-watch-slams-demolition-drives-in-bjp-ruled-states
5.
Clamor in the
6.
Amartya Sen ; Jan 15 2023; Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, who
was conferred the Bharat Ratna
in 1999 by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, has said: “The Modi government
is one of the most appalling in the world.”Professor Sen explained that he has
come to this view because “it [the government] treats its own people in such a
nasty way,” adding that “the Indian government’s record has been really rather
terrible.” He also said the Modi government’s treatment of Muslims, and the
fact that it has no Muslim MP in either House of the parliament, is
“unacceptably barbaric”. https://thewire.in/rights/interview-modi-govt-is-one-of-the-most-appalling-in-the-world-says-amartya-sen
7.
Mosque demolished;
8.
BBC Documentary on Modi and Gujarat ;by RANA AYYUB; JAN 19
2023; A
new documentary on BBC two has yet again brought the focus to Narendra Modi’s
past, his role in the 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat, and the state-enabled
attack on the 220 million Muslim minorities in India. For many journalists like
me who have reported extensively on the 2002 pogrom and the spate of
extra-judicial murder of Muslims in the home state of Narendra Modi came as no
surprise. I have been undercover for eight months in the state of
9.
BBC - Riots a stain on Narendra Modi, says former British
foreign secretary Jack Straw – Telegraph
10. OpIndia is among
the largest purveyors of hate speech and fake news. And yet, as of June 2020, about
two dozen companies have withdrawn advertisements from OpIndia, citing
“insidious content” and “hateful views”, as part of a campaign by Stop Funding
Hate, an advocacy group based in the
11.
Monthly
update : 40 Dec 2022 Muslims in
This
page updates news related to the plight of Muslims in India
.
1.
2.
3.
Genocide
in India; Dec 21 2022; A new report,
“Genocide Convention & Persecution of Muslims in India”,
released by United States Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF)
commissioner David Curry at a Congressional Briefing on the Capitol Hill in
Washington DC, has apprehended that if the international community does not
urgently intervene, the Government of India will not only “continue to commit
and allow acts of genocidal violence against Muslims”, but things may reach
such a point which will inevitably led to “transition into a full-blown
genocide.” The report, citing a large number instances of alleged
violence against minorities, especially Muslims, especially after Prime
Minister Narendra Modi took over in May 2014, says, “More and more Indian
Muslims will fall victim” of the attacks against the minority community “unless
western governments, notably the United States, intervene and attempt to stop
what is perceived the world’s largest democracy from exterminating Indian
Muslims.”
https://www.counterview.net/2022/12/uscirf-backed-report-asks-west-to-halt.html
Monthly
update 38 and 39 ; Oct & Nov, 2022 Muslims in India
This
page updates news related to the plight of Muslims in India
.
1.
Demolitions:
2.
3.
Democracy and
4.
Justice delayed and denied; No 8 2022; On Friday,
November 4, when the Supreme Court delivered its judgment on one of the
petitions filed in the Mumbai riots of 1992-93, the petitioner, Shakil Ahmed,
was unaware of the outcome. A senior journalist in Mumbai made a phone call to
Ahmed to inform him that his over-two-decade-long struggle for justice had
abruptly ended.In
2001, after waiting for three years for the
5.
India and human rights; Nov 15 2022;India’s human
rights record was examined as part of the Universal Period Review (process), a
peer-based evaluation mechanism under the UN Human Rights Council. This is the
fourth time India has gone through this evaluation process, the last time being
in 2017.With concerns
about the status of human rights activists to the foreign funding of NGOs,
suggestions called for an urgent review of anti-terror laws to strengthen
freedom of expression.The United States representative lamented that “despite
legal protections, discrimination and violence based on gender and religious
affiliation persist”. She recommended the “broad applications” of the Unlawful
Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and similar laws against human rights
activists, journalists, and religious minorities. “The application of
anti-terror legislation has led to prolonged detentions of human rights defenders
and activists, often in a pre-trial status,” said the
6.
Human rights in
7.
Muslim man jailed;
This page updates
news related to the plight of Muslims in India
.
1.
USCIRF seek sanctions on
Shah: Sep., 1, 2022: A federal US commission on international
religious freedom has sought sanctions against Home Minister Amit Shah and
other principal Indian leadership if the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill with the
"religious criterion" is passed by Indian Parliament, evoking a sharp
reaction from India which said the American body has “no locus standi” on the
issue. In a statement issued on Monday, the US Commission for International
Religious Freedom (USCIRF) alleged that the CAB enshrines a pathway to
citizenship for immigrants that specifically excludes Muslims, setting a legal
criterion for citizenship based on religion. "The CAB is a dangerous turn
in the wrong direction; it runs counter to India's rich history of secular
pluralism and the Indian Constitution, which guarantees equality before the law
regardless of faith," it said. The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill or CAB was
passed in the Lok Sabha with 311 members favouring it and 80 voting against it
a little past midnight on Monday. It will now be tabled in the Rajya Sabha for
its nod. According to the proposed legislation, members of Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist,
Jain, Parsi and Christian communities, who have come from Pakistan, Bangladesh
and Afghanistan, till December 31, 2014 facing religious persecution there,
will not be treated as illegal immigrants but given Indian citizenship."If the CAB passes in both houses of Parliament, the
US government should consider sanctions against Home Minister Amit Shah and
other principal leadership," the commission said.
https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/international/cab-us-commission-seeks-sanctions-against-amit-shah-india-says-statement-unwarranted
2.
The Hinduization of India Is
Nearly Complete: MAY 27, 2022:: Narendra Modi’s
ethnonationalist rule is unraveling the country’s constitutional commitment to
its Muslim and Christian minorities By Yasmeen Serhan : When the british withdrew from the Indian
subcontinent in 1947, paving the way for the independence of the newly
partitioned nations of India and Pakistan, the Muslims of the region had a
choice. They could resettle in Pakistan, where they would be among a Muslim
majority, or remain in India, where they would live as a minority in a
majority-Hindu but constitutionally secular state. For Shah Alam Khan, whose
great-grandparents were among the roughly 35 million Muslims who opted to live on the Indian side of the Radcliffe Line in the aftermath of Partition, his family’s decision was in many
ways a political gamble. “They didn’t want to go to a theocratic state,” Khan
told me from his home in Delhi. Indeed, when Pakistan finally adopted a
constitution, nine years after Partition, it enshrined Islam as the state
religion. For his family, the promise of a pluralist India, as envisaged by the
country’s founders, trumped the warnings of the pro-Partition Muslim League (which went on to become the party of Pakistan’s founders) that a
Muslim minority would inevitably be subordinate to the Hindu majority.
Seventy-five years later, those warnings have gained a new prescience.
Nominally, India remains a secular state and a multifaith democracy. Religious
minorities account for roughly 20 percent of the country’s 1.4 billion people, who include about 200 million Muslims and 28 million Christians.
But beneath the country’s ostensible inclusivity runs an undercurrent of Hindu nationalism
that has gained strength during the eight-year rule of Prime Minister Narendra
Modi. The concern shared by many among the country’s religious minorities, as
well as by more secular-minded liberals within the Hindu majority, is that the
country’s secular and inclusive ethos is already beyond repair. Muslims and
Christians alike have faced a surge in communal violence in recent years. A raft of new laws has reached into their daily
lives to interfere with the religious garments they wear, the food they eat,
where and how they worship, and even whom they marry. Many of the Indian
journalists, lawyers, activists, and religious leaders I’ve spoken with for
this article say that the institutions on which the country once relied to keep
this kind of ethnic supremacism in check—the courts, opposition parties, and
independent media—have buckled. To Khan, it feels as though the India he has
inherited is gradually becoming another version of the theocratic state his
family turned away from all those years ago. “They were promised a secular
nation,” he said. For them, and for the country’s religious minorities today,
“the unmaking of secular India is a betrayal.” This ideal of a pluralist,
secular India is popular not only among its religious minorities. A 2021 study conducted by the Pew
Research Center found that by a wide margin, Indians of all faiths consider
religious tolerance an essential part of what it means to be “truly Indian.”
This civic value is as old as the country itself: Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s
first prime minister, rejected any concept of the nation as Hinduism’s answer
to Pakistan. His India would not be “formally entitled to any religion as a
nation,” he said, but a place where all
faiths could coexist and be celebrated equally.That founding ideology, however,
has long been disputed by Hindu nationalists. “To be a Hindu means a person who
sees this land, from the Indus River to the sea, as his country but also as his
Holy Land,” wrote the politician and activist Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in his
1923 book, Hindutva: Who Is a Hindu? (Hindutva, meaning
“Hindu-ness,” has become shorthand for Hindu nationalism itself.) In Savarkar’s
view, only those who regard India as both their country and their sacred Hindu
homeland could be truly Indian. While Christians and Muslims could
fulfill the first requirement, of patriotism, they would never be able to
achieve the second. “Their holyland is far off in Arabia or Palestine,”
Savarkar wrote. “Consequently their names and their outlook smack of a foreign
origin. Their love is divided.” Modi’s own Hindutva credentials run deep.
Before he went into mainstream politics with the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya
Janata Party, he cut his teeth as a member of its allied paramilitary
organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or RSS. After his landslide
reelection victory in May 2019, one of the first things he did with his new
mandate, in August of that year, was to fulfill a long-standing demand of the RSS by revoking the special autonomous status of Jammu and Kashmir, India’s sole Muslim-majority territory (over which Pakistan also
claims sovereignty). That same month, the northeastern BJP-led state of Assam
published a national registry that left nearly 2 million people, many of them Muslim, off the list, casting their Indian
citizenship into doubt. Perhaps the most contentious decision came at the end
of the year, when Modi’s government pressed through a new law granting
non-Muslims from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan the right to seek
fast-tracked citizenship in India. Critics likened the move to a religious test
for citizenship, and warned that it would open the door to additional forms of
legal discrimination against Muslims. These events loom large in Indian
politics, but when I spoke with members of India’s Muslim and Christian
communities about how life in India has changed under Modi’s rule, they rarely
came up. People attested instead to the smaller, often more insidious ways in
which the experience of India’s religious minorities has been altered. To
belong to a religious minority in India today is to feel “there is no future,”
an Indian Muslim from Kashmir, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of
government retaliation, told me. That sentiment is echoed by Ajit Sahi, a
former journalist who left India for the United States days after Modi’s
reelection. “I have friends who are desperate to get out,” Sahi, a
secular-inclined Hindu who now serves as the advocacy director of the Indian
American Muslim Council in Washington, D.C., told me. “There is no future for
somebody like me back in India.” Nandita Suneja, who moved from her native
Delhi to Australia in 2019, told me that the communal tensions made her Hindu
family’s decision to leave much easier. She didn’t want to raise her daughter
in an “atmosphere of stifling freedom and hate.” For Indian Muslims, in
particular, the situation is dire. During the recently passed holy month of
Ramadan, they saw their houses and shops
bulldozed, their businesses boycotted, and their religious gatherings
heckled by Hindu-nationalist mobs.
Open calls for genocide against Muslims have become commonplace, as have violent clashes and lynchings. Although the authorities generally avoid the appearance of explicitly endorsing these kinds of actions, they rarely go out of their way to
condemn them. A recent open letter signed by more than 100 former civil
servants accused the Indian government of being “fully complicit” in the subordination of the country’s religious minorities as
well as in the undermining of the country’s constitution. Shah Alam Khan, who
teaches orthopedic medicine at Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences,
considers himself relatively privileged compared with most Indian Muslims, who
tend to be among the country’s poorer and more marginalized citizens. But even for him, he says, the country’s majoritarian
turn has forced a change in his quotidian habits. He thinks twice before using
the greeting Assalamualaikum, or using any other obviously Islamic
phrase, in a crowded public space. Asked for his name, he typically offers only
Shah, because it’s more common and less identifiably Muslim than his surname.
This type of self-surveillance has affected other members of his family.
“Whenever I used to go meet my mom, she used to give me food,” Khan said. “But
ever since [Modi] came to power, she stopped giving me that food, because a
large part of that food used to be meat.” Cows are considered sacred to the
Hindu faith, and their slaughter has been proscribed in most states—a rule
often enforced by vigilante mobs. If Khan were stopped by a hostile crowd on
suspicion of carrying beef, his mother feared, he could be arrested, even
lynched. Akif—who asked to be identified
by only his first name for fear of persecution—grew up in what he describes as
comfortable circumstances in Aligarh, southwest of Delhi. But that comfort has
slipped in recent years. He won’t leave home wearing traditional Islamic attire
if he is going to an unfamiliar neighborhood. His wife, who works in academia,
has been asked by colleagues about why she wears a hijab, the Muslim headscarf,
and why she doesn’t work at an Islamic institution. Some of the most incendiary
comments, Akif says, have come from people he considered friends. These
restrictions, compounded by public debates at the local, state, and even national levels over whether Muslim students should be allowed to wear headscarves in school or how loudly mosques should broadcast the call to prayer (known as the azaan), have left many Indian Muslims
feeling unwelcome in their own country. “Initially, they came for our dietary
habits, now the azaan,” Rana Ayyub, an Indian Muslim journalist and
author, told me. “Every day you wake up and it’s like, ‘Okay, what part of our
identity are you going to attack today?’” Indian Christians face similar
hostility. Attacks on Christians have been rising steadily since 2014, and 2021
was the most violent year on record for the community: The United Christian
Forum, an ecumenical organization based in Delhi, reported a tally of more than
500 violent incidents—an 80 percent increase over the previous year. A
human-rights lawyer who works on minority-rights and religious-freedom cases,
who requested anonymity in order to speak candidly about their work, told me
that most of these incidents originate with Hindu-nationalist mobs, which
descend on religious gatherings at churches and in homes to accuse those
involved of forcing Christianity upon unsuspecting Hindus, in violation of the
country’s anti-conversion laws. In the violence that ensues, pastors have been beaten, churches vandalized, and religious schools attacked. In many cases, rather than intervene to maintain public order,
police officers join the mobs, ready to arrest the suspected Christian
proselytizers. In one incident, on April 14, dozens of worshippers were
gathered at a church in the state of Uttar Pradesh to observe Maundy Thursday
when a mob showed up with police. “Everyone was arrested,” the lawyer told me.
“‘Who are you converting? Everyone is detained.’ It was a little bizarre.” That
case is still pending. Hindu-nationalist groups and BJP lawmakers claim that forced conversions are rampant in the country. But
there is little evidence for this. None of the arrests have yet resulted in a
single conviction, A. C. Michael, a former member of the Delhi Minorities
Commission and the national coordinator of the United Christian Forum, told me.
But if the real purpose of the harassment is to intimidate members of a
religious minority, it has already had its desired effect. “Earlier, we were
very proud to display our faith, like wearing a cross or, if we were traveling,
we would say our prayers aloud,” Michael said. “All that has now stopped.” This
is so far from the India that Nehru’s vision promised that Muslims and
Christians now have little expectation that the state will protect not just
their rights but their very lives. “The year I left India, in 2015, there were
several attacks on churches in Delhi,” Dominic Emmanuel, a former spokesperson
of the Delhi Catholic Church who is now based in Vienna, Austria, told me. When
he and his fellow congregants staged a protest against attacks within their
church compound, they were arrested. Modi’s ruling bjp has no incentive to change course. In
March, the party won a resounding victory when it held on to power in Uttar
Pradesh, where the government is now led by Yogi Adityanath, a hard-line
nationalist and former monk widely seen as Modi’s likely successor. The main
opposition party, the Indian National Congress, was once the standard-bearer of
secularism in India, but it has failed to mount a strong defense of the
country’s religious minorities. Analysts I spoke with attribute part of that
failure to the opposition’s fears of alienating a Hindu majority that has been
swayed by Hindutva ideology. If the political system is no longer a check on
majoritarian rule, neither is the legal system. Just as the authorities fail to protect minorities from communal violence—or even participate in the violence themselves—the legal system fails to hold officials to account.
Worse, a series of draconian and discriminatory laws have recruited both police and courts to efforts to silence
government critics and advocates for India’s religious minorities. At grave
personal risk, several Indian journalists have shed unflattering light on Modi’s
majoritarian rule. Some have been jailed for their reporting. One is Siddique Kappan, who was charged with sedition and conspiracy to incite violence
for trying to report on the gang rape and murder of a 19-year-old Dalit woman.
(Dalits, pejoratively known as the “untouchables,” are at the bottom of India’s
caste system.) Others, like Ayyub, have been hit with spurious fraud and
money-laundering charges; their cases are laborious and expensive to defend.
The BJP-controlled state does not need to worry about time or money, so the
process is the punishment. “There is no one left,” Ayyub said, noting that as
the country’s high-profile figures in politics, law, and the media have been
largely silenced, so, too, have celebrities in India’s entertainment industry.
The most prominent example is Shah Rukh Khan, one of Bollywood’s biggest stars,
as well as one of the country’s most influential Muslim figures, whose films
portray India’s pluralism at its best. Last year, the actor’s son was embroiled
in allegations of drug use a charge seen by some as part of a broader effort by
the government to crack down on its critics in the film industry, as well as an attempt to discredit Khan
personally. Khan not only embodies that anathema to the BJP of being a Muslim
married to a Hindu, but he has also spoken out against religious intolerance in the country. By attacking a
personality like Khan, Ayyub said, the government’s message was clear: “If it
can happen to Shah Rukh Khan, the biggest superstar,” she said, “imagine what
happens to a regular Muslim without the access.” That Modi feels emboldened enough to take on
a movie star like Khan is telling. Modi “is popular because of the fact that
he’s a bigot,” Aakar Patel, the chair of Amnesty International’s India Board
and the author of The Price of the Modi Years, told me. “He is seen as
somebody who has put Muslims in their place.” Despite rising inflation and high
unemployment, as well as the government’s mishandling of the coronavirus
pandemic and democratic backsliding, the prime minister still enjoys widespread popularity with his own BJP-supporting constituency. For most Indians, he is
an Indian success story. “Modi has been a real son of the soil for young
Indians and they see themselves in him,” Vivan Marwaha, a researcher in
emerging markets and the author of What Millennials Want, told me. If
the son of a tea seller can become prime minister and command an international
stage, the logic goes, so could they. “His appeal is in his personality,”
Marwaha added. “Foreign leaders have to listen to him speaking in Hindi. He
sells out stadiums in New York, London, and Sydney.” Many Hindu Indians also
appear comfortable with Modi’s ethnonationalist aims, despite the outbreaks of
communal violence. “The whole religious agenda is not seen as something radical
because, at the end of the day, something like 80 percent of India’s population
is Hindu,” Marwaha said. “People just believe, ‘Well, why can’t they just live
with our rules? Why can’t they not eat beef? Why does the azaan need to
be played in public places?’ Things like that.” If no check to the Hinduization
of state and society comes from within India, then what about from without? So
far, India’s international allies have shown little inclination to call Delhi
out over the treatment of its religious minorities, largely because they see
India as too important a partner to alienate. This is especially true of the
Biden administration, which counts its relationship with India as a strategic
asset in its Indo-Pacific strategy. When Washington has voiced concern about the treatment of
religious minorities in India, it has done so in private. That could be starting to change. In April, at a joint press
conference with the Indian foreign and defense ministers, U.S. Secretary of
State Antony Blinken noted that the United States is
monitoring the rise of human-rights abuses in the country. That same month, the
U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, a federal body created by
Congress in 1998, designated India as a country of “particular concern” for the third year in a row in its annual religious-freedom
report, placing India alongside countries such as Afghanistan, China, Iran,
Russia, and Pakistan. In India’s case, the commission recommended imposing
targeted sanctions against those responsible for severe religious-freedom
violations. Although the commission has no power to enforce such measures, its
condemnations may have some cumulative effect. “When your own agency is
recommending a policy move for three years in a row, it becomes harder to
ignore with each passing year,” Pranay Somayajula, an advocacy and outreach
coordinator at Hindus for Human Rights, a group based in Washington, D.C., told
me. As menacing as the persecution of religious minorities has become, for most
Indians, emigrating is not an option. Only about 5 percent of citizens have a passport, and those who leave the country tend
to be among the wealthiest. “If we decide to abandon the ship, what will happen to people
who do not have the resources to go out? That is a very big concern,” Akif told
me. As the last of his siblings still living in India, he can’t bring himself
to leave his parents behind. For Shah Alam Khan, remaining is a point of
principle too. Because he spent several years working as a doctor for the National
Health Service in Britain, he could emigrate there. But doing so would hand the
nationalists who don’t see him as a true Indian a win. “It’s like running away.
I won’t do that,” he said. “This is my country at the end of the day
3.
Hijab ban: Sep 13, 2022: The hijab
ban
issued by the Karnataka government, later upheld by the high court, is creating and widening the social
divide among student communities which could potentially lead to ghettoisation
of education, a study published by the People’s Union for Civil Liberties
(PUCL) said. The ban has forced some hijab-clad students to seek a transfer to
Muslim-managed institutions, thereby limiting their interactions with students
of other communities, said the interim study for which the PUCL spoke to
students who were impacted by the ban. This has also led to a deep sense of
isolation and depression among these students, the study revealed. The
Karnataka high court had
declared
that “wearing of hijab (headscarf) by Muslim women does not form a part of
essential religious practices in Islamic faith and it is not protected under
the right to freedom of religion guaranteed under Article 25 of the
Constitution of India. Even the Supreme Court earlier this month had asked, while hearing a batch of petitions
challenging the hijab ban, if the right to dress would also include the “right
to undressing.” In another hearing, Justice
Hemant Gupta had asked the
advocate, representing the petitioner, not to compare the ban on hijab with the
practices in Sikhism [wearing of turban] as these practices are
well-established in the culture of the country. The PUCL report said that the
high court’s verdict has denied women their right to wear the hijab as a matter
of choice and agency for themselves. It’s important to note here that there are
many women, irrespective of their religion, who like to cover their heads
because it makes them feel safe. Hijab is a personal choice for several Muslim
women, however, as The
Wire had
reported earlier,
the headscarf has led to workplace discrimination for many in India. Many
experts had pointed to the high court’s failure to address the right to
privacy, freedom of expression and the principle of ‘non-discrimination’ as per
Article 15 of the Constitution. Many have argued that the high court had failed
to protect the fundamental right to education to be guaranteed by the
state without any discrimination. After the verdict, a sizeable number of women
were unable to appear for their examinations. In one such case,
two of the petitioners in the hijab case were not allowed to sit for their board exams of second
pre-university college – the equivalent to class 12 exams for wearing a hijab.
The report said that for most of the hijab-wearing students who missed writing
their exams this year, after the interim order was passed, the high court
judgment came as a rude interruption to their studies and further plans. (Note
here that as per the
2011 Census data,
Muslim women’s literacy rate in India, especially in rural areas, is the lowest
among other religious communities.) Additionally, given the communal targeting
of the Muslim students both within the campus and outside, they are facing
constant harassment, insult, and humiliation in and outside the classroom.
There is increasing hostility from the college administration as well, in
matters such as withholding the issuance of certificates and other important
documents like practical exam records. They are also experiencing safety issues
in and outside the classroom (including social boycotts and even threats of
rape) but the college administrations are refusing to take cognisance of the
matter, the report said, citing students The team visited a village in rural
Hassan district, Mangalore city, Ullal, Hoode, Udupi town, and Raichur town and
met women students who spoke about their experiences and concerns after the
hijab ban. The hijab ban in educational
institutions –which has compelled many Muslim women to to choose between their
attire and education has taken a
toll many students. A student, who was pursuing B.Ed, was expected, as
part of her course, to teach class 10 students in government schools. The
college had told her that she could go ahead and that a lecturer would
accompany her to evaluate her performance. However, after the high court
judgment, her lecturers said that a headscarf was not allowed as it affects the
students in the class. As a result, she could not take the classes. Other
students in Raichur told PUCL that the “carefully cultivated hostility in
educational institutions by right-wing forces” has deeply affected them, and
Muslim women in particular. They said they are now scared to go to college, as
the authorities offer little protection to them. The students said they call
each other before going to college and enter in groups alone as it
is ‘very frightening’ to enter campus alone. “I don’t feel confident
going to college, and I take my brothers along. Outside the college, I face
harassment from other boys, who are not from our college. Earlier, I was the
class representative, and I would go to the principal about issues facing the
students. Nowadays, I’ve fallen silent, and don’t interact with other students.
I want to change this college where I don’t feel free,” a student
explained the emotional toll the harassment has taken on her. She added that
her scores went down, along with her attendance, due to a lack of confidence
because of the hostile environment in college. Another student, Hassan, said,
“Our main fear was that our attendance would get affected. The principal
started telling Muslim girls who wore the hijab to go home and give up on their
studies. They spoke in threatening tones, ‘Wait and watch what will happen if
you don’t remove the hijab.’ Facing this hostility day-in and day-out has made
many students consider other options, but for many students, the choice is very
limited [due to family income, affordability, etc.]”“I am repeating my second
year because I will not give up. Transferring is not an option for me because I
am not changing my stream. And private and minority institutions are so costly
that families like ours cannot consider such options,” another student from the
same village told PUCL. Speaking about issues outside campus, some law students
in Dakshina Kannada, a district in Karnataka, told PUCL that they were not
allowed into the court premises with their hijab on. They were asked to come
back with a written permission from the university. For Muslim women, the
verdict has led to a setback to their advancement. “Government colleges have
free education, but in my new college, I have huge travel expenses. I wanted to
do my M.Sc., but now I can’t. I feel shattered. I do not want to think about my
shattered dreams,” another student from Udupi told PUCL. Expressing concerns
over safety in college premises, some students in Dakshina Kannada had asked
girls to carry weapons, so they wouldn’t be unsafe. In fact, the girl students
had reported to the principal that a few male students had started to pick
fights with them on the campus. However, the principal refused to even accept
their plea seeking intervention on the matter. And, when the students
approached the head of the department (HOD), the principal asked the HOD not to
entertain such pleas, and asked the security guards to push the girls off the
campus. With respect to the attire, some girl students started coming to
college wearing hoodies. However, the teachers in an extremely rude tone told
them, “Show chal raha hai kya (is a show going on?)” upon seeing them in
hoodies. In fact, lecturers reportedly told the students, ‘Tum soch badlogi
toh zamaana badlega’ (If you change your thinking, then the world will
change), ‘Zamaane ke saath chalo’ (go with the times), ‘Tum bold
bano’ (Be bold) and other such variations, suggesting that wearing a hijab
is a regressive choice.In another incident, a lecturer told the class that they
would not deliver the lecture if the hijab-clad woman continued to sit in the
class and that all students would be affected by it. What’s worse, when the
student recorded this incident in a letter, the teachers refused to sign it. In
Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts, when students, parents and Muslim
organisations approached the public officials on this matter, they were
directed to speak with the college development councils, or CDCs.
Therefore, the PUCL in its report has asked the Karnataka government to take
adequate measures to strengthen a secular and non-discriminatory learning
environment within colleges, where students are allowed to express their faith
and identity fully. It further asked the government to ensure that such
shocking violations do not recur, and that the students be allowed into the
classrooms immediately. It has also asked the human rights and minority
commission to register suo moto complaints against the principals of respective
colleges for violating the fundamental rights of the concerned students and
initiate actions at the earliest. https://thewire.in/rights/very-frightening-to-enter-campus-alone-muslim-students-recount-hijab-bans-impact
4.
RSS attacks Muslims
in UK: Sep., 20,2022:A peaceful protest demonstration was held in Leicester, the United
Kingdom, on Sunday against the growing attacks by Hindu fanatics on innocent
Muslims with a renowned Arab journalist taking to the twitter to warn that
thousands of Hindus inspired by RSS ideology may bring the tension to the host
Gulf Cooperation Council countries. The Muslims from all regions including
those belonging to Pakistani and Kashmiri community participated in the
demonstration organized by the Muslim members of the city at Belgrave Road. Earlier,
hundreds of Hindus assaulted the Muslims on the city streets after Asia Cup
India-Pakistan cricket match in Dubai on August 28. The armed Hindus attacked
Muslims and their residences in the vicinity. The anti-Muslim violence forced
the community to hold a protest demonstration in the city against the Hindu
assaults on Sunday. A renowned Arab journalist, Abdullah Al Imadi wrote on
twitter: “Hindu-Muslim tension in Leicester might happen in any city they live
together. Can it be considered as an early warning for GCC countries, which
host hundreds of thousands of Hindu workers, as there may be thousands of them
influenced by RSS thoughts?” https://www.kmsnews.org/kms/2022/09/19/rss-inspired-hindus-may-bring-leicester-tension-to-gcc-countries-warns-arab-journalist.html
5. Forced
evictions: Sep., 23, 2022: The latest report of the Housing and Land
Rights Network (HLRN) on forced evictions in India has pointed to the new
disturbing trend of “demolitions as a punitive measure” by various state
governments and noted that these “arbitrary acts” of demolishing of homes and
structures of minority communities have compounded the vulnerabilities of
women, children, older persons, and persons with disabilities. The report has
also highlighted the vulnerabilities of the marginalised sections to forced
evictions. It has stated that while “a total of 158 incidents of forced
eviction/home demolition have been documented” in 2021, about 15 million people
across rural and urban areas continue to face the threat of eviction from their
habitats. The report also pointed out how around
25 shops, vending carts, and houses primarily belonging to Muslims in Jahangirpuri, Delhi was removed after being termed
“encroachments” following the clashes during the Hanuman Jayanti procession on
April 20, 2022.https://thewire.in/rights/demolition-livelihood-wreck-punitive-measure-hlrn-report
6.
Muslim Lynched; Sep
30 2022: A Muslim vegetable seller was beaten to death by a group of Hindutva
goons accusing him of stealing a battery in Hapur district of the Indian state
of Uttar Pradesh, but the allegation of theft appears to be a ruse. Local
police have filed an FIR against the four culprits for killing Nadeem on a
complaint by the family of the deceased, a resident of Garh town in Hapur. Meanwhile, a video surfaced on social media showing
the distraught family members of the deceased wailing inconsolably while his
body bearing marks of beating lying in front of them. https://www.kmsnews.org/kms/2022/09/28/muslim-vegetable-seller-lynched-in-up.html
Monthly update 36; Aug 2022 : Muslims in India
This page updates
news related to the plight of Muslims in India
.
1. Muslim Women and jobs; Aug 5 2022; Muslims make up nearly 14 percent of India’s 1.35 billion population but do not have the same representation in government or private sector jobs. Multiple government-appointed commissions have found the community is at the bottom among India’s social groups in terms of education and employment. One of those commissions, headed by now retired Justice Rajinder Sachar, found in 2006 that India’s Muslims were disadvantaged in social, economic and educational terms. Less than 8 percent of them were employed in the formal sector compared with the national average of 21 percent, the commission said in its report According to the 2011 census, the last conducted by the government since the 2021 exercise was disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic, the participation of Muslim women in jobs was less than 15 percent, whereas it was more than 27 percent for Hindu women. The corresponding figures for Buddhist and Christian women were 33 percent and 31 percent, respectively. The situation has worsened since 2014 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came into power, with the government pursuing policies targeting the Muslim minority and their economic and religious rights. In a deeply-polarised society, Muslim women are doubly marginalised. Experts say they stand at the intersection of gender and religious differences which significantly increases their likelihood of suffering prejudice by potential employers.“The bias was always there but with the dominance of the BJP and RSS, people have been now calling for the exclusion of Muslims from all the economic areas,” Apoorvanand, an academic and activist based in capital New Delhi, told Al Jazeera. A study published in June by LedBy Foundation, a leadership incubator that focuses on the professional development of Muslims, has also revealed discrimination and bias against Muslim women in the hiring process for entry-level jobs in various sectors. The “Hiring Bias” study highlights excessive hiring bias against Muslim women even in instances where they were equally qualified for the job. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/8/3/muslim-women-in-india-allege-bias-in-hiring-for-jobs
2.
music and hate; Aug 9 2022; Sandeep Chaturvedi, 26, is readying to
record his new song in a makeshift studio in the city of Ayodhya in India's
northern state of Uttar Pradesh.
The song is about a mosque that has became a subject of controversy
after Hindus claimed the right to worship there. It is riddled with innuendos against
Muslims Chaturvedi's songs are part of a
growing trend of music on YouTube and other social media platforms where
supporters of the Hindu right-wing spew venom at Muslims. The lyrics are
abusive or threatening. They are usually based on the premise that Hindus have
suffered for centuries at the hands of Muslims and now it's payback time.
"This is a war-cry. It's as if music is being used to win a war. This is a
misuse of music and this has been happening for years." Chaturvedi started
his career as a singer of devotional songs about a decade ago, but he changed
tack a few years later when he decided to compose songs about "Hinduism
and nationalism". The idea, he says, was to get an image makeover. He hit
a jackpot of sorts when a music video he produced in 2016 became an overnight
sensation amongst the right-wing Hindu nationalist ecosystem. The lyrics of are
too incendiary to be reproduced here. But the tone of the song was
straightforward: a warning to the Muslim community about what will happen the
day Hindu nationalism rises. Chaturvedi has since created a new channel on
YouTube. But the number of views on some of the content he uploaded has not
been encouraging. He is hoping to change that with his latest song. Often
accused of targeting Muslims through his music, Chaturvedi is unapologetic.
"If I plead with folded hands to get what is mine, will you agree? You
won't. So we have to be provocative, don't we?" Upendra Rana is another
creator making similar music in Dadri near Delhi. His mission is to
"correct" history and his songs are paeans to Hindu warriors where
Muslim rulers are portrayed as villains. "Many things that are true have
been hidden while falsehoods have been imposed on us," he claims while
talking about the history taught in schools. Updendra Rana has hundreds of
thousands of YouTube subscribers Mr Mukhopadhyay says the trend of weaponising
music against minorities is reminiscent of events that have occurred in the
past. He recalls the controversial foundation stone-laying programme in Ayodhya
in 1989 organised by the right-wing Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) which
culminated in the demolition of the
Babri mosque in 1992. "Just before that, an industry of audio tapes
had sprung up. They contained religious songs and so-called provocative slogans
related to the Ram Janmabhoomi issue
and these tapes used to be played in processions to mobilise
people." Three decades on, the tone has become shriller. Compositions
proclaiming "if you want to live in India, learn to say Vande Mataram
("I praise you, Mother")… and learn to live within your limits",
or "thinking of Hindus as weak is the enemy's mistake" make no effort
to hide who they are targeting. These songs have also helped right-wing
organisations "mobilise" their cadres. These "nationalistic"
songs are viewed by many youngsters "Youngsters like these songs as they
raise their enthusiasm and morale," says Pinky Chaudhary, who heads the
right-wing Hindu Raksha Dal group. He argues that such songs help create
awareness among the youth. The "sudden rush of energy" Mr Yadav talks
about was believed to be on display this April when violent clashes were
reported from several states during Hindu festivals During these incidents,
offensive music blared through loudspeakers when Hindus took out religious
processions and moved close to Muslim-dominated areas.In some of these clashes,
incendiary and provocative songs - including Chaturvedi's composition from 2016
- were allegedly instrumental in triggering the violence. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-62432309?fbclid=IwAR3MjuuTmrC9YsOtBeHXcEXSWbeC0JbOAVoTK1yYZ3sxvH5kJUrpzdAzhn4
3.
Modi and Muslims: Aug., 15, 2022: In August 1947, as their nations were born amid flames, mass rape and
some of the 20th century’s bloodiest ethnic massacres . Indians should recall
why exactly Pakistan’s founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah was so determined to carve a
Muslim-majority homeland out of the former British India: He predicted the
rights of Muslims would be at risk in a country dominated by Hindus. Seventy-five
years later, India is in danger of proving him right. Under a right-wing, Hindu
nationalist government since 2014, led by charismatic Prime Minister Narendra
Modi, the country has grown distinctly hostile toward its Muslim population the
world’s third largest. Indian Muslims have been targeted by politicians, the
media and vigilante mobs. Their rights have been eroded and their place in
society diminished. The country that fought so bitterly against partition now
appears intent on confirming its central logic. At the time, of course, fear of
discrimination wasn’t the only factor motivating Pakistan’s proponents. Muslim
landowners saw an opportunity to usurp rich farmlands. Preachers envisioned a
society run according to Islamic principles. Peasants were told they’d finally
be free of the yoke of Hindu moneylenders. Even the lawyerly Jinnah was not
above occasional demagoguery, darkly intoning that Hindus and Muslims were too
different ever to live together in peace. Still, Jinnah’s main fear was how little
power Muslims would wield in a united India. That’s what drove the initial
break with his former allies in the Indian National Congress party including
Mohandas K. “Mahatma” Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister
a decade before independence. And it’s why Jinnah retracted his support for a
last-minute compromise brokered by the British in 1946, after Nehru intimated
that the Congress would not honor the agreement once the British were gone.
Partition very nearly proved Jinnah’s case. Somewhere between 200,000 and two
million Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs were killed within a few short weeks of
independence; 14 million were uprooted from their homes. The biggest massacres
arguably began with attacks on Muslim villages on the Indian side of the new
border. India’s founding fathers, however, risked their lives to undercut
Jinnah’s argument. When riots spread to the Indian capital Delhi and police and
petty government officials joined in pogroms targeting Muslims, Nehru took to
the streets, remonstrating with mobs and giving public speeches promoting
communal harmony while only lightly guarded. He insisted the government
machinery exert itself to protect Muslims as well as Hindus. With even members
of his cabinet convinced that India would be better off without tens of
millions of citizens suspected of split loyalties, Nehru barely prevailed. The
pressure to expel Muslims only really subsided months later after a Hindu
fanatic assassinated the revered Gandhi, shocking the cabinet into unity and prompting
public revulsion against Hindu bigotry. That consensus and the rights enshrined
in India’s secular constitution largely preserved religious harmony in India
for more than seven decades. Al-Qaeda and other transnational terrorist groups
made few inroads among Indian Muslims, even as jihadists flourished in nearby
countries. While sectarian riots have repeatedly broken out, especially after
provocations such as the 1992 demolition of a mosque in Ayodhya to make way for
a Hindu temple, tensions have for the most part remained local and limited. And
even if Indian Muslims faced discrimination and were on average poorer and less
well-educated than Hindus, few doubted that they were full citizens especially
when their votes were needed at election time. What makes the changes that have
proliferated under Modi so dispiriting and dangerous is their corrosive impact
on those feelings of belonging. The problem isn’t even so much the most
horrific cases of bigotry, including dozens of lynchings of Muslims around the
country. Those at least still draw outrage in some quarters, as well as
international attention. What’s worse is the steady and widely accepted
marginalization of India’s nearly 200 million Muslims. An overheated and
jingoistic media portrays them as potential fifth columnists, who should “go
back” to a Pakistan most have never visited if they don’t like the new India.
(Pakistani sponsorship of extremist groups that have carried out brutal attacks
in India has exacerbated fears of an internal threat.) There’s widespread
acceptance of hate speech, including open calls to exterminate Muslims. Modi’s
Bharatiya Janata Party has pursued laws that threaten to disenfranchise
millions of them. Indeed, an Indian state once convinced of its duty to protect
minorities now seems unremittingly hostile. Prejudice has seeped into the
courts and the police, as well as all levels of government. Laws have accepted
at face value ludicrous conspiracy theories such as “love jihad” the idea that
Muslim men are romancing Hindu women in order to convert them. Modi’s decision
to strip Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state, of its constitutionally
guaranteed autonomy has made clear that even enshrined protections are
vulnerable. Meanwhile, at the federal level, Muslims’ share of political power
is dwindling. Though they make up more than 14% of the population, they account
for less than 4% of members of the lower house of parliament. Among the BJP’s
395 members of parliament there isn’t a single Muslim. True, India remains a democracy
not an authoritarian state, with powerful regional politicians and some brave
and independent activists and journalists. In states where Muslims make up a
larger share of the voting population, they have been better able to defend
their rights. Nor is India the only country where politicians and media figures
are fanning ethno-nationalism for partisan gain. Yet the trend lines are
ominous. India’s political opposition is weak and divided. The mainstream media
has caricatured Muslims to a degree that would have been unthinkable a decade
ago. The northern Hindi belt is bursting with millions of undereducated,
underemployed and angry young men. Politicians there and elsewhere know it is
far easier to direct those frustrations at defenseless scapegoats than it is to
fix schools and create jobs. Modi likes to call India the “mother of
democracy.” But the central test of a democracy is how it treats its most
vulnerable citizens whether their rights
are protected and their views heard. Nehru and India’s other founding fathers
saw it as their most basic duty to prove Jinnah wrong, forging a pluralistic
India that would thrive because of its diversity not despite it. Three quarters
of a century later, Indians should ask themselves whether they, not their former
brethren across the border, are the ones now making a mistake.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/modis-india-is-becoming-a-reflection-of-jinnahs-fears/2022/08/14/b0751396-1c25-11ed-9ce6-68253bd31864_story.html
4.
Muslim youth wish to leave India;
Aug., 16, 2022:Aamir isn’t the only
one wanting to go away. Troubled by the present and anxious about the future,
many Indian Muslims are now starting to give up hope in the country they call
home. The insecurity stems from what critics of the government call an
institutionalised persecution of Muslims since Narendra Modi became Prime
Minister in 2014 from a steady onslaught
of violence by vigilante groups backed by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party to
the legal hounding of Muslim voices critical of the regime. Endorsed by top
leaders, there has been an explosion of anti-Muslim prejudice in everyday life.
Earlier this year, Gregory Stanton, an expert on genocidal violence, said the
situation was so alarming that “genocide could very well happen in India”.
There are over 200 million Muslims in India, the highest in the world after
Indonesia and Pakistan. Only a minuscule number can afford to leave – years of
deprivation has meant the community’s socio-economic indicators are among the
worst in the country. But among those who can, many are actively seeking to
build lives elsewhere. https://scroll.in/article/1030444/why-many-young-muslims-are-leaving-india
5. Murder and Rape Pardoned: Aug., 17, 2022: The husband of Bilkis Bano on August 16 said they were surprised after
coming to know from the media about the release of all 11 convicts sentenced to life
imprisonment for her gang rape and murder of seven members of her family during
the 2002 Gujarat riots. The 11 convicts on August 15 walked out of the Godhra
sub-jail after the Gujarat Government allowed their release under its remission
policy. A special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court in Mumbai on
January 21, 2008, sentenced the 11 accused to life imprisonment on the charge
of gang rape and murder of seven members of Bilkis Bano’s family. Their
conviction was later upheld by the Bombay High Court.
6.
Rapist
and killers pardoned: Aug., 29, 2022: BJP MLA from Godhra in Gujarat CK Raulji has said that those
convicted for the rape of Bilkis Bano and released after 15 years in jail are
Brahmins. Along with this, he has said that he has ‘good values’. Raulji has
supported those culprits. If you are Brahmin, you can rape and murder but you don’t
need to be in prison. The justification of the ruling regime legislator who was
on the panel to recommend the release of 11 Hindus who had gang raped a Muslim
woman& had killed her 7 family members. Two days
back, all the 11 life imprisonment convicts in the 2002 Bilkis Bano gang rape
have come out of jail as per the exemption policy of the Gujarat government. He
was garlanded and fed sweets after his release. When Bilkis Bano was
gang-raped during the 2002 Gujarat riots, she was 21 years old and five months
pregnant. Seven members of his family were murdered. Among them was his
three-year-old daughter. His head was crushed with stones. Seven other
relatives were declared missing. https://freshgooglenews.com/bjp-mla-says-brahmins-have-good-sanskar-in-bilkis-bano-rape-case-fgn-news/
7.
FIR against offering Namaz: Aug., 31, 2022: A police case has been registered against a group of
Muslims in India's Uttar Pradesh for a "mass gathering" to offer
prayers at their house "without prior permission". Dulhepur village,
where the incident occurred, does not have a mosque which is why a group of
Muslims gathered to offer prayers. Some villagers have reservations against
gatherings for namaz even if Muslims do it privately. The FIR was registered on
the basis of "objections from neighbours" and stated that the
gatherings for namaz were spreading hatred among people. A total of 26 people
were arrested under the Indian Penal Code's Section 505-2, which is supposed to
be for hostile statements made in a religious gathering. All Muslims were
reported to be locals, out of which 16 have been named. Photos and videos of
people praying in the village have gone viral on social media, to which
internet users have reacted with rage and disappointment. Many have pointed out
the bias of the villagers and their lack of rationality. "This is what
criminalisation of an entire religion looks like," said journalist Kaushik
Raj.
https://www.geo.tv/latest/436920-indian-police-registers-case-against-26-muslims-for-offering-namaz-at-home?fbclid=IwAR0so0pMOOGJeSLdJWg35F-k-OoPz6el8WiHS2-kt2uVMqcQ8l_gXfZjLKc
Monthly update 35; July 2022 : Muslims in India
This page updates
news related to the plight of Muslims in India
.
1.
BJP and Udaipur killing; July 3 2022; Amid heightened
tensions in India over the recent brutal killing of a Hindu tailor in Udaipur,
fresh details about the incident from the neighbouring country on Saturday
revealed that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders had links with
one of the killers for many years, hinting at a pre-planned scheme. Ashok Swain, a professor of Peace and Conflict
Research at Uppsala University, questioned whether the Udaipur incident could
be "another Pulwama", which many believe that Prime Minister Narendra
Modi had planned to consolidate his grip on the country in February 2019. "Is Udaipur another Pulwama? The Killer,
who killed a Hindu in the name of Islam, is with the leader of the Hindu
Right-Wing ruling party," wrote Swain while sharing a photo on his official
Twitter handle In another tweet, he said that the Muslim man who had brutally
killed a Hindu in Udaipur was being accused as an Islamic radical with a
Pakistani connection. "Still, they are searching for that evidence, but it
is for sure that he was actively working for India's ruling Hindu right-wing
party, BJP," he added. He said that despite Indian Supreme Court's
statement, police are yet to arrest BJP spokeswoman Nupur Sharma over her
blasphemous remarks against the Prophet (PBUH). "Nupur Sharma insulted the
Prophet [PBUH], and there was an international uproar and domestic unrest;
Supreme Court found her responsible for all these, but the police say they do
not find her to arrest through police is providing her security cover. And,
this is no joke." Swain suggested that Sharma is just an
"instrument", urging the top court to take courage to name the
"Supreme Lord". He also criticised the arrest of Indian journalist
Mohammad Zubair, who had allegedly "insulted religious beliefs" in
India on Twitter years ago. "They have arrested Mohammed Zubair since
Monday but don't know who had complained against him or even the complaint.
And, this is not a joke," he added. The Modi regime's decision to transfer
the Udaipur incident to the country's National Investigation Agency (NIA) has
drawn questions from the Congress, the country's main opposition party. Congressman
Pawan Khera, in reference to various media reports that suggested a relationship existed between
the accused Riyaz Attari and a BJP official, said: "We did our research on
those claims and found old Facebook posts of Rajasthan BJP leaders where Riyaz
Attari was mentioned as 'BJP karyakarta'." One of the murderers of Udaipur
tailor Kanhaiya Lal, whose beheading was captured on camera and made public
online, is Mohammad Riyaz Attari. The murder was committed, according to Riyaz
Attari and Ghous Muhammad, to avenge the blasphemous remarks after social media
posts by Kanhaiya in favour of Nupur Sharma had been made. "What could be
more evident than this? Riyaz Attari was present at events of BJP leaders. BJP
leaders referred to him as 'bhai'. What is happening in this country?"
Pawan Khera said. "When the Centre ordered the NIA probe, we welcomed it.
Our chief minister (Ashok Gehlot) assured assistance to the NIA. But now we are
raising this question: Did the Centre order the NIA probe hurriedly to hide
this information about Riyaz Kattari," Pawan Khera said. Also, the way the
video of Kanhaiya Lal's killing went viral on social media and the response that
followed points to the said scheme. Analysts believe there could not be an
attempt more foolish than this to turn the tide. Kanhaiya Lal, the victim, was
first arrested over posting inappropriate content on the social media but he
was released soon after. The arrest made him known among the locals. He wasn't
provided police protection despite his requests to the authorities concerned.
The scheme was aimed to project Muslims, who were known as a suppressed
minority, as terrorists. It is the Modi administration's history to cross all
limits to create distraction. Pulwama incident took place when there was a need
to deflect attention from the Rafale jet scandal and when votes from the lower
caste Hindus were needed. Then own people attacked the Kabul temple to shed a
bad light on the Sikh community. Experts say that the Modi administration must
stop this heinous game and the Udaipur incident must be probed by an
independent authority. Simultaneously, the campaign against Islam and Indian
Muslims must be seized, as well as checks should be made on the identity of the
two men who committed the crime and made it viral on social media. The BJP
government turning a blind eye to the campaign and encouraging hate can lead to
further such occurrences.The entire Muslim world is concerned at the rising
tide of Islamophobia in India, which is an extremely dangerous trend not for
the country but the region and the world. Muslims living about 3 kilometres
from the tailor's shop where the victim was killed said they felt nervous and
feared a social and economic boycott by powerful Hindus residing in
Udaipur."I know what has been done is barbaric but the community should
not be held responsible for the deed of two people," said Mohammad Farukh,
a medical representative living in a Muslim-dominated area of the city.However,
despite all the explanations from the Muslim community in India, the incident
has sparked a furious response on social media, including calls for reprisal
attacks against the country's Muslim minority which seem to be part of a grand
plan by the fascist Modi regime to further divide the country. India has a long
history of communal violence and authorities have shut down internet
connections and imposed a curfew in the city where the attack took place to prevent
unrest. But social media platforms have been consumed by angry reactions to the
killing, with some users demanding "violent retribution" against both
the accused murderers and other Muslims. Members of public Telegram groups
dedicated to promoting and defending Hinduism called on each other to pick up
weapons and attack Muslims or discussed the virtues of storming a police
station to attack the two accused men. The far-right Hindu group Vishwa Hindu
Parishad (VHP) used social media to issue a nationwide protest call against
Islamist terrorism and complain that Muslims had routinely upset the religious
sentiments of India's majority religion."You should be afraid of the day
when Hindus too start giving reply to the insult," senior VHP figure Surendra
Kumar Jain said in a video posted online, and watched nearly 75,000 times
across Twitter and Facebook. A day after
his murder, Lal's name had been mentioned more than 200,000 times on Twitter,
along with a grab bag of hashtags condemning the attack. The hashtag
"Hindu lives matter" was being posted more than 2,000 times an hour
on Thursday. Since coming to power nationally in 2014, Modi's party has been
accused by rights groups and foreign governments of championing discriminatory
policies towards India's 200-million strong Muslim minority. Amnesty this month
said authorities had waged a "vicious" crackdown on Muslims who took
to the streets to protest Sharma's remarks, including by demolishing homes with
bulldozers. Since the
attack on Lal, party members have taken to social media to criticise Muslim
nations that had complained about Sharma's comments for remaining silent on the
killing. Several also took aim at Indian journalist Mohammed Zubair, who had
helped draw attention to the remarks by Sharma that eventually saw her
suspended from the BJP. In one tweet, Kapil Mishra, a BJP politician, accused
Zubair and his supporters of being "responsible" for the tailor's
death. Zubair, who has drawn frequent attention to hate speech by Hindu fringe
groups, was arrested on Monday. He remains in custody, with police citing a
four-year-old tweet about a Hindu god they said had been the subject of
complaints by Hindu groups. Police opened an investigation into Sharma this
month after a complaint by a member of the public about her remarks, but she
has not been arrested and her current whereabouts are unknown.
https://tribune.com.pk/story/2364344/another-pulwama-udaipur-killers-links-with-bjp-point-to-another-pre-planned-scheme
2. Right wing India; July 4
2022; Right-wing fascists are trying hard
to convert India into a Totalitarian State. What they don’t seem to realise is
that, a diverse nation of 1.4 billion with strong democratic ethos cannot be
ruled by force. One need to look no further than Kashmir to comprehend the
futility of the so-called “Muscular Approach”. Peace is still elusive in the
valley, even after the deployment of seven hundred thousand strong military
force. Primary reason for this is the alienation of Kashmiri Muslims. Imagine
what will happen if a substantial section of India’s 200 million Muslims get
alienated? The threat that China – Pakistan bonhomie poses to India cannot be
overstated. Only last week General Charles A Flynn, Commanding General of the
United States Army Pacific, warned us about the infrastructure build up by
China in the border areas. The fact that large swathes of Indian land, all
across the Northern border from Arunachal Pradesh to Kashmir is under Chinese
occupation is also an open secret. What hostile actions against India will
originate from this front in future is anybody’s guess but to wish away the
problem will be suicidal. Nearly 40 billion dollars come to India annually from
Middle East as remittances. Around 7.6 million Indian citizens work in Gulf
countries. BJP , India’s ruling party, swiftly suspended two of their office
bearers as soon as governments of gulf countries objected to their insult of
Prophet Muhammad. Importance India accords to this region can be gauged from
this action of the right-wing party. Danger is , there is no guarantee of such
incidents not happening again. Government or party have little control over the
communally polarised masses. In case of such an event, even if the government
is able to diplomatically handle governments of these countries no one can
predict how ordinary citizens of these countries will react. If employers
decide to reduce Indian work force and boycott Indian businesses and products,
there is nothing anyone can do about it. Consequences of such an action will be
unpredictable and very detrimental to India. Ever since Modi government has
come to power, foreign governments , International organisations and
human rights agencies have been criticising India on lack of religious freedom
, human rights abuses and suppression of dissent. Recently, the scale of
criticism has gone up as can be seen from the following examples “…in
India, the world’s largest democracy and home to a great diversity of faiths,
we’ve seen rising attacks on people and places of worship,” said US
Secretary of State Antony Blinken at a press conference recently . He was
speaking at the release of US State department’s “2021 Report on International
Religious freedom”. In the backdrop of Insult of Prophet controversy, OIC had
called on the Indian authorities to decisively address these incidents of
defamation and all forms of insult to the noble Prophet and Islam and to bring
those who incite and perpetrate violence against Muslims to justice and hold
those behind them accountable. Amnesty international India released a statement
on June 14th that said , “The state’s response to current protests is not only
deplorable but also marks the latest escalation in the suppression of dissent.
The Indian authorities must carry out a prompt, thorough, effective, impartial
and independent investigation into all the human rights violations allegedly
committed by law enforcement officials and other public officials against
protesters and human rights defenders”. These criticisms have severely
dented the image of India among the nations of the world. In most parts of the
country, India resembles a divided house today. In states where BJP is in
power , the party has succeeded in communally polarising the people along
religious lines. The situation is especially grave in the Hindi heartland.
Muslims are not the only minorities who feel antagonised. Recently there have
been an increase in the attacks by the right-wing on Christians. Recently
slogans supporting Khalistan was raised in Punjab which is seen as sign of agitation
among the Sikhs. Divisions are not along the religious lines alone. In Bengal
there is an ongoing civil strife between
BJP supporters and TMC supporters. Most non Hindi States are up in arms against
Centre’s Hindi imposition. Almost all the non bjp governments are in conflict
with the centre over a variety of issues. Chief Ministers like Stalin ,
Pinarayi Vijayan , KCR and Mamta Banerjee have been vociferously protesting
against the centre’s actions that are weakening the federal structure of the
country. Their complaints about Centre usurping the powers of the States are
not without valid reasons. Governors appointed by the BJP are notorious for
their overreach. Most non BJP Chief Ministers have a very hostile relationship
with their respective Governors. Many State governments have passed laws
curtailing their respective Governor’s powers. In short, the relationship of
States to the Centre is one of mistrust and antagonism. Ever since the Modi
government came to power there has been one agitation after another by
different groups. Muslims against CAA , Farmers against Farm laws, Opposition
parties against Land Acquisition reforms, Occupy UGC Movement by Students,
Kashmiris against abrogation of Article 370 and now the youth against Agneepath
Scheme. These are the major protests that brought the country to a standstill
during the Modi regime. There were many more smaller protests during the same
period. Anger against the government is simmering among all these groups, how
and when this anger will boil over is unpredictable. As if all these problems
aren’t enough , India has an economy that’s in shambles. Ill-conceived
demonetisation, faulty implementation of GST , Covid pandemic, mismanaged
lockdown and a number of poor policy decisions have destroyed the economy that
was growing quite well before Modi came to power. GDP is down, rupee is
sinking, Wholesale Price Index is headed north, unemployment is at an all time
high, businesses are down, MSMEs are going bust on an alarming rate and the
investor confidence is at an all time low. In short, the economy is in a very
bad shape and it’s the ordinary citizens who are bearing the brunt of the
situation. This is the precarious situation that the country is in today. In
such a situation , can India afford to alienate its largest minority
community? If BJP doesn’t make a course correction now , such an
eventuality cannot be ruled out. Consequences of such a scenario will be very
difficult to predict. Civil war , balkanization of the country, nothing can be ruled
out. We can only hope that good sense will prevail : by Shakeel Mohammed is a social activist
based in Kochi. He is a Trustee of Manav
Migrant Welfare Foundation.
3.
Economic boycott;
July 5 2022; Abdullah Ahmed Safar Ibil told IQNA in an interview that countries
need economic growth, which is very important to governments. Unless India ends
discriminating against Muslims and allowing desecration of Islamic sanctities, Muslim countries should impose
sanctions on New Delhi, he said. We have seen many videos of how Indian police
brutally attack Muslim protesters, which is a sign of oppression of Muslim in
the country. In order to confront this, we should take economic moves. Many
times such acts of desecration are aimed at seeing how Muslims react. If there
is a strong reaction, they won’t get bolder (to do more desecrations). Actually, Muslim countries have important ties with
India and some 15 percent of India’s trade is with the Persian Gulf countries.
There are also around ten million Indian nationals working in the Persian Gulf
littoral states. If Muslim and Arab countries take a strong stance, it would
make India reconsider its behavior. When a country oppresses Muslims, like what
happened in Myanmar, that country should be boycotted so that it is forced to
change its behavior. Economic boycott can be among the most powerful tools to
make countries stop their oppression of defenseless Muslims.
https://iqna.ir/en/news/3479558/economic-boycott-would-make-india-regret-insulting-islam-kuwaiti-scholar-says
4.
Muslims in India; July 9 2022: Violence against Muslims and other non-Hindu groups has become an
almost daily occurrence in India. Radical Hindus have harassed, beaten, or
killed hundreds of non-Hindus, especially Muslims, with few consequences. They
have been shielded by a government that has consistently made life difficult
for India's Muslims, which make up around 15 percent of the country's 1.3
billion people.These acts are perpetrated by followers of a Hindu nationalist
ideology born in the mid-1900s and heavily influenced by fascist Italy and Nazi
Germany, claiming everyone who lives in India other than Hindus - especially
Muslims and Christians - to be outsiders. Hindu nationalism is the dominant
worldview of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP), and his government has presided over waves of violence against
minorities in India since it was elected in 2014. “The sustenance of the Hindu
nationalist project rests largely on 'othering' Muslims and other minorities in
terms of their origins, dress, food habits, language, [and] patriotism,” said
Niranjan Sahoo, a governance and public policy expert at the Observer Research
Foundation. Hindu nationalism is not to be confused with the Hindu faith. The
former is an ideology, while the latter is a religion with around a billion
adherents, and, like most religions, is not inherently political."Hindu
nationalism is a majoritarian project which is based on Hindu supremacist
ideology," said Niranjan Sahoo. "It attacks the very idea of India
which is diverse and multicultural." Its roots lie in India's encounter
with colonial rule. Leaning on British conceptions of a single monolithic
religion, its early thinkers sought to draw boundaries between Hindus and
Muslims and Christians, who are considered outsiders. Many of these thinkers
were leaders of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) - a paramilitary
volunteer organisation that seeks to forge Hindus into a single political
entity and alienate Muslims from power. "Hindu nationalism is a
majoritarian project which is based on Hindu supremacist ideology" The RSS
is a paramilitary volunteer organisation widely viewed as responsible for the
rise of Hindu nationalism in India - it is the power behind Narendra Modi's
BJP. Niranjan Sahoo says their ideology is based on the "exclusionary idea
of Hindutva or 'Hinduness'; that Hindus have first right over everything on
Indian nationhood".Founded in 1925 when India was still under British
rule, its early leaders such as KB Hedgewar and VD Savarkar who are nationalist
icons today were inspired by Adolf Hitler, and believed minorities in India
should be treated as the Jews were in 1940s Germany. Complete with an armed
wing, uniforms, and a unique salute, the RSS constantly targets the Congress
party, which has ruled India for much of its independent history. It blames the
'Congress leaders' policy of appeasement of Muslims for the "erosion of
the nation's integrity in the name of secularism".The organisation's most
infamous member was Nathuram Godse, a Hindu extremist who assassinated MK
Gandhi the main icon of India's freedom struggle. Several lawmakers from the
ruling BJP have been accused of 'worshipping' Godse.“The RSS has been
continuously working on remanding India's secular democratic character,” said
Ashok Swain, a professor of peace and conflict research at Sweden's Uppsala
University. "They have infiltrated all institutions - from the military to
the judiciary, to the bureaucracy, to politics." The right-wing
nationalist organisation RSS was founded in September 1925. Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh is the ideological parent of the ruling BJP. They depict
'Hinduism' as constantly under threat from the external forces of Islam,
Christianity, and 'secularism', and justify violence against these groups as a
form of 'self-defence'. They say Muslim 'invaders' destroyed 'thousands' of
temples in the past and built Islamic monuments on some of those sites, such as
the Taj Mahal or the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya - which was violently destroyed by
a Hindu mob led by senior BJP figures in 1992. There is barely any evidence for
80 such destroyed temples. "Modi has been accused of subverting all of the
country's institutions by placing RSS members in prominent positions"
History Any structure built by Muslim rulers during India's 800 years of Muslim
rule is now suspect. Symbols People with Muslim names, beards, skullcaps, and
face coverings have become targets for violence. In 2020, a man name Akhlaq had
his arm chopped off for sporting a '786' tattoo, a sacred number for
Muslims.Food - People accused of eating beef, or even transporting cows a
sacred animal in Hinduism have repeatedly been assaulted by Hindu extremists.
According to a Reuters report, 24 Muslims were killed in 63 attacks by 'cow
vigilantes' between 2010 and 2017, nearly all of which took place after Prime
Minister Narendra Modi came to power in 2014.Institutions - Modi has been
accused of subverting all of the country's institutions by placing RSS members
in prominent positions. Media - Many news agencies, especially Hindi outlets,
appear to have become mouthpieces for Modi's Hindu nationalist agenda.
Reporters like Suresh Chavhanke and Sudhir Chaudhary who repeatedly peddle
misinformation and hatred are becoming increasingly popular. Those journalists
who challenge the government's narrative have been viciously attacked, and
sometimes killed. Hindutva pop: The rise of India’s hate music scene Over the past months, right-wing groups have
attempted to stop Muslim prayers at historic mosques such as the Gyanvapi
masjid in Varanasi, PM Modi's constituency claiming Hindu relics that were
captured by Muslim rulers are hidden there. In May, right-wing groups set fire
to a mosque in Madhya Pradesh, and conducted an arms training workshop at an
educational institute in Karnataka, home to India's 'Silicon Valley'. Last
December, Al Jazeera reported 42 instances of attacks against Christians in the
state of Karnataka in 2021. In February 2020, violent Hindu mobs rampaged
through Muslim neighbourhoods in Delhi after being encouraged by a BJP
lawmaker. 53 people 38 Muslim victims and 15 Hindus were killed. Over the last
few years, Hindu activists, including some regional governments, spreading the
dangerous love-jihad conspiracy theory have attacked Muslim men, falsely
claiming that Muslims attempt to marry Hindu women in order to convert them to
Islam. "The RSS is a paramilitary volunteer organisation widely viewed as
responsible for the rise of Hindu nationalism in India - it is the power behind
Narendra Modi's BJP" In April this year, lawmakers in several states
called for the banning the Adhan, the Muslim call to prayer.The same month,
authorities in Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, and New Delhi bulldozed Muslim homes
and properties hours after they were targeted by sword-wielding mobs. Earlier
this year, the Karnataka government banned women and girls from wearing the
hijab to school. In August 2019, Narendra Modi's government revoked the
autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir – India's only Muslim majority state. Later that
year, the government pushed through the Citizenship Amendment Bill which
specifically prevents Muslim refugees from obtaining Indian citizenship,
fuelling fears that Muslims who fled Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar to India
would be placed in detention camps or asked to leave. This led to widespread
protests across the country. In January, Gregory Stanton the founder of
Genocide Watch warned that India was on the brink of an anti-Muslim genocide. https://english.alaraby.co.uk/analysis/explainer-dangers-indias-hindu-nationalism
5.
Bulldozer tactics; July. 22, 2022: A recent full front page of the advertisement by a Bhartiya Janata
Party government declares, ‘House is not just a word. It is a place where power
to dream comes and aspirations are fulfilled. Home is much about dignity and
security than it is about shelter.’ It further goes on to quote Narendra Modi,
‘It is my dream that every Indian has a pucca house by 2022.’ The occasion was
dedication of houses built by a private builder Balaji to the poor. Having
witnessed over the past few days the now iconic picture of a bulldozer running
down the Prayagraj house of parents of female Muslim student and activist
Afreen Fatima, who participated in the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act and
National Register of Citizens protests, one is almost tempted to look for a
fine print at the bottom of the page to the effect that the promise of house is
subject to the condition that one doesn’t participate in any anti-government
protest otherwise there is a danger of bulldozers coming over. A house built
under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana by Hasina Fakhroo was demolished by
administration following clashes during a Ram Navami procession in Khargone
district of Madhya Pradesh in April earlier this year. Riot police and
paramilitary forces are deployed by all governments to control mob violence.
These forces use all kinds of weapons and deterrents to enforce law and order.
The hauling up and arrest of culprits inciting violence or leading mobs to
challenge the authority of the state is a follow up action which ends in trials
and sentencing of the guilty. The state of Uttar Pradesh has found a new weapon
to deal with the violators who pose a challenge to the authority of the state
namely, the Bulldozer! Yogi Adityanath alone knows from whose book of criminal
jurisprudence this leaf has been taken out. At least it is difficult to find an
example anywhere in the world barring the sole exception of Israel where the
government is in constant conflict with the Palestinian population. The
Palestinian land is forcibly taken over to build Jewish settlements and
Palestinians are subjected to brutal repression when they resist. The law in
India is not based on the whims and impulses of any leader. It is a strictly
codified framework with inflexible procedures and defined limits to its
application. Rule of law is not the writ or diktat of a ruler but it is based
on the Constitution and the laws that are framed by the legislature are within
the structure of the Constitution. Even the most archaic laws like the Sharia
have definite punishment for every particular crime. Chopping of hands and
beheading may appear to be repulsive and uncivilised to us but they are based
on some penal code. Even the Taliban Government would not go beyond the scope
of Sharia to punish the guilty by boiling them in water or chopping them piece
by piece or sawing them vertically! Here in India, in full view of the whole
nation including the Supreme Court and High Courts, a Chief Minister is setting
an example of how to be a law unto himself! We are shocked by the absence of
any reaction to this outrageous and audacious act by the media, intellectuals
and activists who are perhaps keeping quiet out of fear of the same bulldozers
knocking on their doors. It is further appalling that the spineless judges, who
sit on the benches of constitutional courts flaunting their unlimited powers
and authority in front of a common citizen litigant, lose their hammer and
tongue at a ghastly manifestation of mockery of justice in full public view.
Where is the civil society in this country? Is there any? Is there any
civilised society at all? What kind of people can watch this naked dance of
sham democracy which is more of an oppressive dictatorship rather than anything
else? India is not Israel and Muslims living here are not Palestinians (though
there is no justification even for the Israeli government’s inhuman actions).
Muslims are our own countrymen living under the same Constitution which treats
every person (not merely citizens) equal before law. If a Muslim has built a
house illegally it does not mean that it can be demolished without due legal
process while the Hindus constructing multi-storied buildings and colonies, in
violation of the law, will enjoy immunity. It is not that bulldozers were not
used earlier to demolish houses or kiosks of street vendors. In fact, quite
frequently administrations of governments all over the country have demolished
settlements of poor, mostly migrants from rural areas or other states, who come
to cities in search of livelihood and set up their jhuggis or kiosks on some
government land. Recently hundreds of families have been uprooted in Ahmedabad
city who were living for more than a couple of decades next to Railway tracks.
In these instances as well the Constitution and Court directives are violated
but the governments justify it on some grounds. What is new is selective
political targeting now, especially by the BJP governments. The government of
Uttar Pradesh is writing a novel book on crime and punishment. But even this
book will not be the final code because once we go on this path of
degeneration. Every other ruler who comes to rule will enjoy the privilege of
acting upon his own whims and fancies. Yogi Adityanath should just remember the
day when he had wept in the Parliament feeling his life under threat merely
because the then district administration of Gorakhpur had arrested him for a
brief period. He is doing worse things to people. The U.P. Government has
promulgated a law ‘Uttar Pradesh Recovery of Damages to Public and Private
Property Act, 2020’ which aims to recover the damages to any property during
any agitation from the accused persons. A Claims Tribunal will determine the
recovery amount and its decision cannot be challenged in any court. Moreover,
the burden of proof lies on the accused to prove himself/herself innocent. This
is another example of high handed manner in which the Yogi government has been
treating dissenters. A question that we would like to pose is if demolishing
anybody’s house is proved to be illegal by a court later, shouldn’t the
officials who ordered the demolition in first place not be subjected to a law
similar to the abovementioned one. If citizens can be held accountable for
damage to property, why should not the officials be? By Naveen Tewari
(entrepreneur-activist) and Sandeep Pandey ( General Secretary of Socialist
Party India), e-mail: nct.lko@gmail.com, ashaashram@yahoo.com
6.
FDI India; July 22
2022;The RBI remittances survey 2020-21 has revealed that the
remittances from the Gulf countries to India have sharply declined. The
cumulative inward remittances to India have plumed from 50 percent in 2016-17
to 30 percent in 2020-21. According to the RBI remittances survey 2020-21, the
remittances to southern states like Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka have
almost halved in 2020-21 when compared to what these states used to receive in 2016-17.
India mostly receives remittances from the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain,
Oman, Qatar, etc. The UAE, which was the top source of remittances for Indians,
is now in the second spot with the US taking the lead. It is being inferred
that the job avenues for Indians are drying up in the gulf region. The southern
states that have strong dominance in gulf countries and use to receive a
significant share of the total remittances received by the entire country are
most affected by the loss of jobs in the Gulf region.Kerala which used to be
the top recipient of remittances from the Gulf region no longer holds the
number one position. Currently, Maharashtra is on the top of the list of states
that receive remittances. It is followed by Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Delhi,
Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Punjab, and Bihar. One of
the reasons for the decline of remittances from the Gulf countries to the
Southern states could be the migration of semi-skilled workers from Uttar
Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa, and West Bengal. They are being hired in the Gulf countries
on much lesser salaries than the people from the Southern states. The US, the
UK, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Australia have emerged as important sources of
remittances for India. Among them the US tops the list whereas; the UAE is in
the second spot. The cumulative remittances account for 36 percent of total
India’s remittances. However, in overall terms, Indian remittances have gone
down from 50 percent to 36 percent. The decline is due to the drying up of job
opportunities for the Indians in the Gulf region. There are various reasons
given for the loss of job opportunities for the Indians in the Gulf region. One
of them that is prominently doing rounds is speculated to be the domestic
policy of the BJP government which is loaded against the Muslim minority
community of India. Soon
after the breakout of the Pandemics in 2020, an Indian Muslim religious group
Tablighi Jammat was hounded by the government and the people for spreading
coronavirus in the country. This had led many countries in the Gulf region to
raise their voice of concern against the persecution of Muslims going on in
India. Many private organizations in the Gulf region had sent back Indians who
were active on social media spreading hatred against Muslims while eking out
their living from Muslim organizations in the Gulf region. Nupur Sharma’s
intemperate remarks have further added salt to the injuries to the Muslims
globally, and also to the countries in the Gulf region. The persistent support
for her by many in India in the name of freedom of expression while putting in
jail many human rights activists exposes the forces at work in India against
the Muslim community. This is widely believed to be the reason why employers in
the Gulf countries are reducing the size of employees from India. And this is
reflected in the sharp decline in the remittances coming to India.
https://www.kmsnews.org/kms/2022/07/21/inward-remittances-to-india-from-gulf-countries-on-a-sharp-decline.html
7.
RSS's International Wing Protested at City of Manteca
City in Central California will reconsider HSS proclamation; Pieter Friedrich; July 23 2022: Over 50 locals attended the 19 July 2022 city council meeting of
Manteca, CA, USA to protest a city proclamation passed in January which
commended the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS), the international wing of India’s
fascist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) paramilitary. During the meeting’s public comment period, Fateh Singh asked,
“When the City of Manteca chose to platform and praise the HSS in January, did
you know that the HSS is the international wing of the RSS, a quite literally
Nazi-inspired paramilitary in India?” Safiullah, speaking as a representative
of the Islamic Center of Manteca, reiterated the HSS-RSS link and pointed out
that the HSS “doesn’t like to advertise it to city officials when seeking a pat
on the back from you.” In total, six speakers rose in opposition to the
commendation of HSS while dozens of supporters packed the council chambers, raising
placards reading: “Resist the HSS-RSS.”“Most of the city council probably
doesn’t know that the HSS is the international wing of the RSS, although a few
seconds of basic research would quickly not only reveal that but also reveal
that the RSS is a violent, xenophobic outfit with a long track record of
extreme anti-minority violence,” I said. “It’s disappointing that the city
didn’t bother doing its due diligence to investigate the HSS before applauding
it.” Noting that the RSS has “systematically slaughtered Indian Christians and
Muslims on many occasions” and “furthermore wants to wipe out Sikhs, Buddhists,
and, indeed, all religious minorities in India,” I explained that the HSS
“serves as a propaganda mouthpiece for the RSS, promoting its agenda internationally.” “The HSS is a partisan Indian
political outfit,” Brian Wright told the council. “It is the international wing
of the RSS, which is the world’s oldest, largest, and fastest-growing fascist
movement. The HSS-RSS have no place in this world, let alone on our free
American soil. You should be ashamed of supporting the HSS when the RSS is on
the verge of committing genocide in India.” Two other speakers joined the
chorus against HSS-RSS, including a young Sikh woman, who asked, “The question
is: what will you guys do about this whole situation?” Afterwards, the various
speakers and supporters rallied outside the city hall to chant: “RSS Out Of
America. RSS Out Of India.” Discussing the issue at the end of their meeting,
the city council conceded that they may have made a mistake and needed to
establish a better protocol for vetting the groups to which they provide
proclamations. “We got a little mud on our face on this one,” commented
Vice-Mayor Charlie Halford. “Appropriately so, honestly. I mean, we kind of
proclaimed and awarded a group we probably didn’t want to. Without a doubt, we
shouldn’t have done it.” Adding that it took him about “two-tenths of a second”
to look up the RSS online, he concluded, “We probably ought to take a look at
how we determine who gets the proclamation.” Councillor Gary Singh, meanwhile,
remarked, “If we have council consensus, I’d love to see if we can maybe
rescind or recede that proclamation, or whatever we did, just looking at it in
light of all the information that was given tonight.”The council ultimately
agreed to formally reconsider the proclamation.
8. Youth killed: July, 24, 2022: A 19-year-old Muslim man succumbed to his
injuries in Karnataka’s Mangaluru on Thursday, July 21, two days after he was
allegedly assaulted by members of a rightwing Hindutva outfit. Masud, a painter
by profession, and originally from Kerala had been staying at his grandmother’s
house in Kelanje village of Karnataka for the last month. He has four siblings
in Kerala. His father is no more. All eight attackers were indeed members of
the rightwing outfit. The two organisations, VHP and Bajrang Dal, are
understood to function as a single composite unit in the area. A week before
Eid, Masud had purchased a three-month-old calf, said 24-year-old Shanif,
Masud’s friend since childhood. Upon having been tipped off, police visited
their house to inquire into whether Masud intended to slaughter it. Masud, in
fact, wanted to rear the cow, says his friend. On July 19, Sudhir and Masud had
a heated argument, in the course of which they both physically assaulted each
other. Hours later, Sudhir lured Masud to a secluded spot in the village and
severely beat him up along with seven others
“I convinced Masud’s mother that we will resolve this once and for all
and brought Masud to the spot where they were waiting for us. When we reached
the place, the group attacked us ruthlessly with stones and bottles. I tried to
protect Masud but I was also hit and injured,” says Shanif Shanif and his friends started looking for
Masud but were unable to find him for more than two hours. They found him lying
down near a well, unconscious. It was around 2 pm then. They took him to a
local hospital, which declared him serious and he was shifted to Mangaluru,
around 50 kilometres away, for better
https://thewire.in/communalism/karnataka-vhp-bajrang-dal-muslim-injuries
9.
US on Human Rights in India; July 25 2022; US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States was
monitoring what he described as a rise in human rights abuses in India by some
officials, in a rare direct rebuke by Washington of the Asian nation’s rights
record. “We regularly engage with our Indian partners on these shared values
(of human rights) and to that end, we are monitoring some recent concerning
developments in India including a rise in human rights abuses by some
government, police and prison officials,” Blinken said on Monday in a joint
press briefing with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Indian Foreign Minister
Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and India’s Defense Minister Rajnath Singh. Blinken’s
remarks came days after US Representative Ilhan Omar questioned the alleged
reluctance of the US government to criticize Indian Prime Minister Narendra
Modi’s government on human rights.“What does Modi need to do to India’s Muslim
population before we will stop considering them a partner in peace?” Omar, who
belongs to President Joe Biden’s Democratic Party, said last week https://www.arabnews.com/node/2061416/world
10.
Lynching; July 25
2022; A district-level Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and three
associates have been arrested after they beat a Muslim cab driver, Aqueel
Ahmad, to death on a crowded fairground in Lakhimpur Kheri but the police have
invoked charges of causing death by negligence rather than murder. Relatives
and neighbours of Aqueel, 28, staged a dharna, castigating the police for
invoking lesser charges carrying a maximum punishment of two years and
questioning the force’s account of a brawl resulting in death.
https://www.kmsnews.org/kms/2022/07/24/bjp-leader-arrested-after-cab-driver-lynching-in-lakhimpur-kheri.html
11.
Israel is an Apartheid State bySyed Ehtisham; July 31 2022; Over the last three years, IPSN has
consistently been involved in creating awareness about the conditions of the
Palestinian people and drawing people together in acts of solidarity with the
Palestinian people. IPSN has also advocated with the Government of India
against its close military ties with Israel arguing that by purchasing military
hardware from Israel, it supports a brutal military-industrial-complex in
Israel which enables it to oppress and subjugate the Palestinian people. A
recent investigative report by The New York Times revealed that NSO Groups’
Pegasus was part of a $2 billion defence deal signed by the Prime Minister
during his 2017 official visit to Israel. Israeli spyware technology is
developed by being systematically used against Palestinians. Spyware trade is per
se designed for repression, and Israel is at the centre of it because its
colonial and apartheid regime deploys it against a subjugated people. In
defence of the civil rights of Indian human rights activists, and in solidarity
with the resisting Palestinian people, we demand that our public resources are
not spent on surveillance technology bought from an apartheid regime. IPSN notes that the Israeli government has adopted
and practices a policy of separation the over the Palestinians in the West Bank
and Gaza Strip. IPSN follows the call of the UN independent human rights
expert who has noted that “apartheid is being practiced by Israel in the
occupied Palestinian territory”. IPSN agrees with the contention of other human
rights organizations including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch,
B’Tselem, and others who have analyzed the 55-year occupation of the
Palestinian Territory. In different ways they have each underlined how, in the
Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967, there exists a
deeply discriminatory dual legal and political system, that privileges the
700,000 Israeli Jewish settlers living in the 300 illegal Israeli settlements
in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. This was the assertion of the UN Special
Rapporteur for the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory. His
report points to the absence of the “rights of people living in the same
vicinity, but separated by walls, checkpoints and roads”. Moreover, the Special
Rapporteur has observed that “there are more than three
million Palestinians living under an oppressive rule of institutional
discrimination and without a path to a genuine Palestinian state that the
world has long promised, which is their right”. This is also true of Gaza where
two million Palestinians live in Gaza, described in what is referred to as an
‘open-air prison’, without adequate access to power, water or health, with a
collapsing economy and with no ability to freely travel to the rest of
Palestine or the outside world. We
affirm the internationally-understood legal definition of apartheid – a system
of institutionalized racial segregation. Israel falls within the scope of this
definition as a “political regime which so intentionally and clearly
prioritizes fundamental political, legal and social rights to one group over
another, within the same geographic unit on the basis of one’s
racial-national-ethnic identity”. This is nothing short of a Crime against
Humanity. The 1998 Rome Statute
of the Icc is a forward-looking legal instrument which prohibits apartheid as a
crime against humanity today and into the future, wherever it may exist. In
opposition to this definition Israel seeks to demographically foist a
permanent, and illegal, Israeli sovereign claim over occupied territory, while
confining Palestinians in smaller and more confined reserves of disconnected
land, just as there were the Bantustans in South Africa under the apartheid
regime there. IPSN
regards the multiple barbaric acts, arbitrary and extra-judicial killings,
torture, the denial of fundamental rights, an abysmal child mortality rate,
collective punishment, an abusive military court system, and home demolitions
as signs of a cruel regime which holds human rights in disregard. Israel’s
annexation of occupied territory is unlawful, its construction of hundreds of
Jewish settlements is illegal, and its denial of Palestinian self-determination
breaches international law. Sadly,
the international community has failed in its duty to create a united rejection
of Israel’s apartheid. IPSN
commits itself to joining hands with other networks in India to oppose Israel’s
apartheid policies and practices through several measures: Join the BDS-India Movement, INCACBI which is also
a Platform for Indian solidarity with the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and
Sanctions (BDS) movement to be actively engaged in fighting against
economic-academic-cultural collaboration with Israel.; Bring Israeli apartheid to the notice of the Indian
Human Rights community by engaging in comparative studies of discriminatory
laws and practices in Israel which the Indian Government has duplicated. (The
practices of the Indian government against Muslim and Christian minorities are
virtually a copy-cat version of the way Israel discriminates and brutalizes
Palestinians); Campaign
against Indian collaboration with Israel’s military-industrial complex, noting
especially that Israel is influencing the Indian government in its subjugation
of the Kashmiri people by applying near-identical policies as Israel does on
the Palestinian people. ;IPSN
will continue its work with inter-faith platforms including Muslim collectives,
Dalit and Adivasi groups and the Hindus for Human Rights through which it is
able to highlight the Question of Palestine.;
To seek a working dialogue with the NCCI and
Catholic institutions for a Christian response against apartheid in Israel.
12.
Bail
rejected: July 3, 2022: A sessions court in
Ahmedabad on Saturday denied bail to activist Teesta Setalvad and former
Gujarat police officer R.B. Sreekumar, who were arrested by a Special
Investigation Team (SIT) for allegedly fabricating documents to frame innocent
people in the 2002 Gujarat riots cases. Additional principal judge D.D. Thakkar
said that both the orders are rejected. “On perusing statement of witnesses,
it appears that both these applicants and others were actively involved in the
conspiracy against against the then C.M. and Ministers, police officers as well
as Bureaucrat etc (sic),” the court order read.
https://thewire.in/government/teesta-setalvad-rb-sreekumar-bail-applications-rejected-gujarat-riots-conspiracy-case
Monthly update 34; Jone 2022 : Muslims in India
This page updates
news related to the plight of Muslims in India
.
1.
US Report; Jun 4, 2022: Some officials in India are ignoring or even supporting rising
attacks on people and places of worship in the country, a United States
official said late on Thursday after the release of a report on religious
freedom globally in 2021. The report said attacks on members of religious
minority communities, including killings, assaults, and intimidation, had
occurred throughout last year in India. These included cow vigilantism assaults
on non-Hindus for allegedly slaughtering cows or trading in beef. Many states
ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist party have enacted
laws or toughened old ones against slaughtering cows. “For example, in India,
the world's largest democracy and home to a great diversity of faiths, we've
seen rising attacks on people and places of worship,” Blinken said. Rashad
Hussain, who leads the US State Department's efforts to monitor religious
freedom around the world, said some Indian officials were “ignoring or even
supporting rising attacks on people and places of worship”. India's foreign
ministry said the country values religious freedom and human rights, and that
it had noted the “ill-informed comments by senior US officials”.“It is
unfortunate that vote bank politics is being practiced in international
relations,” ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said in a statement. He also
said Indian officials have regularly highlighted “racially and ethnically
motivated attacks, hate crimes and gun violence” in the United States. Disputes
between religious communities in India over places of worship have flared ever
since the country won independence from British rule in 1947, but they have
become more common in recent years. Muslims make up around 13pc of India's
population. https://www.dawn.com/news/1692927/us-says-some-indian-officials-ignoring-or-supporting-attacks-on-minorities
2.
Boycott Indian goods: Jun
5, 2022:
after hash tags calling for the boycott of Indian products began trending on
Twitter in Arab countries over alleged inflammatory remarks against Prophet
Mohammed by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokespersons Nupur Sharma and Naveen
Kumar Jindal, the party cracked a whip against them. The Grand Mufti of Oman
along with Twitter handles with a large following have called for the boycott.
The tweets also included a scathing attack against Prime Minister Narendra
Modi. The Grand Mufti of Oman Sheikh Al-Khalili tweeted. Sharma’s and Jindal’s
remarks have drawn protests from Muslim groups. .” Soon after she was served
with the suspension notice, Sharma took to Twitter and said it was never her
intention to hurt anyone’s religious feelings. She said her remarks made on TV
were only in response to “continuous insult and disrespect to our Mahadev” and
that it was “mockingly being said it is not Shivling but a fountain.” The Shivling
referred to the ongoing controversy concerning the Gyanvapi mosque places of worship” in India. However, the
Indian embassy in Oman did re-post tweets of the BJP’s statement through its
official Twitter account. While the Indian embassies highlighted the Indian
PM’s tweet, it was not enough to stop the social media momentum with a number of prominent Arab social media
personalities
focussing on the remarks by several BJP members, actions by authorities which
had an alleged anti-Muslim bias, as well as, social media posts of Gulf-based
Indians. There were also calls for the boycott of Indian businesses in the
Gulf. https://thewire.in/communalism/after-boycott-india-tweets-in-arab-world-bjp-clarifies-on-insulting-remarks-against-islam
3.
Boycott Indian Goods: June, 6, 2022: An international diplomatic storm has engulfed India’s ruling
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi,
following the sanctioning of two party spokespersons over insulting remarks the
pair are reported to have made towards Prophet Muhammad. BJP national
spokeswoman Nupur Sharma was suspended from the party’s primary membership on
Sunday for comments made in a recent television debate, while the BJP’s Delhi
media operation head Naveen Kumar Jindal was also expelled, according to BJP
documents and media reports. Sharma is reported to have insulted the prophet
and his wife Aisha in a TV debate last week. Following an outcry over the
comments made during the debate, Sharma’s colleague Jindal is reported to have
posted a now-deleted tweet about the prophet that also angered many. The
remarks have been blamed for clashes in an Indian state and have also prompted
demands for the spokeswoman’s arrest in India. India’s ambassadors to Kuwait
and Qatar were summoned on Sunday to receive official notes of protest over the
comments, and Pakistan’s ministry of foreign affairs issued a statement
condemning the “highly derogatory remarks” and the BJP’s response. “These
totally unacceptable remarks have not only deeply hurt the sentiments of the
people of Pakistan but of billions of Muslims around the world,” the foreign ministry
said in a statement. “BJP’s attempted clarification and belated and perfunctory
disciplinary action against these individuals cannot assuage the pain and
anguish they have caused to the Muslim world,” the ministry said. Qatar’s
Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the Indian ambassador to present an
official note “expressing the disappointment of the State of Qatar and its
total rejection and condemnation to the controversial remarks”, the QNA state
news agency reported. While welcoming the BJP statement and suspension of
staff, Qatar is expecting a public apology and condemnation of the remarks by
the government of India. “The State of Qatar calls on the Indian government to
immediately condemn these remarks and publicly apologise to all Muslims around
the world,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majed Mohammed Al Ansari said. Kuwait also summoned the
Indian ambassador and said it had handed the ambassador a protest note in which
Kuwait rejected and denounced the statements made by the BJP official, Reuters
reported. The Organisation of Islamic
Cooperation– the second-largest
intergovernmental organisation in the world after the United Nations, with a
collective population reaching over 1.8 billion also added its voice to the
condemnation.“The General Secretariat of the Organisation of Islamic
Cooperation expresses its strong condemnation and denunciation of the recent
insults issued by an official in the ruling party in India towards the Prophet
Muhammad, Peace Be Upon Him,” the 57-member state organisation said in a statement. Saudi Arabia condemned the remarks, describing the spokesperson’s
comments as “insulting” and calling for “respect for beliefs and religions”, according
to a foreign ministry statement .The controversy has raised the ire of social
media users in Arab countries who have called for a boycott of Indian products,
denounced the escalation of hatred against Islam and Muslims, and accused India
of following in the footsteps of France and China in promoting Islamophobia. In
its statement, Pakistan’s foreign ministry said it was “also deeply concerned
at the alarming rise in communal violence and hatred directed against the
Muslims in India”. Qatar’s Assistant Foreign Minister Lolwah al-Khater also
said that “Islamophobic discourse” has reached “dangerous levels” in India – a
country well known for its “diversity and coexistence”. Hate speech against
Muslims in India needs to be officially confronted, al-Khater said.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/6/5/bjp-suspends-spokespersons-who-insulted-prophet-muhammad
4.
Muslim States react: Jun 7, 2022: The United Arab Emirates (UAE), Jordan and Maldives became the latest
Muslim countries to condemn the derogatory remarks made against Prophet
Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) by leaders of India's ruling Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP). In a statement issued on Monday, the UAE's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and
International Cooperation condemned the remarks and affirmed its firm rejection
of "all practices and behaviors that contradict moral and human values and
principles". It underscored the need to respect religious symbols and not
violate them, as well as confront hate speech and violence. "The ministry
also noted the importance of strengthening the shared international
responsibility to spread the values of tolerance and human coexistence while
preventing any practices that would inflame the sentiment of followers of
different religions," the statement said. Jordan's Ministry of Foreign
Affairs and Expatriates also issued a similar condemnation on Twitter.
Meanwhile, a statement by the government of Maldives said it unreservedly condemned
"all and any action that purports to pervert the true nature and teachings
of Islam and attempts to demean" Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). It went on to
say that it was "deeply concerned" by the derogatory remarks by some
BJP officials but also welcomed the Indian government's response. Muslim
countries are unanimous in condemning remarks. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait,
Oman, Iran and Pakistan had issued similar condemnations earlier. Qatar, Kuwait
and Iran had summoned India's envoy to register their protest on Sunday, while
Pakistan issued a strong demarche to the Indian charge d'affaires on Monday.
Qatar has also sought a public apology from India for allowing such
"Islamophobic" views without retribution. The grand mufti of Oman,
Sheikh Ahmad bin Hamad Al-Khalil, had tweeted that the "obscene"
comments of the spokesperson of India's ruling party amounted to a "war
against every Muslim".
https://www.dawn.com/news/1693454/more-muslim-countries-take-exception-to-bjp-leaders-derogatory-remarks-about-holy-prophet
5.
Arab reaction: Jun , 7, 2022: Superstores in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain remove Indian
products after insulting remarks against Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him),
reports said. "Superstores in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain remove Indian
products after insulting remarks against Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him)
by Indian PM Modi's close aide", South Asia Index tweeted a little while
ago. reports coming from few Middle
Eastern countries also said some Arab employers have asked Indian workers to
leave their job.“Arabs have started removing Indian (Hindu) workers after the
insult to Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) by BJP leaders in India”, South
Asian Journal wrote in a tweet. Along with its tweet, the Journal also tagged a
Twitter post by an Arab citizen that said: “An Indian (carpenter), whose
religion is Modi’s, is working under my sponsorship. He is on vacation. I told
him that I do not want him to return because of the abuse of our Messenger (may
peace be upon him) (sic). The Journal also shared a video that showed storekeepers
covering the Indian products kept on racks. In a related development, Qatar
summoned the Indian ambassador and handed over a protest note against insulting
remarks by the BJP leaders."The Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned,
today, H.E. Dr. Deepak Mittal, the Ambassador of the Republic of India to the
country, and handed him an official note, expressing the disappointment of the
State of Qatar and its total rejection and condemnation to the controversial
remarks made by an official in the ruling party in India against Prophet
Mohammed (may blessings and peace be upon him", Ministry of Foreign
Affairs said. Hash tags calling boycott of Indian products and denouncing BJP
and PM Modi are among the top trends in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait and other
Arab states since Saturday. According to a recent data, about 3.5 million in
the United Arab Emirates (UAE), 1.54 million Indians live in Saudi Arabia and
close to 1 million in Kuwait for jobs in different capacities. These
expatriates could be in trouble if the widespread hate against Muslims and
Islam that has become rampant in India under PM Modi is not checked
immediately, analysts warn.
https://ummid.com/news/2022/june/05.06.2022/superstores-in-arab-states-remove-indian-products-sack-hindu-workers.html
6.
Muslim protest continue: Jun 11, 2022:Muslims took to the streets in huge protests around Asia after Friday
prayers, sparked by remarks about the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) by an Indian
ruling party official that embroiled the country in a diplomatic storm. Anger
has engulfed the Islamic world since last week, when a spokeswoman for Prime
Minister Narendra Modi's ruling party made a disrespectful comment on the Holy
Prophet on a TV debate show. Around 20 countries have since called in their
Indian ambassadors and the party has gone into damage control, suspending the
official from its ranks and insisting it respected all religions. Friday saw
the biggest street rallies yet in response to the furore, with police
estimating more than 100,000 people mobilised across Bangladesh after midday
prayers. “We gather here today to protest the insult of our Prophet by Indian
government officials,” said Amanullah Aman, a protester in the capital Dhaka.
“We want death penalties for them. Crowds in the city chanted slogans denouncing
Modi and warning enemies of the Muslim faith to “be careful”. In Pakistan,
Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) held a march in its stronghold of Lahore after
Friday prayers. Around 5,000 supporters of the TLP a previously banned group
gathered to protest in the city centre calling on the government to take
stronger action against India over the comments. Members of India's 200
million-strong Muslim minority community staged demonstrations in several
cities, with a large crowd gathered on the steps of the 17th-century Jama
Masjid mosque in New Delhi. Elsewhere in the capital, social media footage
showed students of the prestigious Jamia Millia Islamia university burning an
effigy of Nupur Sharma the Bharatiya Janata Party spokeswoman whose comments
set off the furore. Authorities in Indian-occupied Kashmir cut the restive
territory's internet connections, restricted prayer congregations at mosques
and imposed a curfew on Friday. A spontaneous shutdown saw businesses close
across Srinagar, the region's major city, with protesters calling for
retribution against “disrespect” to the Prophet. In Indonesia, the world's
largest Muslim-majority country, about 50 protesters staged a rally in front of
the Indian embassy in Jakarta. “The Indian government must apologise to Muslims
and they must take strict action against the politicians who made the remarks,”
protest coordinator Ali Hasan told AFP.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1694102/huge-protests-in-asia-over-indian-politicians-remarks-against-holy-prophet
7.
House demolished; Jun , 13, 2022: Civic authorities in Uttar Pradesh’s Prayagraj
started demolishing the house of Welfare Party of India activist Javed Mohammed
on Sunday afternoon, claiming that it was an illegal construction . Earlier on
Sunday, the Prayagraj Development Authority had asked Mohammed’s family to
vacate the house by 11 am. The authority claimed that it had given a show cause
notice to Mohammed, on May 10, asking him to appear for a hearing before it on
May 24. However, he did not comply. Somaiya Fatima, the younger daughter of
Mohammad, told Scroll.in that the family had
not been served any notice about the alleged illegality of their house.
Mohammad’s lawyer also questioned the legality of the demolition claiming that
it belonged to his wife, but the order did not mention her name. On Saturday,
the police had arrested Mohammad for allegedly hatching a conspiracy to carry
out violent protests against the disparaging remarks made by two Bharatiya
Janata Party spokespersons about Prophet Muhammad. Somaiya Fatima told Scroll.in that she and her
mother had also been detained late on Saturday. They were released on Sunday
morning. While there are no provisions under Indian law to demolish the home of
anyone accused of a crime, this pattern has been regularly observed across
Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states. ‘No notice was served earlier’. Somaiya
Fatima told Scroll.in that the authorities
had not issued any notice earlier about the house being illegal. “This is the
first notice that we got last night (Saturday),” she said. “No one has even
spoken to us about this before a day ago. If our property was truly illegal,
then why did they not come and give us these notices early. This is an
incredibly hard time for us.” Somaiya Fatima said that she and her mother,
50-year-old Parveen Fatima, were detained by the Prayagraj Police around 12.30
am on Sunday and taken to the city’s Civil Lines female police station. “They
only told us that they wanted to speak to us about something and then they will
let us go,” “They started with asking us strange questions like what are the
kind of conversations we have at home and what are the kind of posts we share.
They were trying to get something controversial out of us, but none of that is
even true. We only speak the truth.” Somaiya Fatima said that while women
police officers tried to get them to talk, a male officer abused her mother and
said that force should be used to make them “spill the truth”. The police also
asked Somaiya and Parveen Fatima to call home and ask the family members to
vacate the house. After their released around 8 am on Sunday, Somaiya and
Parveen Fatima were taken to their relatives’ homes instead of their own home.
“They [The police] videographed us, our relatives, their home and asked us to
not leave this place,” Somaiya Fatima said. She added that the family still
does not know about the whereabouts of her father. Kamal Krishna Roy Roy, a
lawyer of the Mohammad family, told Scroll.in that a petition has
been filed in the Allahabad High Court challenging the demolition. In a letter
to the chief justice, Roy and other lawyers have argued that the house was
registered under the name of Parveen Fatima, the wife of Javed Mohammed. Documents
from the Prayagraj civic authorities showed Fatima’s name on them. “The house
was a gift from her [Fatima] father,”“Under Muslim Personal Law when a woman
gets a property.It does not automatically belong to her husband. “The notice
that the government has issued is against Javed Mohammad, but the property does
not belong to him.” “Any attempt by the District and Police Administration and
the Development Authority to demolish that house will be against the basic
principle of law and a grave injustice to the wife and children of Javed
Mohammad,” the letter to the chief justice stated. The letter added that the
Mohammad family had received no show cause notice as has been mentioned in the
demolition orders. Mohammad was arrested on Saturday. The Uttar Pradesh Police
arrested Mohammed on Saturday after some protestors in Prayagraj’s Atala area
threw stones at the police after Friday prayers.
8.
Senior
Superintendent of Police Ajay Kumar alleged that Mohammed had also consulted
his daughter, student activist Afreen Fatima, about the protests. Fatima said
in a video that the police came to her house without a warrant and took her
father into custody. She also said that the police detained her mother and
sister and that she does not know their whereabouts. “My younger sister is just
19 years old and my mother is a diabetic patient,” she added. Fatima also
claimed that the police attempted to detain her and her sister-in-law. State
BJP chief Swatantra Dev Singh supported the calls for demolition of the homes
of persons accused of violence. “Those whose homes are in the shadow of
bulldozers do not throw stones at others,” he said on Twitter. On Saturday, the
Kanpur Development Authority demolished a four-storey high-rise building owned
by a close aide of the main accused in the violence that broke out in the city
last week. On June 3, at least 40 persons were injured in Kanpur after violence
had erupted over the BJP spokerspersons’ comments on the Prophet Muhammed. https://www.dawn.com/news/1694439/indian-muslim-activists-house-razed-after-police-arrest-him-for-protests-over-prophet-remarks
9. Vicious crackdown; Jun, 16, 2022: A top
human rights group says India must immediately end a “vicious” crackdown on
Muslims who took to the streets to protest against the ruling party official’s
remarks about Prophet Muhammad and his wife Aisha. Authorities were
“selectively and viciously cracking down on Muslims who dare to speak up …
against the discrimination faced by them,” Amnesty International’s Aakar Patel
said in a statement on Tuesday. “Cracking down on protesters with excessive use
of force, arbitrary detention and punitive house demolitions is in complete
violation of India’s commitments under international human rights law.” Thousands
of Muslims have taken to the streets across
India to protest against anti-Islamic comments made by two members of Prime
Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Two Muslim teenagers were killed and
hundreds of others arrested last week in nationwide protests over the comments,
which embroiled India in a diplomatic furor and caused widespread outrage in the
Muslim world. Amnesty demanded an “immediate and unconditional release” of the
jailed protesters. Also on Tuesday, in a
letter to the chief justice of India’s Supreme Court, six prominent former
judges and six senior lawyers said the government in Uttar Pradesh state had
acted illegally by demolishing the house of a
Muslim activist following the protests. State chief minister Yogi Adityanath, a
saffron-robed BJP hardliner, ordered the weekend demolition of any illegal
buildings of people accused of involvement in violence last week, including the
home of activist Mohammad Javed on Sunday. Adityanath, one of India’s most
prominent Hindu nationalist politicians, is known for his sectarian rhetoric
against India’s 200-million strong Muslim minority. He has repeatedly called on
authorities to demolish the homes of people accused of crimes, an exhortation
critics say violates constitutional and human rights laws that ban collective
punishment.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/6/15/muslims-in-india-continue-protests-over-prophet-remarks
10. Ilhan Omar ; June, 23, 2022: Last week, the US State Department spokesperson Ned Price had said Washington had condemned the remarks when asked a question on “hate crimes’’ India. On June 2, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his Ambassador for International Religious Freedom Rashad Hussein had commented on the state of religious freedom in India. In late April, a report by the USCIRF had recommended that India be blacklisted on human rights concerns. Moved by Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar , the US Congress resolution says “Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Dalits, Adivasis, and other religious and cultural minorities’’ are being targeted in India. Its co-sponsors are Rashida Tlaib, James McGovern and Juan Vargas. Omar and Tlaib are among the three Muslims in the US Congress. McGovern is the Co-Chair of the bipartisan Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission which will hold the hearing on global islamophobia on June 30. https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/nation/ilhan-omar-moves-us-congress-resolution-condemning-human-rights-in-india-406051
11.
Activist arrested; June
26 2022:
Less than a day after the Supreme Court dismissed a petition appealing a lower
court’s refusal to file a case against Narendra Modi for his role in Gujarat’s
anti-Muslim violence of 2002, the state’s police have arrested one of the
petitioners activist Teesta Setalvad for what they claimed was a conspiracy to
send innocent persons to jail Sreekumar
has also been arrested, according
to reports.
The former police officer was arrested from his residence in Gandhinagar on
Saturday afternoon and taken to the crime branch’s headquarters. The three are
accused of conspiring to mislead the Special Investigation Team tasked with
probing the Gujarat riots and the role, if any, Modi played as chief minister in
the unfolding of violence which took the lives of more than 1,200 people, most
of them Muslim. The SIT was set up by the Supreme Court following complaints
that the Gujarat Police under Modi was not serious about investigating the
anti-Muslim violence. The court itself, in 2004, had referred to Modi as “a modern day Nero” who was
“looking elsewhere when innocent children and women were burning, and probably
deliberating how the perpetrators of the crime can be protected.” But in 2012,
the SIT concluded no case was made out against Modi and its findings were
accepted by the trial court and upheld by the Gujarat high court in 2017. It
was this matter which was then brought before the Supreme Court in 2018. Significantly, the police’s FIR cites a
portion of the Supreme Court’s judgment dismissing Zakia Jafri’s
plea challenging the SIT’s rejection of a larger conspiracy behind the mass
violence. The top court had observed: “At the end of the day, it appears to
us that a coalesced effort of the disgruntled officials of the State of Gujarat
along with others was to create sensation by making revelations which were
false to their own knowledge … Intriguingly, the present proceedings have been
pursued for last 16 years (from submission of complaint dated 8.6.2006 running
into 67 pages and then by filing protest petition dated 15.4.2013 running into
514 pages) including with the audacity to question the integrity of every
functionary involved in the process of exposing the devious stratagem adopted
(to borrow the submission of learned counsel for the SIT), to keep the pot
boiling, obviously, for ulterior design. As a matter of fact, all those
involved in such abuse of process, need to be in the dock and proceeded with in
accordance with law.” This observation, a former judge of the Supreme Court
told The Wire on condition of anonymity, is “shocking” and legally
unprecedented. “At the very least”, he said, “Setalvad should have been served
notice about the court coming to this conclusion and she should have been given
a chance to respond. That is what proper procedure. Setalvad’s organisation,
Citizens for Justice and Peace, has canvassed and litigated cases stemming from
the 2002 anti-Muslim massacres in Gujarat, especially the Gulberg Society and
Naroda Patiya killings. The latter case led to the conviction of prominent
BJP leader and former minister Maya Kodnani. Meanwhile, Sanjiv Bhatt who was
the deputy inspector general of police at the time of the 2002 riots filed an
affidavit in the Supreme Court accusing Modi of complicity in the violence. He
was arrested in 2018 in a custodial death
case that was more than two decades old. His family has
labelled his arrest as state persecution for the affidavit. Sreekumar told the
Nanavati Commission that he was informed by the DGP of Gujarat police in 2002
that Modi had asked the police to “allow the Hindus” to “vent their anger”
against the alleged planned killing of 59 kar sevaks in the Godhra train
fire. Sreekumar was in line to become the DGP but was superseded.
https://thewire.in/government/gujarat-police-arrest-teesta-setalvad-activist-who-pursued-2002-riots-case-against-modi
Monthly update 33; May 2022 : Muslims in India
This page updates
news related to the plight of Muslims in India
.
1. Indian deported; May 77 2022; Indian Hindu fired, jailed and deported from Qatar on his hate speech against Muslims & Arabs while he was working & living on Muslim Arab soil https://twitter.com/LadyVelvet_HFQ/status/1522601415310462976 @LadyVelvet_HFQ
2. Muslims should be set ablaze ; may 9 2022; Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Haribhushan Thakur Bachaul has said that Muslims should be set ablaze just as Hindus burn Ravana effigies during the festival of Dussehra. “We need a Hanuman ji so that our youth could be strong, the people of our country could be strong. Just like Ravana’s Lanka was burnt by Hanuman ji, the demon-like Ravanas, who are hovering over Bihar and the country, should also be burnt,” he told reporters “Demon-like Ravanas” is seen by many as a reference to religious and other minorities in the country, especially Muslims. When asked where are the ‘Ravanas’ in Bihar, Bachaul said, “You go and see what is happening in Kashmir…Kishanganj, what’s happening in Purnia In February 2022, the BJP MLA had also said that Muslims living in India should be stripped of voting rights and treated as second class citizens He is the same BJP MLA who had said that “those who are feeling scared in India should go to Afghanistan…petrol and diesel are cheaper, Once there, they will understand the value of India.” https://thewire.in/communalism/muslims-should-be-set-ablaze-just-as-hindus-burn-ravana-effigies-on-dussehra-bjp-mla
3.
Prayers banned; May 16, 2022; A court on Monday banned large Muslim prayer gatherings in one of
north India's highest-profile mosques, after a survey team found relics of the
Hindu god Shiva and other Hindu symbols there, a lawyer involved in the case
said. The judge at the court in Varanasi
the site of the historic Gyanvapi mosque
ruled that Muslim gatherings there should be limited to 20 people,
lawyer H. S. Jain said. The court ordered the survey of the mosque after five
women represented by Jain sought
permission to perform Hindu rituals in one part of it, saying a Hindu temple
once stood on the site. The Gyanvapi mosque, located in the constituency of
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is one of several mosques in northern Uttar
Pradesh that Hindu hardliners believe in common with some other religious sites
was built on top of demolished Hindu temples. Police said the court order would
help maintain law and order at a time when hardline Hindu groups tied to Modi's
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had stepped up demands to excavate inside some
mosques and to permit searches in the Taj Mahal mausoleum. Leaders of India's
200 million Muslims view such moves as attempts to undermine their rights to
free worship and religious expression, with the BJP's tacit agreement. In 2019,
the Supreme Court allowed Hindus to build a temple at the site of the disputed
16th century Babri mosque that was demolished by Hindu crowds in 1992 who
believed it was built where Hindu Lord Ram was born. The incident led to
religious riots that killed nearly 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, across India.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1689984/indian-court-limits-muslim-gatherings-at-mosque-after-hindu-relics-found-says-lawyer
Monthly update 32; April 2022 : Muslims in India
This page updates
news related to the plight of Muslims in India
.
1. Indian restaurant shut down: Apr., 4 2022: Authorities in the Bahraini capital, Manama, have shut down an Indian restaurant after it allegedly denied entry to a woman wearing the hijab On Friday, in a widely-shared video the friend of the woman in question explained what happened. "The restaurant, "Lanterns" is telling her you cannot enter because you are wearing a hijab. Can you imagine?" the woman said. "The restaurants should not be making these types of decisions, because we are in a Muslim country." According to Bahraini newspaper, the Daily Tribune, the Bahrain Tourism and Exhibition Authority (BTEA) has since launched an investigation into the matter. The Lantern restaurant's duty manager has also been taken into custody; the restaurant also confirmed that he was suspended. On Saturday .The incident comes amid an Indian court's decision, earlier this month, to uphold a controversial ban on the hijab inside educational institutions in the southern state of Karnataka, which is governed by the Hindu hardliner BJP party. The ban sparked angry protests from Muslim women and girls. https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20220328-bahrain-indian-restaurant-shut-down-over-banning-entry-to-woman-wearing-hijab/?mc_cid=70cfcbe0e0&mc_eid=f50a97be6b
2. Burning of Muslim
Hoses: April 2022: Pakistan on Tuesday strongly condemned the
"senseless" vandalisation and burning of more than 40 houses of
Muslims in the Karauli area of Rajasthan, India by radical Hindu zealots
belonging to the BJP-RSS dispensation with the connivance of local security
authorities. According to Indian publication The Wire, clashes broke out in a
Muslim-dominated area in Rajasthan on Monday (April 4) when Hindu right-wing
organisations were taking out a procession. Reportedly, it said, communal slurs were hurled resulting in
violence, which included stone-pelting, people coming to blows and vandalism.
Several people have been injured. Police arrested over 40 people after imposing
strict prohibitory orders.The violence-hit areas are currently under curfew,
until Thursday, April 7, and the internet has also been suspended to restore
normality. The Foreign Office spokesperson
said in a statement that equally alarming is the apathy of state machinery
which wantonly looked the other way and failed in its basic duty of protecting
the lives and properties of its citizens. He said regretfully, the minorities
in India, especially the Muslims, continue to live under fear and intimidation.
The BJP-RSS combine has enabled the perpetration of senseless violence against
minorities as part of its “Hindutva” agenda marked by hate and majoritarianism,
he added. "Deafening silence of the BJP leadership and absence of
discernible action against 'Hindutva' proponents must ring alarm bells across
the international community," he remarked. Recently, on April 3, Yati
Narsinghan, the infamous Haridwar priest, once again brazenly called upon the
Hindus to take up arms against the Muslims.
https://tribune.com.pk/story/2351150/pakistan-slams-burning-of-muslims-homes-in-india-riots
3.
Communal clashes in India: Apr 12 2021: Clashes between Hindus and Muslims during a religious festival
prompted police in India to impose a curfew in one town and ban gatherings of
more than four people in affected parts of Gujarat and two other states on
Monday. A day earlier, at least one person was killed and ten, including nine
police, were injured when a Hindu procession was allegedly pelted with stones
in a town in the western state of Gujarat. In the central state of Madhya
Pradesh, more than 35 people were injured during similar clashes, while the
eastern state of Jharkand also suffered communal violence. "We have
detained seven people after the clashes and tight security arrangements have
been put in place to prevent further tension," said M J Chaudhari, a
police official based in Khambat town of Gujarat's Anand district, where one
incident took place. Authorities in Gujarat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's
home state, also imposed a curfew in parts of Himmatnagar town. The festival on
Sunday marked the birth of the Hindu Lord Ram. Last week, police imposed a
curfew in the desert state of Rajasthan after a similar attack on a religious
procession.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1684506/communal-violence-in-india-prompts-police-to-ban-gatherings-in-affected-areas
4. US Must Stop
"Monitoring" Human Rights Crisis in India, Start Acting Response to
Secretary Blinken's remarks on human rights in India by Pieter Friedrich; April 12
2022; On the 11th of April, US Secretary of State
Antony Blinken held a press conference in Washington, DC with the US Secretary
of Defense and their Indian counterparts. At the press conference, Blinken
stated: “We regularly engage with our Indian partners on these shared values
(of human rights) and to that end, we are monitoring some recent concerning
developments in India including a rise in human rights abuses by some
government, police and prison officials
Indian Muslims are facing an impending genocide. Eliminating Muslims
from the land in their relentless quest to turn India into a Hindu nation is a
primary goal of the RSS, the Nazi-inspired paramilitary that controls the
country’s ruling party, the BJP. Under the Modi regime, we’ve seen lynchings,
the CAA/NRC, the Delhi Pogrom, concentration camps constructed in Assam,
interfaith marriages criminalized, Muslims banned from wearing hijab in
schools, calls for economic boycott of Muslims, Muslim merchants attacked,
homes burned, mosques burned, calls for raping Muslim women, repeated calls for
the mass slaughter of Muslims, governments razing Muslim neighborhoods, parade after
parade after parade of gangs of hundreds of armed Hindu nationalists
brandishing swords and dancing themselves into a frenzy of hate in front of
mosques, and…. And…. And…. But this is the best that US Secretary of State
Antony Blinken can manage: “We are monitoring a rise in human rights abuses.”
Blinken just wants to shut people like you and me up so he can get on with
business as usual. But, as one of those critics, let me remind him: my own ask
has never been for the US government to “monitor” what is happening in India,
but rather to stop passively watching and start taking real action before it’s
too damn late. Both President Biden and Vice-President Harris gave speeches
alongside him. Harris gave a speech in which she, briefly, emphasized the importance
of defending democracy (while suggesting that such a vision may not yet have
been fully achieved). Biden gave a speech in which he highlighted, briefly, the
present-day urgency of Gandhi’s “message of non-violence, respect, [and]
tolerance.”Desperately hungry for the US to say something about the growing
human rights crisis in Modi’s India, many commentators jumped on that as an
example of how Biden and Harris were both expressing concern. They were
“gently” pressing Modi on human rights, we were told, and “subtly” conveying
criticism. Yeah, right. It was so subtle and so gentle that this is where we
are today: just six months closer to the impending Muslim genocide breaking out
in full force. Six months from now, Blinken’s “rare” remark that the US is
“monitoring” a rise in human rights abuses in India will be as forgotten as the
“subtle” and “gentle” hint, hinting by Biden and Harris. Six months from now,
the situation in India will have become radically worse than it is today. Will
Blinken still be “monitoring” the situation then or will he be openly
criticizing the Modi regime for sanctioning the mass murder of its Muslim
citizens? Here’s my call to you if you are a US citizen who cares about this
issue. Don’t be afraid to call out Blinken’s remarks for the useless, toothless
comments that they are. Tell the US Congress and the Biden administration that
we want real action. We need remarks with real teeth. They must be unvarnished,
honest remarks which call the situation what it is: one of impending genocide.
They must be remarks which actually recognize, criticize, and denounce. Because
lives hang in the balance, it’s imperative that we refuse to settle, and demand
something real. Demand that the US quit “monitoring” and start acting.
5. Muslims attacked: Apr 13 2022 ; On April 10, several processions were
taken out across India to celebrate Ram Navami. However, many of these
processions and rallies made deliberate attempts to disrupt peace and communal
harmony in neighbourhoods dominated by Muslims. At 1 pm on Sunday, in Himmatnagar town of
Sabarkantha district, north Gujarat, roughly 90 km away from Ahmedabad, some
Hindus reportedly celebrated Ram Navami while yielding swords as a part of the
procession. As the procession began to enter Ashraf Nagar, a Muslim-dominated
area between two Hindu localities, Shakti Nagar and Mahavir Nagar, locals
claimed that Hindu men allegedly engaged aggressively with local Muslims. When
Muslims watched the passing procession from their terraces, they told The
Wire, slurs were reportedly exchanged and the Hindus accused the Muslims of
mocking their festivities. This snowballed into a violent face-off, triggering
further destruction in other parts of Himmatnagar. Violence was also reported
from another town, Anand district’s Khambat. To mitigate and combat the violence and
vandalism, three companies of State Reserve Police (SRP) and local police
forces from Ahmedabad, Aravalli, Anand and Mehsana were rushed to Himmatnagar
on orders from Ashish Bhatia, the Director General of Police, Gujarat (DGP). In
the evening, locals say and videos show stones being pelted and fire crackers
thrown on police personnel, injuring at least three police personnel in
Himmatnagar.When they saw that people in the procession were carrying swords, local
Muslims reportedly sounded an alert within the community. Seeing the marching
men, many like Ahmed locked their doors and windows, so their houses would look
empty. Others, however, refused to hide and decided to retaliate against the
perceived provocation. Fareed, 19, was among those out on the road during the
procession. He paid a price for this; he suffered a blow on the back of his
head during the violence, and is currently admitted in Ahmedabad Civil
Hospital. Fareed’s uncle, Saleem Sheikh said, “Fareed was out for barely five
minutes, he did not indulge in any violence and yet he was hit by a stone, he
has suffered internal bleeding and is not conscious even as of today”.Later in
the evening, locals saw at least 25 Muslim men being taken away by the ‘A
division’ Police. Ghaffar, a resident of Mali Ki Chaparia, told The Wire,
“They had a plan, they burnt Muslim shops, mosques and even set not one but
many dargahs on fire. I saw a man with a saffron scarf yelling ‘Jai Shri Ram’
while he was hurling stones at the mosque I go to; he wore an orange scarf with
‘Om’ written on it.” Locals who did not wish to be named shared a few
observations about the incident. They pointed towards the nature, intensity and
spread of the violence. Across India, during Navratri, demands emerged for
various bans on activities that hold relevance in Islam or are connected to
Muslims. In Gujarat, they believe, this extended to a planned attempt to exert
dominance over Muslims on Ram Navami. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal
circulated social media content to invite Hindus to such processions. One such
poster that The Wire had access to said, “Jai Hindurashtra” and “Aao
Mil kar kare Ram Rajya ka Nirmaan” in Gujarati, with a photo of the deity
Ram at the centre. Such posters and the cadre of these organisations mobilised
large masses of Hindus to join in what they called the ‘Ram Navami Shobha
Yatra’. Hozefa Ujjaini, a social activist, said that
the violence on Sunday in Himmatnagar and Khambat were based on the pattern
shown in Rajasthan’s Karauli, where Muslim houses were set ablaze. He recalled
how on Holi, Muslims in Sandheli, a village 100 km away from Himmatnagar, saw
harassment, violence and anti-Muslim slogans. Ujjaini, under the aegis of the
Nagrik Adhikar Manch Gujarat (NAMG), an Ahmedabad-based rights organisation,
wrote to the Gujarat director general police urging them to heighten security
and initiate action against the culprits. However, the DGP is yet to respond to
the letter, The Wire has learnt. The letter by NAMG calls for action
against rioters who in the garb of religious processions attempt to fan
communal enmity in Gujarat. It also calls for a region-wide check of CCTVs so
that those caught carrying weapons without permission can be booked and
arrested In and around Himmatnagar,
locals told The Wire that vicinities such as Ashraf Nagar, Bagicha
Vistar, Chaparia, Shaktinagar, Motipura Vistar, Hassan Nagar and Mali Ki
Chaparia saw Muslim houses, shops and places of worship like dargahs and
mosques being drizzled with kerosene, looted and desecrated as Ramzan completed
nine days. In these areas, two houses, the Dargah of Zorawar Baba, the Dargah
of Gebanshah Peer and its adjoining mosque, a dozen cars, Muslim-owned tyre,
grocery, and mobile shops, bike showrooms, the Dargah of Gulab Shah Peer, the
Hassan Fareed dargah and 13 dargahs near Himmatnagar’s Hathmati river were
allegedly burnt, vandalised and desecrated, all in a matter of eight hours The
proximity of the incident to Ram Navami, Ramzan and the Vidhan Sabha polls,
which are only seven months away, points towards the politics of polarisation,
as religion-based mobilisation take centre-stage in Gujarat yet again.
https://thewire.in/communalism/gujarat-himmatnagar-ram-navami-violence-muslims
6. "Hindu
Raj" Single Greatest Roadblock to Progress of Dr. Ambedkar's Caravan; by Pieter Friedrich:Commemorating
Ambedkar's 131st birthday during dark days in India: Apr 15 2022; Speech originally presented at Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Jayanti
Celebration hosted by Dr. Ambedkar Mission Society Europe (Germany) on 14 April
2022.
Jai Bhim! The middle of
April marks some of the most monumental events in the struggle against caste,
that insidious and poisonous, invisibilized but most potent form of oppression
which has tormented so many throughout South Asia for so long. We start with
the 11th of April, which marked the 195th birthday of Jyotirao Phule. Along
with his wife Savitribai, Phule founded some of the Indian subcontinent’s first
modern schools for children especially girls from Shudra and Ati-Shudra
backgrounds. Shudras being those from the lowest caste and Ati-Shudras being
outcastes or those traditionally treated as “Untouchables,” these people had,
historically, been actually banned from acquiring an education. History cannot forget Phule’s passion for the downtrodden and his fury
at how ignorance was imposed upon them in a devious attempt to lock them in
mental slavery. Pondering on the results of that denial of education, he wrote,
“Without education, wisdom was lost; without wisdom, morals were lost; without
morals, development was lost; without development, wealth was lost; without
wealth, the Shudras were ruined. So much has happened through lack of
education.” Notably, it was Phule who is credited
with introducing the term “Dalit” for Ati-Shudras a name, meaning “broken,”
which both offered a sense of dignity for as well as a communal expression of
the ancient pain of the people who adopted it. While many in the anti-caste
movement fondly commemorated Phule just three days ago, on this 14th of April
many are also celebrating another birthday. I speak of the
323rd anniversary of the birth of the Khalsa, that institution of the Sikhs
established by Guru Gobind Singh in 1699. When the Guru called for volunteers
to give up their lives for this institution, the first five who joined were
from multiple different caste backgrounds, including three who were from
so-called “low castes.” But the Guru stripped them of their old identities,
baptized them all equally as “Singh” (meaning lion), and declared, “You have
become casteless.” “In your new order, the lowest will rank
with the highest and each will be to the other a brother,” he said. They were
to be united, he told them, in a common calling to “serve the poor without
distinction of caste, color, country, or creed.” Tying turbans on all their
heads, he gave each one the symbolic headdress previously reserved only for
royalty. “Recognize the whole human race as one,” he announced as he called all
to sit and eat together, having abandoned every odious and nefarious
restriction previously imposed upon them by their supposed castes. Just under 200 years later, Bhim Rao Ambedkar was born on 14 April
1891. Today, we remember Dr. Ambedkar as the foremost champion of civil rights
that the Indian subcontinent has seen certainly, at least, in this modern age
and, perhaps, in many other ages. “Caste is a state of mind,” Ambedkar
prophesied. “It is a disease of the mind.” And so he set about to change minds,
above all through education. Never one to suggest to others what he would not
do himself, he began to first acquire knowledge for himself, becoming
eventually one of the most highly-educated people of his time. Applying that
education, he emerged also as one of the world’s great renaissance men: a
jurist, an economist, a politician and, above all, a social reformer. Dr. Ambedkar set out to achieve the seemingly impossible: the
annihilation of caste. Rising from birth into a Dalit family to become the
leader and liberator of his people and, eventually, to chair the drafting
committee for the constitution of independent India, he saw, as one of the
chief fruits of his work, a Republic of India in which untouchability was
constitutionally banned. Even at the end of his life, however, he
knew that there was much work yet to be done. Untouchability was outlawed by
the constitution, but its practice still continued. Caste discrimination was
also banned by the constitution, but the caste system itself remained intact. The struggle was unfinished. So, in his last message to the people,
Dr. Ambedkar declared: “Whatever I have done, I have been able to do after
passing through crushing miseries and endless struggle all my life and fighting
with my opponents. With great difficulty, I have brought this caravan where it
is seen today. Let the caravan march on despite the hurdles that may come in
its way. If my lieutenants are not able to take the caravan ahead, they should
leave it there, but in no circumstances should they allow the caravan to go
back. This is the message to my people.” Today, that
caravan has stalled. It is no longer marching on. It is stuck in the mud. It is
so deeply mired in the mud that its wheels threaten to break off. The situation
today is so dire that not only is the caravan at risk of going back, but the
oppression against which Ambedkar’s people struggled so valiantly has now
expanded and engulfed other communities in India. Speaking
prophetically in the late 1940s, Dr. Ambedkar warned that, because of the caste
system, “Democracy in India is only a top-dressing on an Indian soil which is
essentially un-democratic.” His fear was, he said, that “it is quite possible
for this newborn democracy to retain its form but give place to dictatorship in
fact.” And what would that “dictatorship in fact” look like? Most probably a “Hindu Rashtra” or nation — that is, a “Hindu Raj” or
kingdom. “If Hindu Raj does become a fact, it will, no doubt, be the greatest
calamity for this country,” warned Ambedkar. “Hindu Raj must be prevented at
any cost.” Unfortunately, it was not prevented. In 2019, Dr. Anand Teltumbde, the grandson-in-law of Dr. Ambedkar,
warned, “We find the country on the verge of a comprehensive collapse of
whatever little it had of democracy, in the process of formally becoming a
Hindu Rashtra, which Babasaheb Ambedkar so prophetically warned against.” Three
years after his warning, the Republic of India, under the RSS-BJP regime of
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has essentially become both a dictatorship in
fact as well as a de facto Hindu Raj. The dawn of a
dictatorial Hindu Raj in modern India has brought dark days which are turning
life for hundreds of millions of Christian and Muslim minorities into the same
nightmare that Shudras, Dalits, and Adivasis (that is, tribals) had been forced
to live in for many ages past. That Hindu Raj is also serving as the single
greatest roadblock to the forward movement of Ambedkar’s caravan that the
anti-caste struggle has ever witnessed. As this de facto
Hindu Rashtra threatens to undo all that India has achieved in 75 years of
independence, the Sangh Parivar that web of Hindu nationalist outfits springing
from the RSS paramilitary rightly understands that Dr. Ambedkar and his legacy
serves as one of its supreme enemies. They must either reject Ambedkar or else
co-opt him. And they must either win over the Dalit movement or else destroy
it.
“Dalits constitute an important part of the
Sangh Parivar’s game plan,” warns Teltumbde. He explains that the Sangh’s
“strategic apple cart meant to polarize the Indian population into Hindus
versus others: Muslims, Christians and communists (i.e. those who do not agree
with it) could be toppled by the Dalits.” After all, as he notes, “It cannot be
taken for granted that Dalits would identify themselves as Hindus anymore. With
their historical, social, ideological and cultural profile, they have the
potential to play spoiler for the BJP’s agenda for the nation.” Because the
Sangh’s “formula turns on the deliberate alienation of religious minorities
who, along with Dalits, constitute up to 30 per cent of the electorate not
having the Dalits on their side would seriously impede their plans for a Hindu
rashtra.” Consequently, according to Teltumbde, “wooing
Dalits” is a “crucial component of the strategy of the proponents of Hindu
Rashtra.” Thus, he explains, the Sangh has despite the fact that Ambedkar
stands diametrically opposed to everything it represents developed a “new-found
love” for him which “stems from this political expediency.” Ambedkar has
assumed “critical importance in the Sangh Parivar’s strategy” and yet,
Teltumbde adds, “unless Ambedkar were adequately saffronized, the rejection of
Hinduism by the Dalit masses under his leadership would continue to plague its
efforts.” Because Ambedkar cannot actually be saffronized,
as the RSS-BJP continues to desperately attempt to entice Dalits to make the
suicidal choice to join the Sangh’s cause, it is simultaneously doing
everything it can to break the back of the Dalit movement. We have witnessed this in the launch of the Bhima Koregaon conspiracy
case in 2018. That case ensnared 16 prominent intellectuals and activists from
around the country, the majority of whom were known for two things: their
steadfast opposition to the RSS-BJP and their dedication to the struggles of
the Adivasi, Dalit, and Shudra communities. Thus, as we
commemorate Dr. Ambedkar’s 131st birthday today, we must also remember another
anniversary. Two years ago today, the Modi regime
struck one of its greatest blows against the modern Dalit movement. On 14 April
2020, Dr. Anand Teltumbde was arrested on his grandfather-in-law’s birthday. He
has been held behind bars ever since on trumped up charges. Writing on the day of his arrest, Indian politician Jignesh Mevani and
Indian poet Meena Kandasamy jointly explained: “Teltumbde belongs to that
league of Ambedkarites who stands like a progressive intellectual wall against
the neoliberal Hindutva [that is, Hindu nationalist ideology] of the RSS-BJP.
It is important for the anti-people, RSS-guided Central government to breach this
progressive intellectual wall for their forward march towards an unequal,
regressive society of Hindutva ridden with caste discrimination, class
inequality and patriarchal domination. They want to accelerate this time
machine which will take us into the dark ages.” Those dark ages
are already upon us. But there is hope. There is hope in
the rising generation of young Dalit scholars who are walking Dr. Ambedkar’s
path of education, agitation, and organization. Many of them have found that
their greatest potential to survive, succeed, and thrive is through
international studies and, thanks to Dalit and other communities pooling
resources, some brilliant stars have been able to take advantage of
opportunities to join the Dalit diaspora. Especially as they pursue social
sciences and strive to become the best and brightest Indians in the fields of
politics, media, and history, they may yet be able to set the story straight as
they steer the narrative in the direction of truth. And, as we all
know, the truth sets us free. Moreover, there are emergent movements
throughout the Indian diaspora in which people from all backgrounds are coming
together and unifying to take a stand against the Hindutva monster. Indian
Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, and others are, more and more frequently, joining
hands with the Dalit movement to struggle together. Without this unity, the
Sangh’s monstrous agenda can never be defeated; and yet with this unity,
perhaps one day sooner rather than later the far more ancient monster of caste
can also finally be annihilated. Although the path to paradise may first
lead us through hell, we shall, no doubt, eventually see the caravan march on
to its final, glorious destination. As we remember Phule, celebrate the
Khalsa, and commemorate Dr. Ambedkar, let the good doctor’s last message be an
inspiration for us all to never give up. Perhaps, in our own little way, we too
can hope to someday echo his words: “Whatever I have done, I have been able to
do after passing through crushing miseries and endless struggle all my life and
fighting with my opponents.” May you find strength for the fight,
endurance through the struggles, and joy to overcome the misery. Jai Bhim.
7. Shops bulldozed; April 21 2022; Several Muslim residents of Delhi’s
Jahangirpuri area on Wednesday called the “anti-encroachment” drive in which 20
shops were bulldozed as a political move to target the minority community,
saying their sources of livelihood have been destroyed. The North Delhi
Municipal Corporation (NDMC) issued late-night orders on Tuesday to
conduct an “anti-encroachment drive” in the violence-hit Jahangirpuri in North
West Delhi on the demands of the BJP’s Delhi president Adesh Gupta. The
drive, which lasted slightly over three hours, led to the destruction of 20 shops,
all situated in the same street as a mosque and a temple complex. This was the
same mosque where communal violence broke out on Hanuman Jayanti on April 16.
As the drive started proceeding towards the mosque and making its way ahead,
one could hear women screaming and begging for the bulldozers to stop. Lanes
were barricaded and residents kept behind them, unable to save their sources of
livelihood. “Everything is lost. Those who actually instigated the violence are
scot-free, while people who work hard and earn their daily bread are the ones
suffering. Do I look like a rioter? To us, this is all political. We understand
what is going on. We are being targeted.” “Why this (oppression) on us, that
too during Ramzan? We are being harassed deliberately. This is wrong on every
level!” As Sultana* watched, the bulldozers crushed several tin sheds. “Have
you seen anything as vile and disgusting play out? When my sons are fasting in
our holy month of prayer. They want to ensure that we starve, that we fail to earn
our food, that we fail to earn our water,” she said. Shop owners said they had no idea that an
anti-encroachment demolition drive was being conducted. Arif*, whose brother’s
shop was demolished, said, “He just got four new fridges. He was planning to sell
them and make some profit. We are now at a loss of over Rs 1 lakh. Who will pay
for that? No one thought about how we would eat. How easily they called us
rioters and destroyed our shops!” The region has been rife with tensions since
April 16, when a Hanuman Jayanti procession allegedly came under attack.
However, the Muslims claimed that the clash began after some Hindutva workers
also tried to enter
the mosque.
Kashif* said, “Why are we single-handedly being targeted if they are cracking
down on encroachments? Why are they not cracking down on Hindus and singling us
out? The demolition started next to the masjid and stopped where the temple is.
This is all pre-planned.” As
bulldozers reached the area in the morning, lawyer Dushyant Dave urgently
mentioned the matter before the Supreme Court. The top court issued a stay
order, but the drive continued for over an hour. Municipal authorities claimed
they did not receive the order immediately. The pattern of processions during Hindu festivals
leading to communal clashes, followed by bulldozing of properties belonging to
Muslims has been repeated across several north Indian states. In Madhya
Pradesh’s Khargone, the government moved to demolish several
properties that belonged to Muslims, accusing them of pelting stones at a Ram
Navami procession on April 10. In Gujarat
too,
‘bulldozer justice’ was handed out advocate M.R. Shamshad said, “A politician
or the state cannot decide which structure is illegal. The fact that the
demolition drive destroyed the only source of livelihood of many families is a
matter of concern. There is no sense of justice.”
https://thewire.in/rights/jahangirpuri-demolition-driver-muslims-target-residents
8.
Arabs react: Apr., 2, 2022: Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Middle Eastern countries:Saudi
Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman is under the
process of meetings conferences against the
Cruelty of BJP Govt which has
passed NRC, NPR, CAA bill against Muslim citizens of India and Indian
Constitution, if these NRC, CAA are not Cancelled and withdrawn, then Saudi Arabia
is Planning to put a BAN on 83% of Crude Oil Supplies to India, Later Iran may
also ban Oil supplies to India. Turkey has urged UNO and Human Rights
Commission to Act wisely in the situation of India, if UNO do not take legal
action then TURKEY is ready to form a new UNO. If situations of India is not
normalised then Jeddah SAUDI ARABIA may also call and urge the Emergency
meeting with all 57 Countries of (OIC) Organisation of Islamic Cooperation
& may start Deporting all Hindu Expatriates back to India. MUSLIM UMMAH ECONOMIC BOYCOTT AGENDA FOR
INDIA ALL OF US HAVE JOINED THE FREEDOM FIGHT FOR MUSLIMS OF KASHMIR, JUST AS
INDIA HAS CAUSED WAR & DEVASTATION ON THE PEOPLE OF KASHMIR PLEASE BE A
Economic soldier FOR KASHMIR AND WAGE AN ECONOMIC WAR AGAINST MODI AND HIS
ETHNIC RELIGIOUS CLEANSING. THIS IS FIFTH GENERATION WAR! INDIA IS IN AN
ECONOMIC CRISES;BOYCOTT EVERY THING INDIAN, Indian: Channels;Movies.
Employment; New hires;restaurants;Rice; Spice;
Atta/flour;Fruits;Clothes;Oils;Daals;Vegetables;Travel. Airspace restricted for
indian airlines and jets. Indian Tyres & Tube’s to be banned ;Indian
Computers to be banned. Indian biscuits & sweets to e banned Hit India in
the pocket! When ever you buy anything, check, is it Indian? If it is, don't
buy it in solidarity with Kashmir. The best way to defeat an unlawful military
oppression/aggression is through economic boycott. You can make a difference.
Every drop counts.
9.
Arundhati Roy ; Apr 3 2022; this is the text
of the Sissy Farenthold lecture delivered by author-activist Arundhati Roy at
the Lydnon B Johsonon Auditorium, United States. The event was organised by the
Rapoport Centre for Human Rights and Justice;Good afternoon, and thank you for
inviting me to deliver the Sissy Farenthold lecture. And now, I turn to India.
I dedicate this talk to the increasing numbers of prisoners of conscience in
India. I ask us to remember Professor G. N. Saibaba, the scholars, activists,
singers, and lawyers who are known as the Bhima Koregaon 16, the activists
jailed for protesting against the CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act), and Khurram
Parvez, who was arrested five months ago in Kashmir. Khurram is one of the most
remarkable people that I know. He and the organisation he works for, the Jammu
Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS), have for years meticulously
documented the saga of torture, enforced disappearances, and death visited upon
the people of Kashmir. So, what I say today is dedicated to all of them. All
dissent has been criminalised in India. Until recently, dissenters were called
anti-national. Now we are openly labelled intellectual terrorists. The dreaded
Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, under which people are being held for years
without trial, has been amended to accommodate the current regime’s obsession
with intellectual terrorism. We have all been branded Maoists the colloquial
term for us is Urban-Naxals‚ or jehadis, and have had targets drawn on our
backs, making us fair game for mobs or legal harassment. It has only been a few
days since I left New Delhi. In these few days alone, the momentum of the
events unfolding there makes it clear that we have crossed some kind of
threshold. We cannot return to the shores we once recognised as our own. In
March 2022, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won an unprecedented second term
to govern India’s largest state, Uttar Pradesh. The UP elections are usually
read as the “semi-finals” for the general election expected in May 2024. The
election campaign was marked by saffron-robed godmen openly calling for mass
killing and a social and economic boycott of the Muslim community. While the
BJP’s victory in the elections appeared to be robust, on the ground the contest
was closer than the number of seats they won suggest. The result seems to have
generated in BJP workers and leaders a peculiar, untenable mix of anxiety and
over-confidence. Very soon after the election results were announced, Hindus
celebrated the festival of Ram Navami, which coincided with Ramzan this year.
To mark Ram Navami, violent Hindu mobs armed with swords and staffs rampaged
through as many as eleven cities. Led by swamis and BJP activists, they entered
Muslim settlements, dog-whistling outside mosques, chanting obscene insults,
openly calling for the rape and impregnation of Muslim women and the narsinghar
genocide of Muslim men. Any response by
Muslims has led to the bulldozing of their property by the government or
burning by mobs. Those arrested, almost all Muslims, are accused of conspiracy
and rioting, and will likely spend years in jail. One of those charged was in
jail on a different charge long before Ram Navami. Another, Wasim Sheikh,
accused of pelting stones at the Hindu procession, is a double amputee and has
no forearms. Their homes and shops were bulldozed by the government. In some
cities crazed TV anchors rode inside the bulldozers. Meanwhile, BJP leaders who
openly provoked Hindu rioters in the run up to the 2020 Delhi massacre were
recently acquitted by the Delhi high court, which held that there is no
criminality when provocative things are said with a smile. Some of them are
back on the streets of other cities, stoking similar violence. Yet the young
Muslim scholar Umar Khalid is in prison. His speech about brotherhood, love and
nonviolence upholding the Indian Constitution and delivered during the anti-CAA
protests, is, according to a police charge-sheet, a smokescreen for a
conspiracy that led to the 2020 Delhi massacre. Apparently, Muslims conspired
to riot and kill themselves during Donald Trump’s state visit in order to besmirch
India’s good name. Through all of this, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose own
political career was jump-started by the 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat
when he was chief minister, remains an inspirational figure. Often silent, but
more often leading the dog-whistling, he is the messiah of these mobs and their
holy men who, fed on a steady drip of spurious history delivered by WhatsApp,
portray themselves as victims of historic oppression and genocide perpetrated
by Muslims, which must be avenged here and now. We are currently in that
dangerous place where there is no set of facts or histories that we can agree
upon, or even argue with. The narratives do not overlap or even intersect with
each other. It’s myth versus history. The myth is backed by state machinery,
corporate money, and countless 24/7 television news channels. Its reach and
power is unmatchable. The world has been here before, and we know by now that
when debate and argument end, a war of attrition begins. Imagine what it must
be like to be marked for death or incarceration. As a community, Muslims are
already being ghettoised, ostracised, and socially and economically boycotted.
Muslims are routinely accused of ‘love jihad’ (conspiring to make Hindu women
fall in love with them in order to increase the Muslim population), ‘Corona
jihad’ (conspiring to deliberately spread COVID, a replay of how the Nazis
accused the Jews of deliberately spreading typhus), ‘job jihad’ (conspiring to
get jobs in the civil services and rule over the Hindu population) to say
nothing of ‘food jihad’, ‘dress jihad’, ‘thought jihad’, ‘laughter jihad’.
(Munawar Faruqui, a young Muslim comedian, spent months in jail for a joke he
never made but was accused of planning to make.) Any argument, any tiny misstep
can get a Muslim lynched and the lynchers garlanded, rewarded, and assured of a
bright political future. Even the most hard-bitten and cynical among us find
ourselves whispering to each other, Are they still posturing, or has it begun?
Is it organised or out of control? Will it happen at scale? India as a country,
as a modern nation-state, exists only and solely as a social compact between a
multitude of religions, languages, castes, ethnicities, and sub-nationalities
legally bound together by a constitution. Every Indian citizen belongs, in one
way or another, to a minority. Our country is a social compact between its
minorities. In the process of trying to create a political majority, that
social compact is being undone by an artificially constructed “aggrieved Hindu
majority” that is being tutored to believe that they are the only deserving
citizens, the First People, of the putative Hindu Nation, a majority that
defines itself against the “anti-national other.” India is being undone. Few of
us who make up this nation of minorities can put forward a neat, unblemished
history of ourselves in which we are blameless victims of aggression. Our
histories intersect, interlock, and aggregate. Together they make us who we
are. Other than the over-arching hierarchy of caste, class, religion, gender,
and ethnicity, our society is hierarchical at a molecular level. There is
micro-colonialism, micro-exploitation, micro-interdependence. Every thread of
this tapestry is an epic that calls for scholarship, study, argument, debate,
reflection. But to isolate a single thread from this weave and use it to call
for mass rape? For genocide? Is that something to be countenanced? When the
Indian subcontinent was partitioned and hundreds of independent princely
kingdoms were assimilated, some of them forcibly, into either India or
Pakistan, hundreds of thousands of people Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh turned on
each other. A million people were killed. Tens of millions displaced. Any
single story of individual or community catastrophe and misfortune, however
true it may be, is false when it is told in ways that erase the other stories.
A dangerous lie. To flatten a messy history, to rob it of nuance, to weaponise
it, will have dire consequences. All of us in the subcontinent have the choice of
either working toward a shared notion of justice, toward exorcising the pain
and hate that gnaws away at our collective memory, or enhancing it. The Indian
prime minister, the political party which he heads, and its mothership, the
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) the fascist organisation of which he is a
member have chosen to enhance it. They are calling up something deeply wicked
from the bowels of our blood-soaked earth. The fire they have lit will not burn
along a designated path. It may well burn the country down. The blaze has
begun. Alongside the Muslims of India and Kashmir, Christians, too, are on the
frontline of their assault. In this last year alone, there have been hundreds
of attacks on churches, statues of Christ have been desecrated, priests and
nuns physically assaulted. We’re on our own. No help will come. It didn’t come
to Yemen, to Sri Lanka, to Rwanda. Why should we hope otherwise in India? In
international politics, only profit, power, race, class, and geopolitics
determine morality. Everything else is merely a posture, a shadow dance. India is ruled by men who have ridden to
power on the daylight mass murder of thousands of Muslims… and hysteria
manufactured by phantom assassination plots. Certainly, there is opposition to
this hatefulness from ordinary people of every caste and creed, from those who
rose against the anti-Muslim Citizenship Amendment Act, from the historic
farmers’ movement last year, and from regional political parties in West
Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Maharashtra that have gone toe-to-toe with the
BJP and defeated it. It would be fair to say that the majority of Indians do
not approve of what is happening. But their disapproval is manifested for the
most part by distaste, by a karmic shrug and a turning away that is entirely
ineffectual before the burning ideological fervor of a well-paid fascist cadre.
The Indian National Congress, the sole national opposition party, only offers
us weakness and the inability to take a moral position to even say the word
Muslim in public speeches. Modi’s rallying call for a “Congress mukt Bharat” an
India free of the Congress Party, is really a call for a government without an
opposition. Whatever else we may wish to call this, democracy is not the word
that comes to mind. While India exhibits all the trappings of an electoral
democracy a constitution that calls us a secular, socialist republic, free and
fair elections, a parliament run by a democratically elected ruling party and
opposition, an independent judiciary and a free media in truth this state
machinery (including to an increasing extent, the judiciary, the civil
services, the security forces, the intelligence services, the police, and the
election apparatus) is being, if not outright taken over, then deeply
influenced and often overwhelmed by the most powerful organisation in India,
the overtly fascist, Hindu nationalist RSS. The RSS, founded in 1925, has long
campaigned to have the constitution set aside and for India to be declared a
Hindu Rashtra a Hindu Nation. RSS ideologues have openly admired Hitler and
equated the Muslims of India with the Jews of Germany. Aryan supremacy, the
idea that some humans are divine and godlike, while others are sub-human,
polluted, and untouchable, is, after all, the very basis of Brahminism, the
Hindu caste system, which is the organising principle of Hindu society even
today. Tragically, many among even the most oppressed have rallied to the cause
of the RSS, swept up by the tsunami of propaganda that has left them voting for
their own subjugation. In 2025, the RSS will mark its hundredth year. One
hundred years of evangelical dedication has made it a nation within a nation.
Historically the RSS has been tightly controlled by a coterie of west coast
Brahmins. Today it has fifteen million members, among them Modi, several of his
cabinet ministers, chief ministers, and governors. It is a parallel universe
now, with tens of thousands of primary schools, its own farmer, worker, and
student organisations, its own publishing wing, an evangelical wing that works
among forest-dwelling tribes to “purify” them and “return” them to Hinduism, a
range of women’s organisations, a several-million-strong armed militia inspired
by Mussolini’s black shirts, and a plethora of unimaginably violent Hindu nationalist
organisations that perform the role of shell companies and provide what is
known as plausible deniability. As India haemorrhages jobs and devolves into
economic chaos, the BJP has grown steadily wealthier and is now the richest
political party in the world, underwritten by a recently introduced system of
anonymous electoral bonds that enable an opaque system of corporate funding. It
is supported by the several hundred corporate-funded TV news channels in
virtually every Indian language that are mass marketed by an army of social
media trolls who specialise in disinformation. For all this, the BJP still
remains merely the front office of the RSS. Now the nation within the nation is
preparing to move out of the shadows and take its place on the world’s stage.
Already foreign diplomats have begun to troop to the RSS headquarters to submit
their credentials and pay their respects. University campuses in the United
States are the new battleground in this desperate quest for legitimacy. The
danger is that those leading the charge believe that what cannot be fairly won
can perhaps be purchased in an unfettered capitalist economy. The 2025 RSS centenary celebration will be an
important marker in India’s history. The year before, we will have a general
election. This perhaps explains the sudden acceleration of violent activity.
Our hopes have been cauterised, our imaginations infected. If the RSS wins this
battle, its victory will be pyrrhic. Because India will cease to exist.
Elections will not reverse the tide. It’s too late for that. This battle will
have to be waged by every single one of us. The blaze is at our door. Thank
you. https://thewire.in/rights/arundhati-roy-india-democracy-communalism
10.
USCIRF
on India; Apr 26 2022; For the third
consecutive year, the United States Commission on International Religious
Freedom (USCIRF) has recommended to the US State Department to designate India
as a “Country of Particular Concern”. The USCIRF Annual Report 2022, released
on Monday, April 25, states that the 15 countries are designated as such
“because their governments engage in or tolerate systematic, ongoing, and
egregious violations”. On India particularly, the report states, “In 2021,
religious freedom conditions in India significantly worsened. During the year,
the Indian government escalated its promotion and enforcement of policies including
those promoting a Hindu-nationalist agenda that negatively affect Muslims,
Christians, Sikhs, Dalits, and other religious The latest report, in a section
devoted to India, has accused the Narendra Modi government of muzzling
dissenting voices, misusing UAPA and sedition laws, allowing illegal arrests of
rights’ activists, carrying out violent attacks against Muslims and Christians
and creating “hurdles” for NGOs to receive funds from abroad for charity work. It
has also prominently discussed the arrest and custodial death of Father Stan
Swamy. “Father Stan Swamy, an 84-year-old Jesuit priest and longtime human
rights defender of Adivasis, Dalits, and other marginalised communities, was
arrested on dubious UAPA charges in October 2020 and never tried. He died in
custody in July 2021 despite repeated concerns raised about his health,” the
report notes. Coming down heavily on the Modi government, the report states,
“The BJP-led government, leaders at the national, state, and local levels, and
increasingly emboldened Hindu-nationalist groups have advocated, instituted,
and enforced sectarian policies seeking to establish India as an overtly Hindu
state, contrary to India’s secular foundation and at grave danger to India’s
religious minorities.” In a slew of recommendations to the US government on
India, the USCIRF has called for “[imposition of] targeted sanctions on
individuals and entities responsible for severe violations of religious freedom
by freezing those individuals’ or entities’ assets and/or barring their entry
into the United States”. The USCIRF has also appealed to the US Congress to
“raise religious freedom issues in the US-India bilateral relationship and
highlight concerns through hearings, briefings, letters, and congressional
delegations”.
https://thewire.in/communalism/religious-freedom-worsened-us-body-names-india-as-country-of-particular-concern
11.
Mahesh Mishra; May 1 2022; Mahesh Mishra is the prime accused in the recent incident
in Ayodhya, where a group of persons threw pieces of
pork, letters abusing Muslims and torn pages of an Islamic text at some
mosques and shrines in the town in an apparent attempt to instigate communal
violence. An investigation by The Wire into his social media profiles
has revealed that Mishra is a habitual offender. Infamous in Ayodhya for
inciting violence in the past, Mishra, on multiple occasions, has vowed to
“kill” Muslims, called for the economic boycott of Muslims, and claimed to have
prepared a “hit-list of anti-nationals” whom he wants to be killed. More often
than not, his rabble-rousing speeches and bigoted views have attracted no criminal
charges and punishment. According to the Uttar Pradesh Police, a Hindu
fundamentalist outfit ‘Hindu Yodha Sangathan’ headed by Mishra was responsible
for the the attempts to instigate communal violence in Ayodhya. It was thwarted
by the police. Mishra, a “history-sheeter”, has four criminal cases registered
against him. In 2016, Mishra was
briefly jailed for allegedly organising an arms training
camp for children, where they were trained to attack and kill men dressed as
Muslims. He was charged for vitiating communal harmony and promoting hatred.
Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Champat Rai who is now the caretaker of the
Ram temple trust had supported Mishra and his arms training camps. He had
called the arrest “unlawful”. On December 6, 2017, as the chief of the local
unit of Bajrang Dal, Mishra led a rally in Ayodhya to celebrate “Shaurya Diwas”
which marked the 25th anniversary of the demolition of the Babri Masjid. The
police had reportedly denied permission to the event and imposed Section 144 in
the area. In the last two years, Mishra has been relentlessly spearheading a
campaign to ban meat in parts of Ayodhya. He has also appeared as a panellist in
polarising “Hindu versus Muslim” debates on News Nation. His
social media is also replete with messages to kill the “anti-nationals”. Sample
this video which he tweeted in September 2021 issuing a “warning to
anti-nationals”. In the video, a livid Mishra claims that he has a “hit-list of
anti-nationals”. He says, “Listen carefully you anti-nationals, we are
preparing your hitlist now. Each one of you will be pulled out of your home and
killed…Hindus are now awake. Each one of you will be chased and killed” In another video, he issued a call for the economic boycott of all
Muslims, whom he describes as “funders of terrorism”. “[Let’s take a vow] that
we will not have any economic ties with Muslims. These Muslims receive money
from us [Hindus] and give a part of it to mosques and madrasas from where this
money goes to terrorists. A bullet that kills our soldiers and Hindus is funded
by Hindus indirectly. We should not have any money-related relationship with
Muslims ” it. Imran Hashmi, a local
student leader, said that Mishra had previously filmed himself urinating on a
poster of B.R. Ambedkar. In another audio recording, Hashmi alleged, Mishra can
be heard hurling communal slurs and targeting a local dargah. “There is a
pattern associated with Mishra. However, he has not faced any repercussions.
These elements are attempting to provoke riots in our city, and we are
demanding that stringent action must be taken against these men,” Hashmi
appealed to authorities.
https://thewire.in/communalism/ayodhya-mosques-riots-mahesh-mishra-history-muslim-baiting
12.
Monthly update 31; March 2022 : Muslims in India
This page updates
news related to the plight of Muslims in India
.
1.
Now, a woman in India wants to kill 60,000 Muslims; March 1, 2022; A woman, reportedly associated with Akhil Bhartiya Vidhyarth Parishad
(ABVP), has expressed her desire to kill 60,000 people who support hijab in
India while giving a call for genocide. Pooja delivered a provocative speech at
an event organised to protest the murder of a Bajrang Dal member in Vijaypura,
Karnataka. The video of her open call for the massacre of Muslims went viral on
social media. “If you ask for water, Indians will give you juice. If you ask
for milk, we’ll give you curd. But, if you want hijab all over India, we will
chop you all with Shivaji’s sword,” she declared drawing cheers and applause
from the crowd. She didn’t bat an eyelid while expressing her desire to kill
60,000 people, presumably Muslims. “Saffron is India, Pooja asserted. “We are
happy with all the arrests that have been made, but it’s not enough…if you
(government) cannot do it…give us 24 hours…let the government give us just one
hour…not just these six girls in hijab, we’ll cut 60,000 in hijab into pieces,”
she announced from. Days ago, a Bajrang Dal activist Harsha, who was facing many
criminal cases, was killed by unknown people in Shivamogga district of the
state. Soon after the killing, Hindutva mobs went on a rampage setting
properties belonging to Muslims afire as Hindutva leaders attributed the murder
to the deceased’s opposition to the hijab.
A Hindutva leader is reported to have said that unless a (Hindu) head
(killing) is avenged by taking 10 heads; Hindu samaj (community) won’t rest.
He, however, didn’t elaborate as to why he thinks would anyone kill anyone.
Meanwhile, another video of a Hindutva leader threatening to repeat the post
Godhra Gujarat pogrom surfaced on the social media. https://www.kmsnews.org/kms/2022/03/01/now-a-woman-in-india-wants-to-kill-60000-muslims.html
2.
Californian Clergy Coalition Prays and Speaks for
Persecuted Indian Christians by Pieter Friedrich; March 3, 2022; Despite escalating persecution,
clergy warn issue gets little attention in America “The great moral evil that
will be remembered in the year 2022 is the persecution of the millions of
Christians in India,”
3.
Delhi riots; Mar 02 2022: To marks two years of the communal carnage that shook several
localities of Northeast Delhi in February 2020, a group of concerned citizens
and organisations released a jury report. The report released by what they
called ‘People’s Tribunal’ indicated the complicity of all state actors in the
killing of innocents and framing the victims in cases. It said despite having
all intelligence the Delhi Police failed to take adequate measures to prevent
the spreading of the riots. Widespread instances of police misconduct have been
noted including misusing of technology to frame people, to biased and unjust
charge sheets, the police have been even more complicit in the violence.
https://www.kmsnews.org/kms/2022/03/02/state-actors-were-complicit-during-and-after-delhi-riots-says-peoples-tribunal.html
4.
Indian court upholds Hijab ban; Mar 16 2022; In the court case, lawyers for Karnataka state argued that the Quran
does not clearly establish wearing the hijab as an essential spiritual
practice, so banning it does not violate religious freedom. Many Muslims reject
that interpretation. On a recent Friday, Rasheed Ahmad, the head imam of
Udupi’s grand mosque, delivered a sermon before hundreds of worshippers. His
voice thundering through loudspeakers mounted on the minarets, he railed
against the bans as an attack on Islam.“Hijab is not just our right,” he said
later in an interview, “but an order from God”. https://www.dawn.com/news/1680110/hijab-bans-deepen-hindu-muslim-fault-lines-in-indias-karnataka-state
5.
The Erasure: California Panel Claims Indian Muslims
Face Impending Genocide; India's Hindu nationalist movement poses an existential
threat to minorities and could impact the United States, warn panelists in San
Diego; by Pieter
Friedrich; Mar 17 2022;
“India is subsumed in a momentous political crisis, the most daunting
since 1950,” warned Dr. Angana Chatterji of University of California, Berkeley
on 12 March 2022. “The practice of illiberal democracy today is accompanied by
the call to fascism and the extermination of Muslims.” Chatterji (who joined
via Zoom) was speaking at a San Diego, CA panel on impending Indian Muslim
genocide and global Islamophobia. Approximately 200 people joined the event to
hear six panelists, including myself, converse about the threat facing
Muslims as well as other minorities under India’s ruling Hindu nationalist
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The threat impacts the US, speakers agreed, not
only because the country is home to over four million Indian-Americans but also
because the BJP and its parent organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
(RSS) paramilitary, have a major support base in America.“I sort of felt that I
was the embodiment of what India was,” said Dr. Samina Salim of University of
Houston. “Pay attention: I said what India was. I am not proud of what India is
today, sadly, because how can I represent an India where Muslim girls and
Muslim women are stripped of their head covering, which is part of their
clothing, in the middle of the streets, before they step into their schools and
colleges? How can I represent an India where Muslim women are sold on an app
and on other online platforms? I do not represent this India where Muslim women
are raped, killed, and burned alive. I am not proud of that India.” “The moment
Modi became prime minister, and the BJP came to power, vigilante Hindu
extremist groups took it as kind of a pass to engage in routine violence,
humiliation, and lynching of Muslims,” noted Dr. Rohit Chopra of Santa Clara
University. “What I’ve seen happen since then is, the hallmark of being a good
Hindu was you don’t speak up against such violence. I want to say this is 2014
to 2018. If you speak up against the lynching, you’re not a good Hindu and
therefore you’re not a good Indian, because only a Hindu can really be an
Indian. From there, we have now moved to a position where the hallmark of being
a good Hindu and being a good Indian is actually endorsing this violence.”
According to Dr. Chatterji, “The political blueprint of Hindu nationalists
signals an illiberal turn and absolute nationalism that, unchecked, may
enkindle the would-be erasure of Muslims in India.” Speakers highlighted the
recent ban on Muslim students wearing hijab at educational institutions in
Karnataka (which was upheld by the state’s High Court on 15 March) as
emblematic of structural Islamophobia in India. “This hijab ban is just another
sequel to this genocidal language,” explained Dr. Salim. “Anti-Muslim hysteria
with hijab ban has reached a whole new level now.” Dr. Khaled Beydoun of Wayne
State University noted, “Gendered Islamophobia is distinct in the sense that
the State engages in the policing of women’s bodies. That becomes the principle
way in which the State engages in gendered Islamophobia by saying how a woman can dress and cannot
dress. India is parading around the world claiming to be the largest democracy
in the world, and we know that the cornerstone of any democracy is what? The
ability to practice your religion as you see fit or to not profess a religion.
Why is this cardinal right, that is attached to any democracy, being denied to
Muslim women? And the way it’s being manifested is through the erosion and the
encroachment of the ability of Muslim women to express their religiosity in
ways that align with their spirituality.”“When Taliban prevented women and
girls from going to schools, and colleges, and universities, there was an
uproar from the Western world,” said Dr. Salim. “Where are the feminists now?
Where is the Western media? Why this silence when this is going on in India
with Muslim women?” “It’s really salient that we center white supremacy as a
system that intersects and interacts with Islamophobia, Hindu supremacy, and
other forms of bigotry that we’re seeing unravel on a global stage,” said Dr.
Beydoun. The similarities to white supremacist ideology were also echoed by Dr.
Hatem Bazian of UC Berkeley. Invoking the idea of “replacement theory” (which
is also known in the West as the “white genocide” conspiracy theory), Dr.
Bazian said, “Hindu nationalists are using the same type of argument.
Replacement theory is the idea that the Muslims who are coming to Europe, or
the minorities who are coming to Europe, or the Mexicans that are coming to the
United States are attempting to replace the white race. In a similar way,
within the Hindu nationalists, it is that the Muslim population that are there
are attempting to replace Hinduism.” “India has become a hard incubator of
conspiracy theories,” said Dr. Salim. “History tells us of the dangers of these
theories. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion led to the extermination of six
million Jews. That was a result of conspiracy theories. It was Radio Rwanda
that propagated conspiracies against Tutsis, killing almost a million Tutsis.
The same type of ludicrous and dangerous conspiracy theories are flourishing in
India now for quite some time. These theories and false propaganda are being
pushed by the Indian media, funded by the elite within the Indian political
system and business class, endorsed in one way or the other by the State —
sometimes by overlooking the propaganda and, at times, by supporting it.” Dr.
Chopra warned that not only has social media played a pivotal role in fostering
these conspiracy theories, but that the major corporations are doing little to
stop it.“It’s really important to raise this issue, to bring it to awareness in
the global community, and particularly to talk about the role of social media
companies like Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp in fomenting anti-Muslim
violence and anti-Muslim sentiment,” said Dr. Chopra. “Facebook has admitted
its role in genocide against the Rohingya in Myanmar, they’ve admitted their
role in anti-Muslim violence in Sri Lanka. In the Indian context, they’ve hired
people who are from the Hindu Right, and when the government has pushed back,
they’ve sort of fallen in line. It’s the same with Twitter…. In the Indian
context, because of the pressure of the government, again, Facebook, Twitter,
WhatsApp are completely compromised. Facebook and Twitter both have blood on
their hands.” Meanwhile, I asserted that not only is the Indian Government
controlled by the RSS, but that the paramilitary’s affiliates in the United
States have provided a great deal of assistance to the regime in India. “The
RSS is the world’s oldest, largest, and fastest growing fascist movement,” I
explained, noting that the RSS, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (the RSS’s religious
wing), and the Bajrang Dal (the VHP’s youth wing) have a combined total of
perhaps 15 million militant members. “The RSS today is essentially, you could
say a shadow government, or you could say that it is the government because the
ruling Hindu nationalist BJP is, actually, the political wing of the RSS. It
was founded by the RSS in 1980. And the RSS basically controls and pulls the
strings of the BJP. So the RSS today is basically the government of India.”“RSS
is here [in America],” warned Dr. Salim. “The problem is hate this hateful
agenda, this bigotry, this misogyny which is here amongst us in the form of RSS
and its friends. And that is why, I tell you, ladies and gentlemen, we’ve got
to get more involved.” Expanding on the presence of RSS in America, I noted:
“The RSS-BJP regime in India is heavily dependent on and owes a great debt of
gratitude to its affiliates here in America, especially tracing back to 2014.
To a great extent, Modi’s election in 2014 is due, in part, to the actions of
the RSS-BJP affiliates here in the United States, specifically the Overseas
Friends of the BJP (OFBJP) as well as the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS), which
is the name for the RSS equivalent here in America.” “From America, they
organized phone banks of hundreds of people Indian-Americans, not people with
Indian citizenship to call back to India to tell Indian voters to vote for the
BJP,” I explained. “In addition, they mobilized thousands of people the public
numbers are at least about 3,000 people to travel from America to India to
serve as boots on the ground to canvass, knock on doors, run polling stations.
I like to flip this and say, can you imagine the outrage here in America if we
had a lot of Americans that emigrated to Russia, gave up their American
citizenship, settled in Russia, became Russian citizens but didn’t give up
their love for the Republican Party. So, every election cycle, they would
mobilize with their Overseas Friends of the Republican Party based in Moscow.
They would set up phone banks in Moscow, call American voters, and say, ‘Vote
for the Republican Party.’ And they would go a step further. They would send
thousands of now Russian citizens who used to be Americans back to America to
campaign, canvass, come knock on your door, and maybe even staff your local
polling booth. Would Americans be upset about that? One thing that I still fail
to understand is why Indians are, in India, not more outraged over this blatant
interference in their sovereign, sacred elections that has occurred.” What’s
happening in India impacts the United States, I added, not only “because those
groups are using American free soil to organize those efforts, but they’re also
using American soil to do things like with the HSS, and OFBJP, and other Hindu
nationalist affiliates to serve as a propaganda mouthpiece in America to
whitewash and legitimize the RSS-BJP regime in India.” Dr. Beydoun, however,
suggested that the threat facing Indian Muslims is also linked to America
because US foreign policy has helped enable it. “The American Global War on
Terror did a couple things,” he said. “It legitimized this demonization of
Muslims as categorically ‘terrorists’ and then it accelerated, it intensified
pre-existing and indigenous campaigns across the world, of which Hindu
supremacy is one of them It’s critical to really highlight the fact that the
United States Government and four administrations since, even liberal and
democratic administrations like the Obama Administration, had a mighty hand in
emboldening and accelerating these anti-Muslim campaigns happening on a global
scale, of which India, I believe, is one of the most ominous and nefarious.”
The situation in India is so ominous that it is now one of looming genocide,
claimed speakers. “The term ‘genocide’ can be used when it can be proved that a
State or non-State actors engage in actions or they have a very specific intent
targeted at one particular community to commit violence or to exterminate
them,” noted Dr. Chopra. “Incitement to genocide is also a crime…. You don’t
actually have to commit genocide to be guilty of a crime under international
humanitarian law.” As Dr. Bazian pointed out, “Often, when we use the term
‘genocide,’ we think that we’re just going to the graveyard after the genocide had
been committed. That’s not what the Convention on Genocide actually speaks
about. Any aspect of taking steps that would facilitate genocide could be
subject for bringing a case.” Yet speakers sugged that the world seems to be
taking little notice of the situation. “It’s impossible not to juxtapose what’s
taking place in places like India with what’s unfolding in real time right now
in Ukraine,” said Dr. Beydoun. “In addition to Islamophobia, in addition to
Hindu supremacy, we have another issue that is expanding on a global stage,
which is white supremacy. There’s a reason why Ukraine and Ukrainian refugees
resonate so strongly when we see them on television. However, when we see brown
and black individuals who are fleeing places, fleeing war-torn countries, they
don’t get a sliver of coverage, they don’t get a scintilla of the attention
that Ukrainians have received in two weeks.” “We’ve got to take more interest,”
urged Dr. Salim. “We’ve got to speak up. It’s the silence that emboldens these
people, by virtue of which we become accomplices in that violence.” The panel
was sponsored by the San Diego Coalition for Human Rights, which included the
Council on American-Islamic Relations (San Diego), Indian American Muslim
Council, Jewish Voices for Peace, Muslim American Society (San Diego), Muslim
Leadership Council of San Diego, Pillars of the Community, and others.
6.
Kashmir Files ; Mar 17
2022 ;An Indian film focusing on
the exodus of thousands of
Hindus from Indian-administered
Kashmir that won accolades from Prime Minister Narendra Modi is fanning
anti-Muslim sentiments in the country. The Kashmir Files, a 170-minute
Hindi-language movie released last week, tells the fictional story of a student
who discovers his Kashmiri Hindu parents were killed by rebels and not in an accident as his grandfather told him Hundreds of thousands were forced out of
Kashmir, losing homes and many lives, when a revolt erupted against Indian rule
in 1989. Many were Hindus, known as “Kashmiri Pandits”, and later ended up
living in camps across northern India. A small number of the community,
however, continues to live in the Muslim-majority valley.
howed the truth and that vested interests were running a campaign to
discredit it. “They are shocked, that the truth that was hidden for so many
years is out and is backed by facts,” Modi said, without clarifying to whom he
was referring to. A state leader from the BJP gave government employees a
half-day off to see the movie, while supporters of Modi and the BJP endorsed
the movie on social media. However, critics say it is loose with the facts and targets Indian Muslims even outside Indian-administered Kashmir. Many see the film as
evidence of the growing religious polarisation Modi’s critics say he has
fostered since coming to power in 2014. Multiple videos were published online
showing people in theatres cheering, shouting hate slogans, and calling for
violence against Muslims. “The state
machinery propping up the film and the reaction to it is disappointing,” said
Hussain Haidry, a screenwriter who works in Bollywood. “As a Muslim, you feel a
sense of despair that movies like The Kashmir Files are encouraging and adding
to Muslim-hate in the population.” Many critics decried the virulent hate
speeches against Muslims in theatres and asked why the government was not
acting against the perpetrators. “Calls for genocide of Muslims in theatres
following the screening of #KashmirFiles. Will the film’s makers, actors, admirers
including the PM appeal against such calls? You know the answer,” tweeted
politician and feminist Kavita Krishnan. Columnist Asim Ali was also critical
of the film in a piece on news website Newslaundry. “The message an ordinary
Hindu is expected to take from the movie (as attested by many viral videos
coming out of theatres) is another kind of ‘never again’ never again to trust
the Muslim, the secularist or the leftist,” he wrote.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/17/kashmir-files-film-modi-anti-muslim-hate-speech
7. Muslim shopkeepers; Mar 21 2022; Under pressure from Hindutva groups, the organisers of an
historic festival in Karnataka have banned Muslim shopkeepers from doing
business during it. The organising committee of the Kote Marikamba Jatra in
Shivamogga has buckled to demands by Bharatiya Janata Party, Bajrang Dal and
the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, that no Muslim be allowed to ply his trade during
the festival The organising committee of the Kote Marikamba Jatra in Shivamogga
has buckled to demands by Bharatiya Janata Party, Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa
Hindu Parishad, that no Muslim be allowed to ply his trade during the festival .
https://thewire.in/communalism/under-pressure-from-hindutva-groups-karnataka-festival-bans-muslim-traders
8. Why I'm Crashing Screenings of "Kashmir Files" in California ;by Pieter Friedrich; Propaganda film's sole purpose is to incite anti-Muslim hatred and violence in India ; Mar 22 2022;“Kashmir Files” purports to tell the story of the 1990 Kashmiri Pandit Exodus. In 1990, as a separatist uprising began in Muslim-majority Kashmir, a Hindu community known as “Pandits” fled the region en masse. Many of them were killed at the time as well as over the next 10 to 15 years. The specifics of the persecution of Kashmiri Pandits demand attention and have already been faithfully recounted by various historians and journalists in both the past and the present. They certainly suffered. Perhaps a hundred thousand or more (out of a population of 140,000) fled the region. According to figures recently released by Kashmir Police, at least 89 were killed; at the high end, according to figures collected by a Kashmiri Pandit organization, up to 650 were killed between 1990 and 2011. As a notable aside, it’s questionable whether all of those Pandits who were targeted were killed for their religion or rather for political reasons due to the positions many held as government officials; while their murders, either way, are condemnable, the latter reason casts the affair in a far different light than the purely communal lens through which Agnihotri insists it must be viewed. Moreover, the tragic killings of Pandits by militant separatists should also be contextualized alongside the thousands of Kashmiri Muslims who were also killed by militants as well as the tens of thousands of Kashmiri Muslims a great many of them innocent civilians who were murdered by Indian security forces during their brutal suppression of the separatist movement. Regardless, the story of the Kashmiri Pandits deserves to be told (as does that of every persecuted community), but instead of telling it honestly, Agnihotri has seized on it as a political tool to spread anti-Muslim propaganda at a time when, 30 years after the fact, Pandits face no persecution whatsoever while Muslims throughout India according to many, many sources are at risk of an impending genocide at the hands of the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), its parent organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), and other affiliated elements. In Agnihotri’s mythologized telling, at least 4,000 Kashmiri Pandits were murdered. His film explicitly terms it a “genocide” and supportive viewers are widely comparing it to the systematic location, deportation, and elimination of six million Jews by the Nazis. Agnihotri portrays the exodus of the Pandits as an untold even deliberately covered up story which he alone had the courage to reveal. Some courage it took, too, considering that Indian Prime Minister Modi and many of his top cabinet members have openly endorsed it while most BJP states are not only allowing it be shown tax-free but giving state employees a paid half-day (and free tickets) to go view it. The general American public is clueless about the messaging behind “Kashmir Files,” but it’s not lost on audiences in India. Videos filmed at multiple different Indian cinemas show audiences, as the end credits scroll, rising to raise their own slogans. “India will be a Hindu nation,” shouts one crowd. “No Muslim will be allowed.” Another crowd shouts, “Long live BJP. When Muslims are slaughtered, then they will chant the name of Ram.” Yet another crowd cheers as a man declares: “If every Hindu boy under 25 starts marrying a Muslim girl, then their population will be less than half within three generations. Marry their women, make children with them.” Such a reaction is to be expected. After all, as Indian journalist Siddharth Bhatia notes, “The film is exploitative in the extreme, made to rouse emotions and build up a particular mood against Indian Muslims.” Countless others have reached the same conclusion. “At every possible opportunity, the filmmaker underscores the terrorists’ religion,” writes Indian film critic Tanul Thakur. “Another piece of dog-whistling: all Kashmiri Muslims are terrorists (this isn’t even an implication; the film is almost explicit about it, more than once) Given the blatant communal climate in the country for the last many years, these implications are unmistakable: that terrorists = Muslims or, more accurately, Muslims = terrorist.” “There isn’t a single Muslim character in the film who is empathetic,” says Indian screenwriter Darab Farooqui. “Every single Muslim character is either deceitful or evil…. It’s a propaganda piece that only shows one version of events. Yes, the events are bitter, unpleasant and ugly facts. They are, nevertheless, deceptive, dishonest and incomplete. The Kashmir Files serves a purpose, and the purpose is propaganda.” Indian journalist Naomi Barton warns that “Agnihotri has built a great canal of hatred,” explaining, “In broad strokes, the Muslims of The Kashmir Files are unequivocally shown as barbaric, or servile to a barbaric cause.” Barton adds, “The lie is that all Muslims must be collectively punished for this, and any violence visited upon them is justly deserved.” Indeed, the entire point of the film inescapably seems to be to convey the message that the killing of some Hindus in Kashmir by some Kashmiri Muslim separatists 30 years ago justifies, today, mass violence against Muslims throughout the entirety of India.That’s obvious from the bloodthirsty slogans of audiences in India. It’s also the message that one anonymous YouTuber took away from the film. In a viral video, a man wearing a saffron mask the color of the Hindu nationalist movement urges, “If you are a Hindu and want to avenge (the deaths) of Kashmiri pandits, if you know a Muslim, trouble them.” He demands the killing of Indian Muslims “everyone from the oldest to the youngest” and calls for the rape of their mothers, sisters, grandmothers, aunts, and others. “Trouble them so much that they cry, leave them tormented,” he says. “Create an atmosphere that forces them to leave the country. We won’t let them leave nor will we let them live in the country.” That’s the intent of the Hindu nationalist movement figure-headed by the RSS-BJP: to not let Muslims live in India or leave India. Ideologically, in their eyes, Muslims (as well as Christians) are “traitors” to the nation because, as they believe, only Hindus can truly be considered “Indian.” According to the RSS-BJP, these minority communities must therefore be purged from the country. Eliminated. Killed. This was the goal underlying the fascist oath taken by a genocidal conclave of Hindu nationalists held just a few months ago. “We all take an oath, give our word, and make a resolution that, until our last breath, we will make India a Hindu nation and keep it a Hindu only nation,” they pledged “We will fight, and die, and, if required, we will kill as well.” Simultaneously, in the city of Haridwar, Uttarakhand, another conclave was urged to take up weapons to wipe out Indian Muslims. Such events are one of many reasons that organizations like Genocide Watch, a US-based nonprofit, are incessantly warning about the looming risk of a genocide of Indian Muslims. “India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has made Islamophobia a state-manufactured ideology, increasingly putting the Muslim and Dalit [those formerly known as “Untouchables”] communities under state-sponsored attack,” says the group. As founder Dr. Gregory Stanton explains, “We believe there is a real risk of massacres. What is, of course, extremely troubling here is that the Modi government has stood back, said nothing, and will be very happy to just watch it happen. That is exactly what Modi did in Gujarat in 2002. It is what he will do again. So, this massacre this genocide will likely not be even carried out by the Indian State. It will likely be carried out by mobs.” “Kashmir Files” is pouring fuel on the Islamophobic fire as it incites theater-going audiences to form those violent mobs. As Stanton notes, massacres of Muslims by mobs in India have happened before under Modi. While Agnihotri exaggerates and sensationalizes a tragic event from 30 years to manipulate emotions and fan anti-Muslim hatred, Modi (who endorses “Kashmir Files”) presided over another atrocity of far greater proportions which came to a bloody close 20 years ago this month. Over a three-day period, from 27 February to 1 March 2002, mobs fielded and led by the RSS-BJP flooded the streets of Gujarat, India (at a time when Modi was Chief Minister of the state) to systematically slaughter approximately 2,000 Muslims. The massacre earned Modi the nickname, “The Butcher of Gujarat,” but it also served to massively popularize him within India’s Hindu nationalist movement. Today, with Modi helming the entire nation and with an administration marked by a wave of anti-Muslim attacks, lynchings, and smaller-scale pogroms there are very legitimate fears that the situation may soon turn into one of out-and-out genocide. Riefenstahl, as Bhatia explains, was “Hitler’s favorite director and a great propagandist of the Third Reich.” He notes: “In Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri, the BJP may have found its own Riefenstahl, even if he falls far short of her filmmaking standards.” While Agnihotri may be no Riefenstahl in terms of skill, his “Kashmir Files” certainly threatens to accomplish the same lethal ends. It must be opposed
9.
Banerjee ; March 29
2022; Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has urged non-BJP chief
minsters and opposition leaders to come together in fight against the Hindutva
party. The West Bengal chief minister writes to non-BJP chief ministers and
opposition leaders that the saffron party is misusing Indian agencies.Virtually
attending a meeting of opposition parties convened by Congress interim
president Sonia Gandhi, the Trinamool Congress chief asked the opposition
leaders to keep aside differences and put up a united fight against the BJP
saffron party.
https://www.kmsnews.org/kms/2022/03/29/mamata-asks-non-bjp-cms-to-unite-against-hindutva-party.html
Monthly update 30;
February 2022 : Muslims in India
This page updates
news related to the plight of Muslims in India
.
1.
Islam o phobia in India; Feb 12 2022; Islam
o phobia has taken a “most lethal form” in India, turning some 250 million
Indian Muslims into a “persecuted minority”, Noam Chomsky, the world-renowned
scholar, author and activist, has said. “The pathology of Islamophobia is growing throughout the West — It
is taking its most lethal form in India,” Chomsky, who is also Professor
Emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), said in a video
message to a webinar organised by Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC) on
Thursday, a Washington-based advocacy organisation. Apart from Chomsky, several other academics and activists took
part in the webinar on “Worsening Hate Speech and Violence in India.” Chomsky also said that Prime Minister
Narendra Modi’s right-wing Hindu nationalist regime has sharply escalated the
“crimes” in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK). “The crimes in Kashmir have a long history,”
he said, adding that the state is now a “brutally occupied territory and its
military control in some ways is similar to occupied Palestine.” The situation
in South Asia, Chomsky said, is painful in particular not because of what is
happening but because of what is not happening. There is, however, hope and
opportunities to solve South Asian torment but not for long, he added.
Annapurna Menon, an Indian author and lecturer at the University of
Westminster, urged the international community to focus on the status of press
freedom in India as under the BJP government, the situation has become a cause
of concern. “The situation on the ground is extremely alarming as 4 journalists
have already been killed in 2022, simply for doing their job,” Menon said,
adding that journalists – especially women – have been exposed to all kinds of
reprisals including harassment, illegal detention, police violence and sedition
charges. “The situation in IIOJK is even dire, where the journalists routinely
face police questioning, ban on reporting, suspension of internet services and
financial constraints in line with BJP’s recent ‘media policy’. The family of
award-winning Srinagar-based photojournalist Masrat Zahra, was subjected to
harassment and intimidation by the Indian Police as crackdown on the press in
Indian-occupied Kashmir continues to escalate. Fahad Shah, a renowned Kashmiri
journalist who is the founder and editor of ‘‘The Kashmir Walla’’, was arrested
recently by the police in Pulwama under terrorism and sedition laws, Menon
pointed out. Similarly, Sajjad Gul, another journalist of ‘‘The Kashmir
Walla’’, was also arrested in the beginning of February 2022. John Sifton, Asia Advocacy Director at Human
Rights Watch (HRW) said the greatest threat to the Indian constitution Is the
promotion of majority religion by the Indian government at the expense of
minorities. “The BJP and its affiliates are making hateful remarks against
Muslims to gain Hindu vote around elections,” he said. The BJP government has
adopted laws and policies that systematically discriminate against religious
minorities and other groups and it also stigmatises its critics, the HRW
official said. The government enacted the ‘Citizenship Act’ to target
minorities, particularly Indian Muslims. Social media platforms such as
Facebook, YouTube and Tiktok, Sifton said, had failed to control hatred spread
through their platforms. The US Congress, he said, must weigh on the Indian
government to convey their concerns vis-a-vis the violation of human and
minority rights in India. Angana Chatterji, Indian Anthropologist and Scholar
at Berkeley University, California, said prejudices embedded in the government
of the ruling Hindu nationalist BJP have infiltrated independent institutions,
such as the police and the courts, empowering nationalist groups to threaten,
harass and attack religious minorities with impunity. “Hindu spiritual leaders
are involved in the ethnic cleansing of Muslims,” she said, adding that BJP
leaders and affiliated groups have long portrayed minority communities,
especially Muslims, as a threat to national security and to the Hindu way of
life. They had raised the bogey of “love jihad” claiming that Muslim men lure
Hindu women into marriages to convert them to Islam, labelled Muslim immigrants
as extremists and accused them of hurting Hindu sentiment over cow
slaughter. Since Yogi Adityanath became
Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh (UP) in 2017, Chatterji said the culture of
violence and impunity has taken root, pointing out that UP police have carried
out hundreds of extra-judicial killings of suspected criminals belonging to
minorities, particularly Muslims. By the time protests against the Citizenship
Amendment Bill spilled out on the streets of UP in December 2019, the police
manhandled protestors, behaved in a vulgar manner with women, arrested
whomsoever it wanted and framed prominent activists in criminal cases, she
said. As hundreds of thousands of farmers of various faiths began protesting
against the government’s new farm laws in November 2020, senior BJP leaders,
their supporters on social media, and pro-government media blamed the Sikhs as
‘Khalistani terrorists’, Chatterji said. February 23, 2022 marks the two year
anniversary of the communal violence in Delhi that killed 53 people, 40 of them
Muslim. Harsh Mander, a former Indian civil servant and human rights activist,
said that while Mahatma Gandhi upheld the principles of non-violence, the Hindu
supremacist ideology is being currently being propagated by Indian leaders.
“Hate crimes have increased by a thousandfold during the BJP regime,” he said.
The BJP stigmatises and openly incites crimes against minorities; even Mother
Teresa has been vilified. Muslims, Mander said were falsely projected as
bigots, unpatriotic, Jihadis and oppressors, adding that even PM Modi follows
some of the hate mongers and he refuses to denounce them. IIOJK, he said, is
the most militarised region of the world. https://tribune.com.pk/story/2343096/india-has-turned-muslims-into-persecuted-minority-chomsky
2. Hijab row; Feb 12 2022; Muslim girls who started the resistance against ban on hijab in
their college in Udupi district of Karnataka have alleged that college
authorities have leaked their addresses and mobile numbers making them
vulnerable to harassment and attacks. According to a report in Indian media, 17-year-old Aliya Assadi,
one the girls who protested against the hijab ban, said phone numbers, parents’
names, and home address were shared in WhatsApp groups. “I am not comfortable
showing my face anymore. Already everyone knows how I look and where my home
is. What if someone targets me,” Aliya asked. She has started wearing a burqa
covering her face too after her details surfaced on the social media. Another
student, Hazara Shifa, said her parents are receiving calls from unknown
numbers. The group has demanded answers from the college authorities as to how
their private details came out in public. The girls have accused Udupi BJP MLA
Raghupathi Bhat, who happens to be the chairman of the College’s Development
Committee (CDC), of instigating students against the girls for wearing hijab.
“He has now made, not just the college, but also our homes unsafe,” Assadi
lamented. Tensions are soaring in the state since last week when Hindu students
at several colleges wore saffron shawls in opposition to the hijab. On Tuesday,
they took out marches against the hijab leading to clashes between the two
student groups at a number of places. The government issued order banning
clothing that “disturbs law and order”.Meanwhile a hearing by a larger bench of
Karnataka high court is underway.
https://www.kmsnews.org/kms/2022/02/11/hijab-row-udupi-college-plumbs-a-new-low-leaks-contact-details-of-protesting-girls.html
3.
Arundhati Roy
;February 13 2022: The
Booker-winning author says the present situation in India is “extremely
depressing” but she believes there are signs that the Indian people are
climbing out of the hole they’ve fallen into. In an interview to renowned
Indian journalist, Karan Thapar, Arundhati Roy said, ‘Amidst the confusion,
chaos and cacophony of Indian politics, what sort of country are we becoming?’ Arundhati
Roy says Hindu nationalism could break India into little pieces, as has
happened earlier with Yugoslavia and Russia, but adds that ultimately the
Indian people will resist what she calls Narendra Modi and the BJP’s fascism. She
raised two sets of critical questions. First, she asked: “What have we done to
democracy? What have we turned it into? What happens…when it has been hollowed
out and emptied of meaning? What happens when each of its institutions has
metastasised into something dangerous?” The second set of questions is to do
with the sort of country we’ve become. “Over the last five years, India has
distinguished itself as a lynching nation. Muslims and Dalits have been
publicly flogged and beaten to death by vigilante Hindu mobs in broad-daylight,
and the ‘lynch videos’ then gleefully uploaded to YouTube.” Even more importantly
she says, “The infrastructure of fascism is staring us in the face…and yet we
hesitate to call it by its name”. In the interview, Roy also spoke about
Kashmir. She explains what she meant when in her recent Jonathan Schell
Memorial Lecture she says of the Kashmiri people: “Why should they want to be a
part of India? For what earthly reason? If freedom is what they want, freedom
is what they should have.” Roy also explains the way she sees the relationship
between Kashmir and the rest of India when she says: “Kashmir may not defeat
India, but it will consume India”. This opinion is also echoed by one of the
characters in her book The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, Musa Yeswi, who says
something very similar. “One day Kashmir will make India self-destruct in the
same way…You’re not destroying us, you are constructing us. It’s yourselves
that you are destroying.” When asked if her point is that the bell that tolls
in Kashmir is actually tolling for India, Arundhati Roy clearly agreed and
explains why. She says the way India’s values, principles, constitutional
commitments are being undermined by its behaviour in Kashmir will eventually
corrode and consume India itself.
https://www.kmsnews.org/kms/2022/02/13/the-way-india-treating-kashmir-will-eventually-corrode-and-consume-itself-arundhati-roy.html
4. American
Critics of Hindu Nationalism Risk Sustained Attacks ;From politicians to
academics, Americans who speak against Hindutva face harsh backlash, protests,
and violent threats; Feb 5 2022; When US Senator
and then-presidential candidate Bernie Sanders criticized then President Donald
Trump’s “failure of leadership on human rights” for having dismissed the issue
of the February 2020 anti-Muslim pogrom in Delhi as “up to India,” it was not
long before a senior leader of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
openly threatened interference. “How much ever neutral we wish to be you
compel us to play a role in Presidential elections,” responded BJP National
Secretary BL Santhosh to Sanders on Twitter. Santhosh deleted his Tweet within
hours, but the message was clear: any international criticism of affairs in an
India ruled by the Hindu nationalist BJP would prompt a harsh backlash. The
incentive for such backlash was equally clear considering top BJP officials
were implicated in instigating the 2020 violence. Threats against
Sanders, however, are far from the first time that critics of Hindu nationalism
— and the movement’s actions have faced such backlash. As American awareness
and, consequently, criticism of Hindu nationalism (or “Hindutva”) spreads,
attacks on critics correspondingly escalate. Politicians, academics,
journalists such as myself, and even prominent interfaith bodies have endured
pressure, censure, and protest for years. One of the most
recent and sustained onslaughts occurred in September 2021, when faculty from
over 50 mostly US-based universities organized an online conference called
Dismantling Global Hindutva (DGH). In reprisal, they faced everything from
denunciations to death threats. Ram Madhav a BJP General Secretary and former
spokesperson of the party’s ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
(RSS) paramilitary denounced DGH as “nothing but a front to attack Hindu
religion and culture.” Leading up to the conference, branches of RSS’s
international wing, the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS), were among its most
vocal opponents. HSS-UK “vehemently” condemned the
conference as “anti-Hindu/anti-India,” while HSS-USA claimed that discussion of
the religious-nationalist ideology of Hindutva would “amplify Hinduphobia,
encourage Hindu hate, and incite violence against the minority Hindu
population.” Yet the only violence or threat of it
occurred against conference organizers and speakers. Death and rape threats
forced many to withdraw from the event. One shocking email even warned
organizers: “If this event will take place then I will become Osama bin Laden
and will kill all the speakers.” “More than 1m emails were sent to the
presidents, provosts and officials at universities involved in the conference
pressuring them to withdraw and dismiss staff who were participating, pointing
to an organised campaign by groups in India and the US,” reported The Guardian.
“At Drew University in New Jersey, more than 30,000 emails were received in just
a few minutes, causing the university server to crash.” “The backlash was a concerted, somewhat coordinated effort among the
many arms of the global Hindu Right,” Dr. Rohit Chopra, an organizer and
professor at Santa Clara University, told me. “When a million emails are sent
to universities in protest, so much so that one university’s server crashed in
a few minutes, there has to be a coordinated effort and one engineered by an
entity with significant resources. Whether that was the RSS, the BJP IT cell, a
Hindu Right organization in the US, or some combination thereof we don’t know.
But just as politicians in India claim riots are spontaneous when we know they
are engineered for political gains, there was nothing spontaneous about this
backlash.” In fact, the backlash against those who speak
against Hindu nationalism or, in one case, simply disassociate from Hindu
nationalist outfits has a long history. One of the earliest waves of pushback
against Hindutva’s American critics began in 2013 just as the BJP mobilized its
election machinery in India to make Narendra Modi Prime Minister. In September 2013, the Council for a Parliament of the World’s
Religions (CPWR) withdrew from a Chicago event organized by Vishwa Hindu
Parishad of America (VHPA). One reason was VHPA’s association with India’s VHP,
which is the religious wing of the RSS. Another was co-sponsorship of the event
by Overseas Friends of the BJP (OFBJP), the BJP’s international front which, in
2020, registered as a foreign agent in America. Yet another was the involvement
of BJP speakers at a time when the party’s candidate for Prime Minister, Modi,
was still banned from entering the US. CPWR’s
disassociation provoked an outcry. In a coalition letter issued by American
Hindus Against Defamation (a project of VHPA), signatories accused the
interfaith body of “lack of understanding and respect” which “jeopardized the
reputation and credibility of CPWR.” Insisting it was now necessary to “heal
relations with the Hindu and Indian community,” they demanded a public apology. The few national signatories to the letter included HSS-USA and Hindu
American Foundation (HAF). In December 2013, HAF “launched a major
campaign” to block US House Resolution 417, which was not only perhaps the most
significant congressional attempt to warn against the “violent agenda” advanced
by “strands of the Hindu nationalist movement” but also affirmed Modi’s ban on
entry to the US. Every congressional representative who backed the resolution
received a visit from HAF, revealing a staffer in one such office. He added
that HAF was “definitely trying to undermine anyone in Washington who is
critical of Modi.” Incidentally, HAF had only three board members at the time, including
Rishi Bhutada. He joined HAF’s board in 2012, the same year that he became
Vice-President of Finance for a large industrial corporation founded by his
father, Ramesh, who is vice-president of HSS-USA. The same month
that HAF, with Rishi as one of its top leaders, began working to block a
congressional resolution critical of Modi, Ramesh spoke at an OFBJP rally in
Houston, TX. “We are not only for BJP, but for a strong India, and we consider
Narendra Modi and BJP to be strong vehicles for the same,” said Ramesh at the
rally. In early 2014, while HAF was still campaigning against H. Res. 417, the
senior Bhutada was organizing US-based call-centres to urge Indian voters to
support the BJP and even “inspired and encouraged” a team to travel to India to
campaign directly for Modi. Modi was elected and the resolution
failed, but HAF did not forget one of its initial sponsors: then-Congressman
Keith Ellison, the first Muslim ever elected to US Congress. In 2016, as Ellison was being considered for chair of the Democratic
National Committee, HAF voiced “concerns,” saying they were “disturbed” by his
“legislative activism against India,” citing H. Res. 417 in particular. Their
complaints compelled him to join a conference call with them (as well as, among
others, HSS-USA and VHPA); remarkably, he caved on his concerns about Modi’s
role in the 2002 Gujarat Pogrom, calling it a “closed issue.” The only other congressional representative reported as on the call
was then Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who later made Indian headlines in 2018
after publicly withdrawing from the World Hindu Congress (WHC) in Chicago, an
event hosted by VHPA. To protest the choice of RSS Chief Mohan
Bhagwat as WHC’s keynote speaker, several young South Asian activists mostly
women infiltrated the conference to raise a banner and chant anti-RSS slogans.
They were swiftly assaulted, spat upon, and even choked by attendees. A year
later, VHPA filed a lawsuit against them seeking $500,000 in “damages.” Meanwhile, Gabbard had long faced allegations of close ties to Hindu
nationalist outfits like HSS-USA, VHPA, and OFBJP. In a January 2019
op-ed, she denounced such allegations as “religious bigotry and attempts to
foment fear of Hindus.” In March 2019, as she ran for the presidency, she
repeated that tactic when I questioned her at a campaign rally about her direct
interactions with the RSS itself. Dodging the question, she said, “It is this
kind of attacks that are rooted in religious bigotry that we must stand
together and condemn.” Yet Hindu-American Congressman Ro Khanna
seemed to disagree. In August 2019, after I published a comprehensive
investigation of Gabbard’s Hindutva links, Khanna affirmed the article on
Twitter as “important,” adding, “It’s the duty of every American politician of
Hindu faith to stand for pluralism, reject Hindutva, and speak for equal rights
for Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhist[s] & Christians.” Khanna’s simple
statement soon made him yet another Hindutva critic to face targeted backlash. In
September 2019, HAF hand-delivered a coalition letter — including signatures by
HSS-USA and VHPA — to his office, demanding he retract the Tweet. In October,
25-30 alleged members of HSS protested him (as well as myself) outside one of
his constituent town halls. By month’s end, local businessman Ritesh Tandon
announced he would challenge Khanna. Boasting that his father was “a strong RSS
person,” Tandon admitted he was largely motivated to run by the congressman’s
anti-Hindutva position. In contrast to that position, Tandon spent his first
month on the campaign trail in frequent company with former OFBJP President
Chandru Bhambhra, attending a VHPA event, and even meeting with BJP
Spokesperson Sambit Patra. Although Khanna refused to reverse his statement,
Congressman Tom Suozzi succumbed to pressure when he faced backlash in August
2019 for a letter expressing concerns about Kashmir after the abrogation of
Article 370, including that “the Modi government’s move could embolden Hindu
nationalists to engage in acts of violence and discrimination against India’s
minority religious groups.” The outcry was led by Jagdish Sewhani, who
pressured Suozzi to attend a community meeting where Sewhani lectured the
congressman about his “tone and tenor,” claimed it “hurt” Indian-Americans, and
demanded he withdraws it. Yet not all local Indian-Americans shared the
outrage. As one local community leader noted, “A group of people with vested
interests attacked him for his letter.” Perhaps he meant Sewhani, who has
reportedly served as a coordinator for HSS as well as on the National Executive
Committee of OFBJP, of which he is reportedly a founding member. Allegedly an
intimate associate of Modi, he not only organized US-based efforts to support
Modi’s election but personally reports travelling to India in 2014 to serve as
“part of Modi-Ji’s campaign team” and participate in “brainstorming sessions.”
Despite the vested interests — that is, the crystal clear pro-BJP bias of those
pressuring him, Suozzi issued a public apology. Other members of Congress who
have dared to speak up about the Kashmir issue have also faced backlash. In
2019, after Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal herself an Indian-American introduced
a resolution on Kashmir, she was accused of having “betrayed” her community,
HAF denounced it as an “anti-Hindu, anti-India resolution,” and India’s
External Affairs Minister refused to attend a congressional meeting because she
would be there. In 2020, after Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib introduced a similar
resolution, the Bhutada family sent her challenger a surge of campaign
donations. Attacks on critics of Hindutva, however, have, in some instances
today, passed beyond peaceful pressure and protests.One of the most ominous
incidents was in late 2020. Dr Vinayak Chaturvedi — a noted scholar on Hindutva
who is writing an upcoming book about VD Savarkar, who popularized the term —
was on the phone with his octogenarian parents when they told him armed police
were outside their home. Police reported they had received an anonymous tip
that Chaturvedi’s mother had, in a Zoom call, been witnessed shooting a person.
The elderly couple, it turned out, were victims of swatting: a malicious tactic
to weaponize police against innocent people by falsely reporting a violent
crime. Considering his parents had previously been harassed due to their son’s
work on Hindutva, Chaturvedi concluded that the swatting incident “has all the
traces of the invisible hand of the Right that is no longer interested in
intellectual debate.”“Scholars who conduct research on India are also aware
that they are being monitored on their campuses here in the United States,”
Chaturvedi later noted. “American organizations that propagate Hindutva and are
sympathetic to Modi, the BJP, and the Sangh Parivar have trained their scrutiny
on the American academy.” Dr Audrey Truschke of Rutgers University is among the
most prominent and regularly outspoken American academics to criticize both the
Modi government and Hindu nationalist ideology. The outcome has been a nonstop
onslaught of death threats. “For more than five years, I have received hate
mail from Hindu nationalists or Hindu supremacists nearly every single day,”
she said in 2021. “I have been the target of so many death and rape threats
that I have lost count.” Even her young children are routinely threatened. As a
journalist focused on Hindutva, I can identify at least a little bit. I’ve been
physically assaulted while protesting Modi’s 2015 visit to America, roughly
manhandled by Gabbard staff while protesting her, repeatedly attacked in print
by HAF, protested (as mentioned) by HSS, regularly threatened with violence on
social media, and faced attempts to dox not only myself but my family. “India
has no doubt become quite dangerous for visible critics of Hindutva since
2014,” Dr. Chopra told me. “I should emphasize that it is people on the ground
in India combating the vile ideology of Hindutva who deserve the bulk of praise
and support. They are on the frontlines.” He adds, “The backlash will also
continue in the US, unfortunately, but it is also heartening that academics,
journalists, and critics of the Hindu Right here are standing firm and pushing
back.”Yet the sentiments of the Hindu Right says Chopra, “do not trump
constitutional rights, democratic principles, the principle of free inquiry.”
Although critics of Hindutva in America may continue to face escalating
attacks, they can stand strong and take courage in the protection offered by
the rule of law something which Hindutva critics in India (who are often also
its victims) cannot, unfortunately, currently rely upon. Indeed, as the
violence of Hindutva continues to grow unabated in India, its critics in
America — particularly considering they are both legally and physically in a
far more secure position have a duty to continue to expose and oppose the Hindu
nationalist movement despite the backlash. ; By Pieter Friedrich
5.
OIC on India; Feb 16 2022; The General Secretariat of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation has
expressed deep concern over recent public calls for the genocide of Muslims in
Haridwar in India’s Uttarakhand state. It also condemned reported incidents of
harassment of Muslim women on social media, as well as the banning of female
Muslim students wearing the hijab in Karnataka. OIC called upon the
international community, especially the UN and Special Procedures of the Human Rights
Council, to take necessary measures in this regard https://www.arabnews.com/node/2024791/world
6.
Muslims in Indian
Punjab; Feb 17 2022; Since the region witnessed the worst ever communal riots and
large-scale migration in 1947, when India and Pakistan gained independence, the
Muslim population was drastically reduced from 33% to 0.5%. As per the 2011
Census, Muslims now account for 1.93%, with the majority of them inhabiting
Malerkotla district the only Muslim-dominated district in India's Sikh-majority
state. Dressed in a black suit, Hassan Mohammad, a lawyer and an independent
candidate, is campaigning door-to-door across different villages in the state's
Malerkotla district, which has a 70% Muslim population. "When I go to meet
people in the villages, I see how bad their condition is. The previous
governments have not done much for them," says Mohammad, adding that
everyone in Punjab is now yearning for change.
In the present elections, 15 candidates, mostly Muslims, are contesting
for the assembly segment. The population, however, feels ignored despite the
area sending a representative to the state's assembly every year. As the
candidates campaign, Mohammed Ashraf, a resident, told Anadolu Agency that
health facilities in the town are abysmal."Usually, there are no
specialized doctors available. There is only one big government hospital which
caters to a population of more than 130,000," he said, adding that the
patients have to bigger towns if the problem is "severe." Ramzaan
Sayeed, another local, said the Muslim town lacks professional colleges and
good educational institutions."It is a matter of professional courses
these days. We have to send our children to different places for a good
education," he said. It is a triangular fight, this time in Malerkotla.
Usually, people have been voting either for the Shiromani Akali Dal, a
Sikh-centric political party in the state, or secular centrist Congress. This
time, however, the Aam Aadmi Party's presence in the constituency has added a
new dimension to the contest. Not only these day-to-day issues, but some
national issues related to Muslims also find a place here. Liyaqat Ahmad in the main town says he would
not vote for the Aam Admi Party because of its indifference towards the Muslim
community in the Indian capital Delhi, where it is the ruling party. He
mentions that in the worst-hit communal riots in the city in 2020, this party
did not help Muslims. In the worst-hit riots in decades, which started on the
day when US President Donald Trump was in Delhi, over 50 people were killed and
hundreds injured in February 2020. "Some of my acquaintances are there,
they say the government didn't do anything for them. So how could we trust
them?" he asked, adding that the unemployment issue is also a major
problem in the town. As one walks towards the main market of the town, the
broken roads give a tough time to the commuters. "There are basic problems
like sewerage and safe drinking water. We want the new government to look at
all these issues," said Jafar Ali, a shopkeeper. The incumbent Congress
government had announced setting up a medical college and last year inaugurated
a new flyover. "As far as a medical college, there is
not much progress. And the heavy traffic on the flyover had to stop because it
developed some problems... such is the condition here," said Ali, adding
that in the previous governments, the legislators from the segment were made
ministers in the government, but there was no major developmental change in the
town. Malerkotla was a Muslim princely
state during the colonial era and the only place in Punjab where no communal
violence took place during the Partition of British India in 1947 into two
sovereign states of India and Pakistan. That bond of communal harmony lasts
even today. While over the years, it is only Muslim candidates who win from the
seats, the votes also come from people of other religions. Across the town,
Sikhs are these days participating in the campaigning for the Muslim candidates
who are contesting the elections. "For us, the welfare of the people is
important and not the religion of the candidate," said Karnail Singh, one
of the supporters of the Aam Aadmi Party contesting candidate in Malerkotla.
Singh said that this time, the town which has maintained communal harmony for
decades, is looking for a change.
"We want this to become the number one district in the
state. Earlier, the local legislators became the ministers in the government,
but nothing changed for people here," he said. The roots of communal
harmony in the area date back to 1705, when Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb's forces
were pitted against Sikh spiritual leader Guru Gobind Singh. Historical records
suggest that ruler of Malerkotla Sher Mohammed Khan had protested at the
killing of Singh's sons, who were captured by the Mughal army. In recognition
of this act, Sikhs respected the Malerkotla and did not violate its integrity,
even when they ruled a large swathe of Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir in the 19th
century. Predominantly agricultural, Malerkotla is also known as the vegetable
capital of Punjab. It also supplies vegetables to other parts of the country.
https://tribune.com.pk/story/2343849/in-indian-punjabs-muslim-island-voters-vying-for-change
7.
Hijab; Feb 19 2022; A group of powerful Kuwaiti
parliamentarians have demanded the govt. of Kuwait to put an immediate ban on
the entry of any member of the ruling BJP of India into Kuwait. We can’t sit
back and watch muslim girls being publicly persecuted they said. Time for the
Ummah to unite.
8. Hijab ;
Feb 2022’Kuwaiti Member of Parliament Dr. Saleh TH Al-Mutairi has submitted a
letter to the Kuwaiti Parliament urging his country to ban entry to any member
of the ruling BJP of India into Kuwait amidst the Hijab row in Karnataka. The
letter that is signed by several Kuwaiti parliamentarians has demanded the
government to impose an immediate ban on the entry of any member of the ruling
BJP into Kuwait, blaming the saffron party for oppressing Muslims in India. The
letter adds that the Government of Kuwait should take strict note of the
happening in India and should ban members of BJP into Kuwait unless the
oppression of Muslims in India ends. Mejbel
Alshrika, the Director of the Center for Human Rights and International
Humanitarian Law at the Kuwait Lawyers Association, and a Member of the
Training Committee of the Kuwait Institute for Protection and Legal Studies,
shared the letter on micro-blogging site Twitter. https://english.varthabharati.in/gulf/hijab-row-kuwaiti-mps-write-to-kuwait-parliament-demanding-ban-on-bjp-members-entry-into-emirate
9.
Beef export ban; Feb 18
2022; Kuwaiti
businessmen have reportedly demanded a ban on meat exports to India, which is
proving to be too big a financial hit for India. According to reports, Arab
figures who have raised their voices against the Indian atrocities against
minorities in India, especially Muslims and Kashmiris in Indian Occupied
Kashmir, have made another big demand, creating a huge problem for India
Remember, this demand has come from influential people who have been constantly
raising their voices against the atrocities in India for the last several
months. These are the Kuwaiti influential figures who have raised their voices,
not only because of their concerns and reservations about business, but also
because they have informed the Arab world about India, who have a lot of
influence in Arab society.
https://en.baaghitv.com/big-blow-to-indian-economy-ban-on-beef-exports/
10.
US Silence Towards Muslim Persecution in India is
Deeply Concerning ;Opinion; by CJ Werleman; Feb 20, 2022; As human rights activists and scholars warn of a looming Muslim
genocide in India, the Biden administration remains tight-lipped, revealing US
hypocrisy towards human rights and democracy. During a US congressional
briefing last month, Dr. Gregory Stanton, founder of Genocide Watch, warned
that Muslims in India face the threat of imminent genocide, likening the
situation under Prime Minister Narendra Modi to those experienced on the eve of
genocide in Rwanda and Myanmar. Despite Stanton’s reputation as the world’s most
esteemed scholar of genocide having accurately predicted the Rwandan genocide
in 1994 the Biden administration remains silent towards the persecution of
Muslims in India, as it has since the 46th President of the United States was
sworn in more than a year ago. President Biden conspicuously rejected
recommendations by the bipartisan US Commission on International Religious
Freedom (USCIRF) to include India on the list of the world’s worst offenders of
religious freedom. Neither Biden, nor Secretary of State Antony Blinken and
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, mentioned the Indian government’s human rights
violations against Muslims and other religious minorities during their recent
respective visits to India, and instead, all praised the Asian country for its
“pluralistic society and history of harmony.” there’s not a single human rights
organization on the planet that would praise Narendra Modi and his Hindu
nationalist government for promoting pluralism and communal harmony. The
Hindutva ideology, which provides Modi and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with
its ideological DNA, draws its inspiration from Germany’s Nazi Party and other
European fascist movements, which is why Dr. Stanton has been warning of
genocide in India for years. Dr. Stanton reminded US lawmakers that Modi was
Chief Minister of Gujarat in 2002 when riots and massacres killed more than
2,000 Muslims. “At the time…Modi did nothing. In fact, there’s a lot of
evidence he actually encouraged those massacres,” Dr. Stanton said, adding that
as Prime Minister, Modi has weaponized “anti-Muslim, Islamophobic rhetoric” to
build and mobilize his political base. For these reasons, India has recorded a
year-on-year upward surge in anti-Muslim hate crimes since Modi came to power
in 2014, culminating with the 2020 Delhi Riots, which resulted in the murder of
51 Muslims at the hands of Hindu extremists. Today, Hindu nationalist leaders openly and
routinely urge genocide and campaigns of mass rape against Muslims without fear
of consequence or condemnation from the Indian government. Understandably,
Hindu extremists have interpreted this silence as tactical approval, which is
why Muslims are being lynched, beaten, raped, murdered, and discriminated
against across the country. Almost every day – but certainly every week brings
new revelations of a country spiraling ever further into the moral abyss, and
further away from the democratic ideals espoused by India’s post-colonial
founders, who rejected majoritarian rule and religious supremacism while
embracing secularism, pluralism, tolerance, and inclusiveness. Hindu vigilante
groups, lynch mobs, and “purity” police hunt in packs for their next Muslim
victim to harass, threaten, assault, and worse. No level of Indian society has
escaped the pernicious influence of the Hindutva ideology. Last month, India drifted further away from
its constitutionally protected norms when a government-funded pre-university
college in Karnataka’s Udupi district moved to ban the wearing of Islamic head
coverings on the school’s campus, despite the right to do so enshrined within
the Indian Constitution and permitted by the school itself, as stated in its
student handbook. But on February 3, the school became the subject of
international scorn and condemnation when disturbing video footage showed
school administrators blocking hijab-wearing students from entering the
schools’ grounds, just weeks before their scheduled end-of-semester-exams. Their
cries and pleas were heard around the world, including the United States, with
CNN, the Washington Post, and New York Times reporting what human rights
activists have accurately described as “religious apartheid.” “Singling out
[the] hijab for criticism is unfair and discriminatory. Those opposing it are
on record decrying secularism and for openly espousing majoritarianism,” said
Zakia Soman, founder of Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan, in a recent interview.
But when female Muslim students organized a protest against the school’s anti-democratic
ruling, their Hindutva radicalized male classmates mobilized a counter-protest,
in which they not only wore saffron-colored scarfs while chanting Hindu
nationalist slogans and war cries but also threw rocks towards the Muslim
girls. Silence from the Modi government
has sent a clear signal to other government-funded schools across the country,
including Madhya Pradesh, where the state’s education minister said the hijab
would be banned, too. In other parts of the country, Hindutva radicalized college
professors have ordered Muslim students to stop greeting one another using
Islamic terms of peace (Salam) and quit speaking in the Urdu language (the
Muslim Indians language), as noted by Shabana Mir, an associate professor and
Director of the Undergraduate Education at the American Islamic College,
Chicago. This latest episode in the rise of anti-Muslim hate in India comes
only months after Hindu nationalist groups and individuals established online
mock auction websites to target prominent female Muslim lawyers, activists, and
journalists, including Washington Post contributor Rana Ayub, with sexualized
violence. But not a word of condemnation from President Biden. And not a single
statement or tweet from the State Department telling the Modi government to
knock it off, therefore revealing the United States’ hypocritical and feigned
concern for the welfare of persecuted Muslim minorities. The US strongly condemns its adversaries’
human rights violations, such as China’s abusive treatment of ethnic Uyghurs,
while turning a blind eye to the behavior of its allies, such as India, which
the US views as a crucial partner in its contestation with China in Indo
Pacific. This is a sure demonstration of duplicity and insincerity. The United
States’ blatant double standard undermines international action and solidarity
for persecuted Muslim populations in both India and China, as it not only
provides cover for the Indian government to continue its march towards genocide
but also gives fuel to those who incorrectly accuse the US of manufacturing
false allegations of genocide against China to advance US strategic interests. https://insidearabia.com/us-silence-towards-muslim-persecution-in-india-is-deeply-con
11.
Hate crimes against Muslims ;
Feb 22 2022; "He used to carry a thin towel on his shoulder. They
stuffed that in his mouth as they killed him," said Kamrun Ali, wiping
away her tears. Her husband, Anwar Ali, was allegedly killed by a Hindu mob in
March 2019 when he tried to prevent them from destroying an Islamic religious
structure near his house in Sonbhadra district. Police arrested 18 people all
local Hindus, including some minors - over his death but they were granted bail
within a few months. Ms Ali said her family is still waiting for justice.
Lynchings and hate speech targeting Muslims have regularly made headlines since
2014, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP) swept to power. Critics say the accused are often supporters of the
party - and that anti-Muslim rhetoric by BJP leaders has emboldened them its
leaders rarely condemn such incidents. Mr Modi himself was fiercely criticised
for remaining silent for weeks after a
52-year-old Muslim man was lynched in 2015 in UP for allegedly storing
beef in his home.The 2015 killing sent shock waves around the world but in the
years since there have been several such attacks on Muslims. Some of the worst
incidents have happened in UP, where the BJP's Yogi Adityanath, a saffron-robed
Hindu priest who has often made inflammatory speeches, became chief minister in
2017. In the four cases examined by the BBC, victims' families alleged police
apathy and said they were dissatisfied with the cases' progress. The accused
are out on bail in three of the cases, while no one has been arrested yet in
the fourth, more than seven months later . Mohammed Asad Hayat, a criminal
lawyer who represents victims of hate crimes, alleged that the police's
reluctance to anger powerful people has weakened such investigations. "Lynchings
happen under a political agenda," he said.Meanwhile victims' families say
they are living in fear, and some have even fled their homes. Anwar Ali's eldest son, Ain ul Haq,
alleges that the arrival of local school teacher Ravindra Kharwar sparked
communal tensions in their village, Parsoi. "He encouraged young
Hindu men to assemble and raise slogans against the Imam Chowk (where a
religious structure stood)," he says.
12.
Mr Haq says the group damaged it
twice, but both times police intervened and negotiated its rebuilding. But on
20 March 2019, according to the case registered by police, Ali caught a group
destroying it a third time, and they turned on him. His son says they killed
him.
13.
Ali's post-mortem report says he
died of wounds caused by a "sharp-edged weapon". Kamrun Ali, Anwar
Ali's wife, says they are still waiting for justice he police investigation
notes name Mr Kharwar as the main suspect. They raided his house but couldn't
find him - he was marked as "absconding". Mr Kharwar denied
allegations of his involvement.
14.
When police filed charges, his
name was missing. "We did not find any evidence against Ravindra
Kharwar," the district's police superintendent Amarendra Singh said. Mr
Kharwar, a member of the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)
the ideological parent of the BJP - was transferred to a school in another
village after Ali's death. One of the main accused, Rajesh Kharwar, told the
BBC that the school teacher used to tell them that Muslims are a threat to
majority Hindus."We are in a deep mess and facing charges but he was
saved," Rajesh, who is not related to the teacher, says. Nearly three
years on, Mr Haq said he is disappointed that all 18 accused are out on bail.
It's unclear when the trial will begin. The frustration is shared by Shahrukh
Khan whose father, Sher Khan, was shot dead in June 2021 in Mathura district.
Seven months later, there have been no arrests.
15.
Mathura police superintendent
Shrish Chandra said he was "not authorised" to explain why. Police
say the 50-year-old Khan was killed during a scuffle with "unknown"
villagers while transporting cattle. But his son alleges that the killer was
Chandrashekhar Baba, a religious guru who runs a cow shelter Mr Chandrasekhar
has denied this.
16.
Shahrukh told the BBC he fainted when
shrapnel from a bullet hit him during the fight. He says he woke up the next
day at the police station, where he learnt of his father's death. Shahrukh also
alleges that he tried several times to add Mr Chandrashekhar's name to a police
complaint but was dissuaded by police - an allegation Mr Chandra denies. Sher Khan was shot dead while transporting
cattle
17.
Mr Chandrasekhar says he
intervened in a fight between Khan and some villagers and sent injured people
to hospital. It's unclear what sparked the fight but buffalo meat sellers and
cattle traders have been assaulted by Hindu vigilante groups who accuse them of
transporting beef. While cow slaughter is illegal in several Indian states,
including Uttar Pradesh, buffalos are exempt from the ban.Police however
arrested Shahrukh and five others for cattle smuggling on a complaint filed by
Mr Chandrasekhar. "I couldn't even attend my father's funeral because I
was in jail," Shahrukh says."If they [the accused] believed that my
husband was a cattle smuggler, then they should have handed him over to the
police. Why did they open fire at him?" asks Sitara, Khan's wife. When the BBC visited the house of the
victim, Shakir Qureshi, his mother started crying out of fear. She eventually
allowed her son to speak. Mr Qureshi, whose family has been selling meat for
decades, says he was taking buffalo meat to a customer on his scooter when a
group of men blocked his way and accused him of carrying beef.
18.
"I wept and pleaded with
them that I wasn't carrying beef, but they kept thrashing me.'' Shakir Qureshi was assaulted while taking
buffalo meat to a customer He says he was too scared to report the assault to
the police - he only did so after the video went viral. Police arrested six
people, including Manoj Thakur, who was associated with a cow vigilante group.
Mr Thakur spent two months in prison before he got bail. Mr Thakur admitted his
role in the assault to the BBC he said he wouldn't have been arrested if the
video hadn't gone viral.
19.
After the assault, Mr Qureshi stopped
selling meat - he now works as a daily-wage labourer. Fear and resignation are
not uncommon among victims' families who feel they have no other option. In May
2017, 60-year-old Ghulam Ahmed was found dead in a mango orchard he was
guarding in his village in Bulandshahr district - the post-mortem report says
he died of "severe internal injuries". Police arrested nine men
linked to a right-wing group - Hindu Yuva Vahini formed by Mr Adityanath in
2002. They are all out on bail and deny the charges.
20.
Police say he was killed in
retaliation against his Muslim neighbour eloping with a Hindu woman days
before. Inter-faith relationships have long been fraught in India, but in
recent years, Hindu-Muslim couples have faced also the wrath of vigilantes who
accuse Muslim men of luring Hindu woman to convert their faith. Ghulam Ahmed was killed days after his Muslim
neighbour eloped with a Hindu woman
21.
Ahmed's family was among the few
Muslims in a village dominated by upper-caste Hindus. The key witness, Ahmed's
brother, Pappu, said he had seen men masked by saffron cloths leading Ahmed
away. But he later refused to testify. Ahmed's son, Vakil Ahmed, says he
understands. He says the fact that the accused are from the powerful
farm-owning community, while the Muslims mostly work as daily wage labourers,
makes it harder for them. He adds that the main accused, Gavinder, was
"welcomed
back with garlands" when he was released from jail. Gavinder has denied
committing the crime.The family has since moved away. "How can we continue
to live in this village?" Vakil asks.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-60225543
22.
BJP and Muslims” Feb
22-2022; the
question is relevant because of the centrality that Muslims as a group occupy
in the ideology and propaganda of the BJP and its parent organisation, the
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. At election time, this focus is almost obsessive.
The campaign speeches made in Uttar Pradesh especially by Modi, Shah, UP chief
minister Adityanath and other party functionaries are full of hostile
references to Muslims, either explicit or implied. By marvellous happenstance,
the verdict and sentencing in a case that dates back to 2008 has come in the
middle of election. That is why it should be obvious that in the cartoon put
out by the BJP, the Muslims are the message.The reason their cartoon has evoked
horror is because we have seen this sort of singular obsession with a targeted
religious minority before and know where it leads. “… [T]he Jew,” — Jeffrey
Herf, a leading historian
of Nazi propaganda, quotes Viktor Klemperer as
observing is in every respect the centre of the language of the Third Reich,”
indeed of its whole view of the epoch.” Klemperer was a scholar who lived in
Germany throughout the Nazi era and kept a diary full of observations about the
Nazis and their impact. Anti-Semitism for him, says Herf, “was not only a set
of prejudices and hatreds but also an explanatory framework for historical
events.” Turning next to a landmark 1969 essay by E.H. Gombrich, Herf notes how
he wrote that “Nazi propaganda had created a mythic world by
‘transforming the political universe into a conflict of persons and
personifications’ in which a virtuous young Germany fought manfully against
evil schemers, above all the Jews. The Jews were the cement for this myth,
first in the political battles within Germany and then on the international
plane. It was ‘this gigantic persecution mania, this paranoiac myth that [held]
the various strands of German propaganda together. Gombrich concluded that what
characterized Nazi propaganda was ‘less the lie than the imposition of a
paranoiac pattern on world events’.” For the RSS
and BJP, the imposition of a paranoiac pattern on all events is a central facet
of their political propaganda. For every threat, real and imaginary, the
villain is the Muslim, the victim is Hindu. Non-Muslim opponents are assailed
for the sin of ‘appeasing’ this villain. The bicycle used by the Ahmedabad
bombers was turned by Modi into an accusation against the Samajwadi Party,
whose election symbol is the bicycle. Why did they choose this symbol, he
asked, suggesting that the support of Muslim voters which the SP counts on is
contaminated by terror. In 2019, Modi had famously declared that no
Hindu can ever be a terrorist so we can be sure
that there will never be a cartoon depicting BJP MP Sadhvi Pragya and her
associates swinging from a noose. The crime they are charged with committing
involved the use of a motorcycle rather than a bicycle and happened around the
same time as the Ahmedabad blast. In fact, her trial has not even begun. But
given that terrorism, in the BJP’s imagination, is purely the handiwork of
Muslims, this is not seen as a problem. Since terrorism has waned in recent
years, the ‘paranoiac pattern’ is imposed elsewhere. In 2020, BJP
leaders gave free rein to the vicious ‘Corona Jihad’ propaganda, which blamed Muslims for the pandemic.
Then there is spit jihad, land jihad, love jihad, mafia,
encroachers, rioters, infiltrators, termites. Once the line is set from
the top, the Hindutva ecosystem is quick to produce and circulate the necessary
visuals. .
C.J.
Werleman and others have noted the parallels between
the ‘corona jihad’ campaign and Nazi propaganda blaming Jews for typhus, but
when we look at visual depictions, including the caricature of the Jew and the
Muslim, the resemblance is even more striking and chilling. What do these
Hindutva propaganda visuals tell us, and why should we take urgent note instead
of dismissing them as ‘fringe’? Because, as Herf tells us in his paraphrasing
of the historian of fascism George L. Mosse, “the racism of bodily stereotypes
and countertypes ‘was the catalyst which pushed German nationalism over the
edge, from discrimination to mass extermination’.” Of course, the Nazis had a much more
developed notion of the ideal body and of the reviled countertype than the RSS-BJP does Hindutva fascism draws on different
historical and cultural streams than its European counterparts. Nevertheless,
the somatic preoccupation with Muslims their facial hair, their clothes, their
diet, their modes of worship marks them out as a group that should be reviled,
feared and ultimately put in their place. To borrow a line from the racist
lynching postcard from the United States,‘The Muslim now, by eternal grace,
Must learn to stay in the Muslim’s place’ You can recognise them from their clothes, Modi had said of the people opposing the Citizenship
(Amendment) Act. The BJP in Gujarat a
state Modi ruled for 13 years now wants us to recognise them dangling at the
end of a rope. https://thewire.in/communalism/for-the-bjp-the-muslim-is-not-just-the-message-but-the-only-message
23.
Uttar Pradesh police
murders young man; Feb 25 2022; According to police in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, it
was suicide. The young Muslim man they had brought into their custody had, out
of despair, killed himself in the police station toilets. But, as photos of the
scene emerged, so too did suspicions.The 22-year-old man, Altaf, was 165cm (5ft 5in) tall and weighed
60kg (9.5 stone), but the toilet tap he had supposedly hanged himself from was
just 76cm off the ground and made of flimsy plastic. And why, as the police
later claimed in court, was the CCTV in the police station mysteriously not
working that day? Family and friends tell a
very different story: that Altaf, a Muslim man living in the town of Kasganj,
was in love with and planned to marry a Hindu girl. That powerful local Hindu
vigilante groups opposed to interfaith
unions found out and reported him to the
police. And that on 9 November 2021, Altaf was arrested and tortured to death
in police custody and his family pressured to keep quiet. “The police murdered
my son and then gave me money to say he was depressed and took his own life,”
says Altaf’s father, Chand Miya, an illiterate mason who has taken the case to
the state high court. “But I will not stay quiet, I want justice.” Last Friday,
the courts ordered Altaf’s body to be exhumed and a new postmortem examination
to be carried out. In six cases examined by the
Guardian of deaths in custody and police shootings of suspects, allegedly in
self defence, from 2018 onwards, those accused of carrying out and covering up
killings are the same: the Uttar Pradesh police, under the rule of the state’s
chief minister, Yogi Adityanath, and his Bharatiya Janata party (BJP)
government. In the past five years, according to the
government, there have been more than 8,700 shootings by police in the state,
including more than 3,000 incidents when allegedly escaping suspects were shot,
often in the knees, and more than 150 deaths. There are rarely any eyewitnesses
to these encounters, according to human rights organisations that have examined many of the cases. Not a single
officer who fatally shot
someone in Uttar Pradesh in the past five years has faced disciplinary action. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/feb/22/uttar-pradesh-elections-hindu-nationalist-yogi-adityanath-police-accused-unlawful-deaths-muslims-dalits
24. Looming Genocide in Modi’s India Threatens Both Muslims & Christians by Pieter Friedrich ; Mar 1 2022; On 24 February 2022, a state legislator from Bihar demanded, in so many words, that the government of India withdraw voting rights from Indian Muslims and “make them second class citizens.” The politician, unsurprisingly, hails from India’s ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. Such overtly anti-minority statements probably would have been considered shocking enough to make national headlines eight years ago, before the BJP came to power, but since 2014 they have become so par for the course that it seems Indian journalists can barely be bothered to bat an eyelash over such an unvarnished demand by an elected official to disenfranchise hundreds of millions of Indian citizens. After all, the sociopolitical landscape in India has become so desensitized to the mainstreaming of hate that it took over a month for Swami Yati Narsinghanand to be arrested after organizing a conference in December 2021 where he and other speakers openly called for launching a genocide against Indian Muslims and he was barely behind bars for a month before getting bail. Over the past several years of the Modi regime, beatings and lynchings of Muslims have occurred with such increasing frequency that it’s become almost impossible for even the most attentive observer to track or recall all the incidents. Muslims are murdered for allegedly possessing beef. Muslims are stopped in the streets and ordered to chant Hindu religious slogans at the risk of violence and then beaten even when they cooperate. Muslim men are attacked for being in the company of Hindu women. Muslims are physically assaulted on public transportation in Delhi, the capital of the country itself, for accidentally bumping into someone. And on, and on, and on. Random violence against Muslims, to the extent of lynching, has been normalized as a daily occurrence in the Modi regime. The only change that we’ve seen at the outset of 2022 is that the “New Normal” has now expanded to include incessant, explicit calls for genocide from various prominent Hindu nationalist figures, often made in the presence of BJP officials. Calls which are made so frequently that, just like the lynchings of the past eight years, it’s growing difficult to keep up with them all.While Muslims have born the brunt of violence since 2014, over the past couple of years (and particularly in 2021), the Hindu nationalist forces not only began expanding the overtness of their rhetoric but also the targets of their violence. Indian Christians are, increasingly, falling victim to the rising tide of hatred. Documented attacks on Christians have slowly risen, with almost every year since 2014 bringing higher numbers than the previous one. Last year was exceptionally horrific, however, with the total number of incidents being almost twice that of 2020. Violence against Christians absolutely sky-rocketed, thus it’s no surprise that leading Indian Christian groups and figures described 2021 as a “year of fear.” Just as Islamophobic hatred has become a commonplace feature in the sociopolitical landscape of Modi’s “New India,” so too is bloodthirsty prejudice against Christians passing from the realm of the extraordinary into the ordinary of the everyday. One need look no further than the October 2021 call issued by a swami at a rally in Chhattisgarh that was hosted two months before the now infamous Haridwar Hate Conference. Flanked by BJP officials, the swami denounced conversion to Christianity and urged his followers to “behead” anyone who tries to proselytize them. But they shouldn’t just stop at murdering those who encourage their conversion they should, said the swami, proactively target already existing Christians with a strategy of “stop, warn, and kill.” It was only a matter of time before Christians were destined to join Muslims as top targets of the Hindu nationalist movement. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh serves, of course, as the fountainhead of that movement, and the RSS’s “Guru” in detailing his ideology specifically identified both communities as “foreign elements,” “internal threats,” and, in so many words, as “traitors” guilty of joining “the camp of the enemy” merely by virtue of daring to be non-Hindus living in India. All non-Hindus are under threat by the RSS and its Hindu nationalist agenda. In the case of Buddhists, Sikhs, and others, however, the RSS seeks to assimilate them. In the case of both Muslims and Christians, the RSS seeks to eliminate them entirely. Indian Christians have, of course, suffered some truly horrific atrocities at the hands of the RSS-BJP in the past 20 plus years, most notably during the Kandhamal Pogrom in Odisha in 2008. One major difference from today, however, is that while Kandhamal which saw perhaps 100 Christians fall victim to the trishul produced a far higher body count than that we have seen suffered under the Modi regime, that pogrom, like most of the other atrocities against Christians during the past few decades, was a regionally-confined atrocity. Attacks on Christians today, in contrast, are spread across large swathes of the country and are even extending into southern India, where the community has historically lived, by and large, safe and sound. Perhaps the most notable aspect of these nationwide attacks on Christians is that the vast majority of them are perpetrated by mobs. Mobs, oftentimes, of hundreds of people. These attacks are also, very frequently, on church services where congregations of 20, 50, 100 or more are gathering to meet. Thus, it’s important in contextualizing the level of violence to remember that, while there were 505 violent incidents recorded in 2021, each incident might be directly victimizing, at any given time, dozens of Christians or more. Considering that so many of these are mob attacks and that the violence is no longer regionally-confined, what Dr. John Dayal, one of India’s preeminent Indian Christian activists, told me sounds quite rational. As he said: “I will not say that Christians are being massacred seven days a week. But they can be at a moment’s notice.” While many in the global community are ignorant — willfully or otherwise of the persecution of Indian Christians, the growing persecution has not escaped notice of international Christian human rights organizations. Nor has the source of the persecution. Last year, International Christian Concern, a DC-based watchdog, jointly awarded India, and Modi, and the RSS’s family of organizations its ignominious “Persecutor of the Year” award. As the organization reported, anti-Christian violence is “inspired by the notion of establishing India as a Hindu nation.” Voice of the Martyrs, a renowned nonprofit dedicated to defending the human rights of persecuted Christians, labels the environment for Indian Christians as “hostile” and blames the violence on “well-organized Hindu extremist groups” who, they explain, “view Christian converts as traitors to the Hindu homeland.” Open Doors USA, a nonprofit which focuses on monitoring global persecution of Christians, explains that the “driving force” behind persecution in India is “an ideology that disregards Indian Christians and other religious minorities as true Indians because they have allegiances that lie outside India, and asserts the country should be purified of their presence.” Open Doors also issues annual rankings of countries according to the level of persecution faced by Christians. In 2013, a year before the BJP came to power, Open Doors ranked India 31st among the top 50 countries in the world where persecution of Christians is most severe. This year and for the past four years India has ranked as the 10th most dangerous country in the world in which to be a Christian. That’s higher than, for instance, China or even Saudi Arabia.Notably, while there are nine other countries where persecution of Christians does rank higher, India has three distinguishing factors from them all: first, it is the only legitimate, officially secular democracy on the list; second, as the second-most populated country in the world, its population is more than twice that of all the other nine combined; third, it is the only country which is an ally of the United States. “The attacks on [the] Christian community continue in the year 2022 as nothing is being done by the people in power to control it,” warned AC Michael of the United Christian Forum for Human Rights in late January. That’s hardly shocking considering that, in most cases, those instigating the attacks are documented as leaders or members of RSS-affiliated outfits. If the trend since 2014 is anything to go by, Indian Christians, in 2022, will suffer more and ever more violent attacks than they did in each of the previous eight years. Modi’s regime is silently tolerating a looming genocide by forces which seek to swallow up not just Muslims but also Christians. As it has been said, silence is consent, and considering that Modi’s public life began within the RSS, it’s reasonable to conclude that his government’s silence stems from ideological alignment with the forces of hate who are pushing Indian Christians and Muslims into an existential crisis. The global community religious or not must wake up to this threat before it becomes the bloodbath on the brink of which India is now teetering..
Monthly update 29;
January 2022 : Muslims in India
This page updates
news related to the plight of Muslims in India
.
1.
From Muslims to Christians: Impunity
Drives Expanding Hindu Nationalist Violence by Pieter Friedrich; Jan 8 2022; Day 3 of 7-day hunger-strike for persecuted Indian Christians Pieter
Friedrich Today is the third day of my seven-day hunger-strike for the
persecuted Christians of India. It has now been over 60 hours since I ate
anything. One thing that makes the situation of persecuted Indian Christians
particularly unique is that they live in the only democracy in the world — in
fact, aside from China, possibly the only country in the world — where both
Muslims and Christians are simultaneously facing persecution for the same
reasons and by the same source: militant Hindu nationalism. As I’ve reported, Hindu nationalists
believe that in order to be truly Indian, you must be a Hindu. They seek to
either eliminate or assimilate all non-Hindus. In the case of Muslims and
Christians, they seek elimination. In the case of most other religious
minorities, such as Buddhists and Sikhs, they seek assimilation — that is, to
force them to identify as Hindus.Because Muslims and Christians are targeted
for elimination, they face the brunt of anti-minority violence in India today.
Both communities are labeled as “foreign elements,” “internal threats,” and
“traitors” to the nation. However, for a long time and for various reasons,
Muslims — who are the largest religious minority group in India — have been the
Number One Target of the Hindu nationalist forces that rose to power in 2014. It began with the election of Narendra
Modi as prime minister, despite his implication in an anti-Muslim pogrom that
left thousands dead in the state of Gujarat in 2002. Under Modi’s regime, a
wave of lynchings of Muslims gradually increased, with top ministers in his
government even publicly garlanding lynching convicts. It expanded in 2019,
when Modi’s regime annexed Kashmir, the only Muslim-majority state, and exploded
during the anti-Muslim Delhi Pogrom in 2020. The threat to Indian Muslims escalated
exponentially in 2021 as subsidiaries of the RSS paramilitary staged riots in
the state of Tripura and rampaged through the streets of states like Madhya
Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, often joined by members of Modi’s BJP as they chanted
genocidal slogans against Muslims. Finally, last year concluded with
synchronized hate conferences in both Delhi and Haridwar where Hindu
nationalist demagogues, joined by BJP officials, pledged to “fight, die, and
kill” in order to make India a Hindu nation and vowed to take up weapons to
slaughter Muslims. After seven years of impunity for a surge of xenophobic violence
against Muslims, Hindu nationalists are now putting Christians in the crosshairs.
The threat facing Indian Christians — and the impunity for their attackers — is
substantiated by countless major Indian as well as international Christian
groups. For instance, describing conditions in 2020, the Evangelical
Fellowship of India reported, “As a result of the anti-conversion laws,
religious minorities can now be targeted by just about anyone, especially
vigilante groups…. Moreover, this law places the burden of proof on the person
who has been accused of conversion.” The Fellowship warned that the “primary
agenda” of vigilante groups “is to create an atmosphere of fear among the
Christian community and other religious minorities.”Moving into the first half
of 2021, the Fellowship spoke of vicious and widespread violence which “ranged
from murder to attacks on church[es], false cases, police immunity and
connivance, and the now normalized social exclusion or boycott.” As they
concluded, “The translation of the hate into violence is sparked by a sense of
impunity generated in India’s administrative apparatus.” That conclusion was echoed in December
2021 by United Christian Forum, an Indian human rights group, which warned,
“The steady year-on-year increase in violence against the peace-loving
community escalated in the last quarter to alarming numbers…. Sadly, this
violence against the Christian community is compounded by the failure of the
police to investigate and prosecute mobs and perpetrators.” Every major international Christian
organization focused on tracking persecution has reached similar conclusions
about the increase in violence accompanied by impunity. Open Doors USA, for
instance, has — for the third year in a row — rankedIndia as the 10th most
dangerous country in the world in which to be a Christian. For context, in
2013, before Modi came to power, India was ranked in 31st place. Now, however,
labeled as a country of “extreme persecution,” India is ranked as even more
dangerous for Christians than China, Saudi Arabia, or Sudan. What makes India
unique is that, except for North Korea (which ranks as #1 most dangerous), the
source of persecution of Christians in all the other top ten countries is from
Islamist extremists. In India, however, Muslims and Christians are bonded by a
sense of shared suffering. Open Doors USA further reported: “Hindu extremists
believe that all Indians should be Hindus, and that the country should be rid
of Christianity and Islam. To achieve this goal, they use extensive violence,
particularly targeting Christians from a Hindu background. In their villages,
Christians are accused of following a ‘foreign faith’ and often physically
attacked. If they don’t ‘re-convert,’ their community may boycott them, with a
devastating effect on their ability to earn income and buy food.” These reports
are echoed by the renowned Voice of the Martyrs, which ranks India as “hostile”
to Christians, stating: “The main persecutors are well-organized Hindu
extremist groups, local governments and nationalist Hindus who seek to ‘purify’
India by making it entirely Hindu.” Warning that these groups seek to eliminate
Christians, the outfit explained that it is because Hindu nationalists “view
Christian converts as traitors to the Hindu homeland.” Illustrating the
precarious condition of Indian Christians, Voice of the Martyrs warned, “Hindu
nationalist informants live in nearly every village and report on the
activities of Christians, resulting in attacks and arrests…. Many pastors have
been beaten and jailed, and several are martyred each year.” All of these
conclusions are corroborated by 2021 reports from US-based International
Christian Concern, which named India (among 7 countries in total) as a
“Persecutor of the Year.” Warning that “Christian persecution has skyrocketed”
since the Modi regime took power, the outfit notes that recent surveys of
Indian Christians found that over 70 percent “reported they were concerned for
their personal safety as Christians in India.” As similarly detailed elsewhere,
International Christian Concern reports, “Attacks on Christians and other religious
minorities often go unpunished. In most cases, Hindu nationalist political
leaders use anti-minority rhetoric for political gain. This hate speech
inspires more assaults on minorities. When the police and local authorities
take no action against the radicals, it emboldens radicals. Year after year,
attacks on minorities are reported in greater number and severity.” The outfit
concludes: “Religious extremists have the green light to terrorize Christians
with impunity.” Sky-rocketing attacks, increasing in numbers and severity,
almost always met with impunity, and the violence of the radical militants on
the streets constantly encouraged by the hateful rhetoric of the Hindu
nationalists in political office. First against Muslims, now against
Christians. The situation in India is spiraling out of control, but the outside
world is taking very little notice. Indian Muslims have been tyrannized for
years, but now life in India is swiftly becoming a waking nightmare for
Christians, as well. That’s why I’m on hunger-strike in solidarity with the
persecuted Indian Church. I’ve heard their cries, and I’m hoping that you will
too.Something has got to give.
2.
The Hindu Right; Jan 17 2022; At a conference in India last month, a Hindu extremist dressed
head-to-toe in the religion's holy color, saffron, called on her supporters to
kill Muslims and "protect" the country."If 100 of us become
soldiers and are prepared to kill 2 million (Muslims), then we will win ...
protect India, and make it a Hindu nation," said Pooja Shakun Pandey, a
senior member of the right-wing Hindu Mahasabha political party, according to a
video of the event. Her words
and calls for violence from other religious leaders were met with a roar of
applause from the large audience, a video from the three-day conference in the
northern Indian city of Haridwar shows.
Pandey and several others are being investigated by local police for
insulting religious beliefs, a charge that carries a possible sentence of up to
four years in prison, Haridwar police officials told CNN. Late Thursday, police
in Uttarakhand state, where Haridwar is located, arrested a man who spoke at
the event, senior Haridwar Police official Shekhar Suyal told CNN. It is
unclear what the man said at the event. Police have not formally charged anyone
with any crime. Analysts say the Hindu Mahasabha is at the tip of a broader
trend in India which has seen an alarming rise in support for extremist Hindu
nationalist groups since Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power nearly
eight years ago. Although these groups aren't directly associated with Modi's
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), his own Hindu nationalist agenda, and the lack of
repercussions for these groups' previous vitriolic comments, has given them
tacit support, making them even more brazen, analysts say. Analysts fear this rise
poses a serious danger to minorities, especially Muslims -- and worry it may
only get worse as several Indian states head to the polls in the coming months. "What makes the
Hindu Mahasabha dangerous," said Gilles Verniers, an assistant professor
of political science at Ashoka University near India's capital, New Delhi,
"is that they have been waiting for a moment like this in decades." Founded in 1907 during
British rule at a time of growing conflict between Muslims and Hindus in the
country, the Hindu Mahasabha is one of India's oldest political organizations.
The group didn't support British rule, but it didn't back India's freedom
movement either, led by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who was particularly
tolerant of Muslims. Even now, some members of the group worship his assassin,
Nathuram Godse. The Hindu Mahasabha's vision, according to the group's official website, is to declare India the "National Home of the
Hindus." The website says if it takes power, it will not hesitate to
"force" the migration of India's Muslims to neighboring Pakistan and
vows to reform the country's education system to align it with their version of
Hinduism. was in 1991. According to
Verniers, their "strength is not to be measured in electoral terms."
And in the past eight years since Modi came to power, they appear to have
expanded in numbers and influence based on the size and frequency of their
meetings, he said. While the group does not publicly disclose how many members it
has, Verniers said they are "comfortably in the tens of thousands." Hindu Mahasabha targets
rural communities in northern states, where there is a large BJP presence,
encouraging them to vote for parties that align with their Hindu-nationalist
ideology, including Modi's BJP, Verniers said. Modi, in turn, has publicly honored the Hindu Mahasabha's late leader, Veer Savarkar, for "his
bravery" and "emphasis on social reform." And as Hindu Mahasabha has grown in recent years, it has become
more outspoken. In 2015, Sadhvi Deva Thakur, then a senior member of the group,
caused widespread controversy when she told reporters Muslims and Christians should undergo forced sterilization to
control their population growth. CNN has reached out to her for comment. Pandey, who spoke at the
December conference in Haridwar, was arrested in February 2019 after a
video showed her shooting an effigy of Gandhi Photos uploaded to her official Facebook page last May show her worshiping a
statue of Gandhi's assassin. CNN has not been able to confirm whether she was
formally charged over the February 2019 incident. Hindu Mahasabha isn't the
only right-wing Hindu nationalist group to espouse violent sentiment toward liberals
and minorities -- including India's 200 million Muslims, who make up 15%
of the country's 1.3 billion population. At last month's
conference, several speakers called on India's Hindus to "defend" the
religion with weapons. Another called for the "cleansing" of India's
minorities, according to video from the event. But according to Verniers, Hindu Mahasbha one of the largest
right-wing political groups aiming to make India the land of the Hindus. And while the group's
campaigns and ideas are decades old, they're more bold about them now. "The escalation of
their hate speech is reflective of the state of affairs in India," said
Verniers. "But they are able to get away with it more." The reason extremist groups appear to be on
the rise is clear, according to experts: they have impunity and support. India
prohibits hate speech under several sections of its penal code, including a
section which criminalizes "deliberate and malicious acts" intended
to insult religious beliefs. According to lawyer Vrinda Grover, any group inciting
violence is barred under Indian law. "Police, states and the government
are responsible to ensure (inciting violence) doesn't happen," she said.
"But the state, through its inaction, is actually permitting these groups
to function, while endangering Muslims who are the targets." Pandey's rant
and some of the other calls for violence were the "worst form of
hate speech," according to Verniers. "This is the first time I find
myself using the term 'genocide' in Indian politics," he said, referring
to the comments made at last month's conference. "They have tacit support
in the form of government silence." That's because Modi also has a Hindu
nationalist agenda, experts say. Starting from his first term as Prime
Minister, minority groups and analysts say they began to see a significant
shift in India's ideology from a secular to a Hindu nationalist state. The BJP
has its roots in Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a right wing-Hindu group
that counts Modi among its members. Many RSS members are adherents of the
Hindutva ideology that the Hindu Mahasabha preach -- to make India the land of
the Hindus. In 2018, India's current Home Minister Amit Shah said Muslim immigrants and
asylum seekers from Bangladesh were "termites" and promised to rid
the nation of them. The BJP's Yogi Adityanath, the chief minister of the north
Indian state Uttar Pradesh, known for his anti-Muslim views, once compared Muslim
Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan to Hafiz Saeed, the alleged planner of the
2008 Mumbai terror attacks . Between 2015 and 2018, vigilante groups killed
dozens of people -- many of whom were Muslims -- for allegedly consuming or
killing cows, an animal considered sacred by Hindus, according to a report from Human Rights Watch. Modi publicly condemned some of the
killings, but the violence continued, and in 2017, his government attempted to
ban the sale and slaughter of cows --currently illegal in several Indian states
-- nationwide. Human Rights Watch said many of the alleged murders went
unpunished in part due to delayed police investigations and
"rhetoric" from ruling party politicians, which may have incited mob
violence. In 2019, India's Parliament passed a bill that would give
immigrants from three neighboring countries a pathway to citizenship -- except
for Muslims. It led to extended protests and international condemnation. In December 2020, Uttar
Pradesh enacted a controversial anti-conversion law, making it more difficult for interfaith couples to marry or
for people to convert to Islam or Christianity. Other states, including
Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, and Assam, introduced similar laws, leading to
widespread harassment and, in some cases, arrests for interfaith couples,
Christian priests and pastors. All of this has only served to encourage extremist groups like
the Hindu Mahasabha, say experts. Zakia Soman, a women's
rights activist and co-founder of the Muslim group Bharatiya Muslim Mahila
Andolan, said "a failure of governance" had given rise to more
right-wing extremists. "Our community is realizing that we have become
second-class citizens in our own country," Soman said. "Minority
bashing and hate is becoming regular and normalized. As the intensity
increases, the venom and violence in their language also increases." A 21-year-old Muslim
student in Delhi, who chose to remain anonymous for fear of backlash from
right-wing groups, said Muslims are filled with "a sense of fear"
every time right-wing Hindu groups make hateful comments."It gives us a
sense that we don't belong here," he said.
Despite police investigations and public outrage, legal action against
those who spoke and were present at December's event have been slow. In a
letter submitted to Modi on Friday and seen by CNN, students and faculty of the
prestigious Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore and Ahmedabad said his
silence "emboldens" hate, adding there is "sense of fear"
among minority groups in India. Some experts agree the government's silence has
only emboldened these groups further. "Hate speech precedes hate
crimes," Grover, the lawyer, said. "And we are witnessing a crescendo
of hate crimes. These groups are rapidly spreading poison through
society." A 2019 US intelligence report warned that parliamentary
elections in India increase the possibility of communal violence if Modi's BJP
"stresses Hindu nationalist themes." It added that state leaders
"might view a Hindu-nationalist campaign as a signal to incite low-level
violence to animate their supporters." Analysts fear the BJP's divisive
politics will could lead to increased violence against minority groups in the
lead up to pivotal state elections this year. And reported episodes of violence
against Muslims have already increased ahead of this year's state elections. In
December, crowds of India's Hindu-right confronted Muslims praying on the
streets in the city of Gurugram, just outside of Delhi. They prevented Muslims
from praying, while shouting slogans and carrying banners in protest. "It
is an electoral strategy," said Verniers, the political scientist.
"Create religious tension, activate religious polarization and consolidate
on the Hindu vote." Grover, the lawyer, said criminal laws are
"weaponized" in India, adding anyone who challenges those in power
"face the wrath of the law." "Muslim lives in India are
demonized," she said. "The Indian state is in serious crisis."
On January 1, Pandey held a live broadcast for her more than 1,500 Facebook
followers. The subject was "Religious Parliament," her post said. For
the 21-year-old student, it is difficult to "expect any sense of
justice" for Indian Muslims. He says even having a Muslim name is enough
to make him feel unsafe. "It is really scary to carry the Muslim identity
in India today." https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/14/asia/india-hindu-extremist-groups-intl-hnk-dst/index.html
3. Muslim
girls ; Jan 19 2022; When A H Almas, 18, and
two of her friends stepped into their classroom on a December morning, the
teacher immediately yelled at them: “Get out.” The Muslim girls were not
allowed to sit in the classroom because they were wearing Hijab, or headscarf. “When we arrived at the door of the
classroom, the teacher said we cannot enter with the Hijab,” Almas told Al
Jazeera. “She asked us to remove it.” Since then, a group of six Muslim
students at a government-run women’s college in Udupi district in India’s
Karnataka state in the south are forced to sit outside the classroom because
the college administration alleges they are defying the rules since Hijab is
not part of the uniform. But the girls told Al Jazeera the Hijab is “part of
their faith” and practicing it is “their right guaranteed under law”. They have
maintained a defiant stance even as the administration has allegedly used
“pressure tactics” to coerce them to give in. The girls have been marked absent
from their classes since December 31 even as they say they are going to the
college every day “One of my friends
fell sick because of this mental torture.” Rudre Gowda, the college principal,
told Al Jazeera they cannot allow the students to wear Hijab in classrooms “as
it is not part of the uniform”. He said they are abiding by the directives
issued by the education ministry “It is
Islamophobia. It is apartheid,” she said. Karnataka is governed by Prime
Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). K Raghupati Bhat, a local
BJP legislator who also heads a committee in the Udupi college, told the
parents of the students in a meeting that the college would continue with its
uniform code, irrespective of the religious preferences of the students. After
the controversy over Hijab erupted in Udupi, students in at least two other
colleges in the state, including members of the right-wing Akhil Bharatiya
Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), held protests as they donned saffron scarves inside
the colleges, demanding a ban on Hijab https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/18/india-karnataka-muslim-college-students-hijab-ban-udupi
4.
Minorities in
India; Jan 9 2022; Some US lawmakers and political activists have alleged that “widespread
persecution of India’s religious minorities and human rights defenders” under
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rule “threatens and undermines India’s
pluralist Constitution.” US Senator Ed Markey, Congressmen Jim McGovern, Andy
Levin, and Jamie Raskin and others made these accusations at a special
Congressional briefing on Jan 26 to commemorate India’s 73rd Republic Day. The
briefing was co-hosted by Amnesty International USA, Genocide Watch,
21Wilberforce and several other organizations, according to a press release
from the Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC). Expressing ‘concerned’ about
Modi government’s alleged “efforts to peel back the rights of religious
minorities in India,” Markey said the “laws on religious conversion, citizenship
and other restrictive measures fly in the face of India’s inclusive secular
Constitution and core tenets of any democracy.” US Congressman Jim McGovern,
co-chair of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission of the US House of
Representatives, said, “For the first time in 2019, a law was passed that links
citizenship to religious identity. “There is every reason to fear that this
change combined with the proposal for a National Register of Citizens
institutionalizes discrimination against Muslims,” he said. US Congressman
Jamie Raskin, spoke on India’s continuing struggle for human rights, especially
under Prime Minister Modi, which affects not just India’s Muslim, Christian,
and Sikh minorities, but also Hindus who dissent against the Hindu supremacist
movement. Nadine Maenza, Chair of the United
States Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF),
alleged that “Since 2014, the BJP-led Indian government has increasingly
institutionalized its ideological vision of a Hindu state at both the national
and state levels through a foundation of laws and structural changes hostile to
the country’s religious minorities, which include Muslims, Christians, Sikhs,
Dalits, and adivasis.” .” Kerry Kennedy, President of Robert F. Kennedy Human
Rights, decried Kashmiri human rights defender Khurram Parvez’s recent arrest
under India’s anti-terror law. “Khurram’s most recent arrest is a prime example
of the crackdown on civic space in India and across the globe – where regimes
target journalists, lawyers, and human rights defenders who play a critical
role of holding governments accountable for human rights abuses,” said Kerry,
daughter of the late Senator Robert Kennedy. Carolyn Nash, Asia Advocacy
Director at Amnesty International USA, criticized President Joe Biden’s “warm
relationship” with Modi during the recent democracy summit, especially in the
face of the Indian government’s “profound fear of activists and critics.” Archbishop
Peter Machado, who heads the archdiocese of Bangalore, spoke on India’s rising
number of anti-conversion laws, which Hindu extremists weaponize against
religious minorities to harass, assault, and imprison them on flimsy claims of
forcing Hindus to convert to other religions. “In the name of the freedom of
religion, [India] has been bringing more and more laws and regulations to
restrict our freedom of religion,” he said. Ameenah Gurib-Fakim, former
President of Mauritius, spoke of her Indian heritage and the strong fraternal
ties she had experienced within the diverse Indian diaspora community whilst
growing up. She lamented that the Constitution of India that safeguarded and
protected human rights, was “being trampled upon almost on a daily basis.” Other
co-hosts of the briefing included Hindus for Human Rights, International
Christian Concern, Jubilee Campaign, Dalit Solidarity Forum, New York State
Council of Churches, Federation of Indian American Christian Organizations of
North America, India Civil Watch International, Students Against Hindutva
Ideology, Center for Pluralism, American Muslim Institution, International
Society for Peace and Justice, Association of Indian Muslims of America, the
Humanism Project (Australia).
https://www.americanbazaaronline.com/2022/01/27/four-us-lawmakers-accuse-modi-of-curbing-religious-freedom-448473/
Monthly update 28;
December 2021 : Muslims in India
This page updates
news related to the plight of Muslims in India
.
1.
Youth assaulted; Dec 02
2021: A 24-year-Muslim youth in Indian
state of Jharkhand’s Simdega district was waylaid by a mob and beaten up
ruthlessly, leaving him grievously injured, according to reports reaching from
the state. The incident took place on the evening of November 28 when Adil
Hussain came out of his house to offer evening namaz. Adil was hospitalised after the attack and then
referred to RIMS in the capital city of Ranchi where he is undergoing
treatment. “We got a call from a man
named Aakash Singh who claimed he saved my brother but later Adil said Aakash
was part of the mob which attacked him.” He alleged that his brother was
attacked because he had beard and wearing skull cap, markers of Muslim
identity. https://www.kmsnews.org/kms/2021/12/02/muslim-youth-on-way-to-mosque-beaten-up-in-jharkhand-village.html
2.
India and human Rights; Dec 2021; A consortium of 34 international multi-faith human rights NGOs
have written a letter to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris
expressing their deep concern that the president’s Summit for Democracy Dec. 9-10 will ignore the widespread violations of human
rights, persecution, physical attacks and murder of members of minority
religions in India as the government devolves from democracy to fascism. The
letter, at more than 1,500 words, provides details and indisputable facts for
14 instances in which democracy is under attack or being abused by the
government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and members of his BJP/RSS
party. The letter has jointly written by the Alliance of South Asians Taking
Action, USA, Alternatives International, Canada, Ambedkar International Center,
USA, Ambedkar King Study Circle, USA, Anti-Caste Discrimination Alliance, UK,
Association of Indian Muslims of America, USA, Aotearoa Alliance Of Progressive
Indians (Aotearoa New Zealand.), Center for Pluralism, USA, CERAS (Centre sur
l’asie du sud), Montreal, Canada, Chicago Coalition for Human Rights in India
(CCHRI), USA, Coalition Against Fascism in India (CAFI), USA, Coalition of
Seattle Indian Americans, USA, Dalit Solidarity Forum, USA, Federation of
Indian American Christian Organizations (FIACONA), North America, Foundation:
The London Story, EU, Friends of India—Texas, USA, Hindus for Human Rights,
USA, India Civil Watch International, North America, India Justice Project,
Germany, Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC), USA, India Solidarity Germany,
Germany, International Christian Concern, USA, International Commission for
Dalit Rights, USA, International Solidarity for Academic Freedom in India,
International, International Society for Peace and Justice, USA, Punjabi
Literary and Cultural Association (PLCA) Winnipeg, Canada, Scottish Indians for
Justice, Scotland, South Asian Dalit Adivasi Network, Canada, South Asian Left
Activist Movement (SALAM), USA, South Asia Solidarity Group, UK, Students
Against Hindutva Ideology, USA, The Humanism Project, Australia, Turbine Bagh,
UK, Voices Against Fascism in India, USA and Islamic Society of North America
(ISNA), USA. The letter also expresses regret that more members of the
international civil society were not included in planning for the summit, and
those who were involved were warned that specific instances of member nations’
internal affairs, abuses, discrimination and persecution will be off-limits.
“While your organizing principles are commendable, the process has been weak
and exclusionary,” the letter states. “… We are committed to working with your
administration to strengthen the Democracy Summit process. We therefore seek
urgent consultation with your administration, not only to ensure that the
Democracy Summit gets off to a meaningful start, but also that the process
going forward gains in strength at every stage.” Unfortunately, the present
Indian government cannot be considered one that shares the democratic values of
your administration. While our two countries could never have claimed to be
perfect democracies, it is important that the Summit start from acknowledging
one key fact: the past seven years of BJP/RSS rule in India have seen a sharp
and dramatic backsliding when it comes to democratic norms. Take the case of
the Farm Laws: after passing sweeping laws as an ordinance without any
consultation with farmers or the opposition, the government brutally repressed
and demonized the farmers’ movement against the laws. Even the repeal of the
three laws occurred in a manner suited to strongmen: instead of communicating
with farmers, or following the parliamentary process, Mr Modi unilaterally
announced the repeal. Not a word was said by Mr Modi about the 700+ deaths that
his government’s intransigence and authoritarian approach in the matter had
produced. We appreciate the three organizing principles around which the summit
is organized, but urge you to attend to our critical concerns regarding India
under each of these pillars: Defending against Authoritarianism: Freedom
House has downgraded India’s democracy to “partly free.” International
commentators from every major media publication have consistently raised the
issue of India’s authoritarian turn over the last seven years. Three specific
issues must be raised with Mr Modi: Anti-Minority Laws: The Modi
government began its second term with the passage of the Citizenship Amendment
Act. Together with its corollary processes of the National Register of Citizens
and the National Population Register, the CAA/NRC/NPR create a framework for
the active disenfranchisement of India’s largest minority—Muslims—stripping
away their voting and citizenship rights. Not challenging these would be the
equivalent of abetting conditions for a future genocide. All this is playing
out in the context of a series of other laws targeting religious minorities,
including anti-conversion and anti-inter religious marriage laws, which also
target Christians. In addition, Christian institutions are under attack, with
International Christian Concern counting India among the seven worst
persecutors of Christians in the world. Kashmir: The sudden revocation
of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, and the overwhelming use of the
military in Kashmir, with there being one soldier for every seven Kashmiris at one stage, is already being acknowledged internationally as the single
most visible and unambiguous sign of BJP/RSS authoritarianism and its
willingness to run roughshod over constitutional protections and guarantees; Dissent,
Political Prisoners, and Draconian Laws: The last 7 years have seen a
continuous and rising tide of arrest and imprisonment of dissenters under
draconian anti-terror laws such as UAPA and the NSA in India. The Bhima
Koregaon 16 case, the arrests of students, activists, and journalists in the
wake of the Northeast Delhi violence, and most recently the arrests of
journalists reporting on religious violence in Tripura, are just the most known
instances. Those jailed without trial include some of India’s most prominent
public intellectuals, poets, writers, journalists, lawyers, and leaders of the
women’s movement. At least one prominent arrestee, Jesuit priest Father Stan
Swamy, passed away while still in custody due to the effects of being
incarcerated during a global pandemic in his 80s. If dissent is the most
important aspect of an active democracy, then PM Modi has a unique record in
its repression. This includes significant evidence that in the landmark BK-16
case, evidence was falsely planted on defendants’ computers through malware,
opening up a new vector of attack on critics of the government ;Addressing
and Fighting Corruption:While the Modi government first came to office on
an anti-corruption plank, it has since proven to be one of the most opaque and
nontransparent governments India has known. Three issues of international scale
and core to American interests and values must be raised with PM Modi at the
summit: Electoral Bonds: The Modi government introduced electoral bonds
in 2015, sneaking them in as part of the budget process. This set into place
the most opaque electoral finance system in the democratic world. It allows for
national and international corporations to pay into party funds with no
oversight and no transparency. From summary figures available, it is clear that
large numbers of international shell companies are involved in financing Indian
political parties, and that the BJP is by far the single largest recipient of
such funds. While US funders of electoral bonds in India must be revealed, this
assault on the financial underpinnings of India’s democracy must stop ; Rafale
and Crony Capitalism: India’s position as a valued member of the Quad is
premised on transparent and incorruptible trade, particularly in the arms
sector. The Rafale deal with France is a subject of an ongoing French
investigation. What has already been revealed about the deal, including data
submitted to the Comptroller and Auditor General in India, points to a specific
corporation being favored, and millions of dollars of graft money being at
play. Democracy cannot survive in an atmosphere of crony capitalism ; PMCARES
Fund: The PMCARES fund is at the centre of the financial scandal that
emerged even as India faced two devastating waves of the pandemic. Under Indian
law and as per the government’s promotional material while raising money for
PMCARES, this fund meets the definition of a government fund. And yet, today,
the government of India claims the fund is not a government fund, and refuses
to release any details about it, even though several government agencies,
including the Indian consulate in Washington, DC, and 26 other countries, advertised PMCARES and helped raise funds for it! ; Advancing Respect
for Human Rights:This government is marked by explicit attacks on human
rights coming from its top leadership. PM Modi has demonized non-governmental organizations by claiming they are working to
“finish him”; Amit Shah has dismissed human rights as Western concepts that don’t apply to India;
National Security Advisor Ajit Doval has branded civil society as the “new frontier of war”; and Bipin Rawat,
the chief of defence staff, has valorized lynching. Such naked attacks on human rights from the very top
echelons of the administration need to be a central concern of the summit ; Digital
surveillance and planting of evidence: Two recent revelations on
surveillance and evidence planting, potentially by the Indian state, suggest a
severe rise in the misuse of spying technologies to attack critics of the government.
Pegasus was used to snoop on journalists, top opposition leaders, and even
independent election commissioners; the malware Netwire went one step further
and planted evidence on the computers of dissenters. While several democratic
governments have opened investigations in the wake of these revelations, the
Indian government has refused to do so thus far. Given your recent sanctions
against the NSO Group, the US must call on Mr Modi to immediately stop the use
of malware to target civil society, investigate these harms, and punish
offenders; Worsening caste oppression and erosion of legislative
protections: Caste remains the most pervasive form of violation of basic
human rights in India, and the last several years have seen an alarming
increase in caste atrocities. Particularly in the northern state of Uttar
Pradesh, the BJP-led state government and police have themselves been complicit in covering up sexual violence against Dalits. Groups connected
to the RSS have led to violence against Dalits on university campuses and in
the state of Gujarat. Moreover, the Modi government failed to protect
provisions in the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, which acts as a crucial
deterrent, until protests and the opposition forced it to do so. The BK-16 case
is another example of the BJP/RSS’s punitive retaliation against Dalit
assertion and their exercising of civil and cultural rights by commemorating
Dalit valour in the historic Bhima-Koregaon battle; Labor Codes: In
September 2020, the Narendra Modi government passed new laws governing Labor when the opposition was absent from
Parliament. These laws make it harder for labour unions to be recognized;
harder for workers to go on strike, and made it easier for some companies to
lay off workers with impunity. The assault on labour rights is a critical part
of the Modi government’s overall assault on human rights ; The Swedish V-Dem
Institute has described India as an “electoral autocracy,” and we agree: this is
the single most anti-democratic government India has ever seen. Therefore, we
are committed to working with your administration to strengthen the Democracy
Summit process. https://twocircles.net/2021dec08/444316.html
3.
Man lynched in Bihar allegedly for stealing cattle; Dec 11 2021; Police have filed an FIR against unknown persons after a
man was lynched by a mob allegedly for stealing cattle in Bihar’s Araria
district on December 8. According to the police, Mohd Siddiqui, 52, was lynched
by a mob at Bhawanipur village under Fulkaha police station of Forbesganj
sub-division in Araria district on Wednesday allegedly for stealing cattle.
However, the incident came to light on December 10. “A villager raised an alarm
after he spotted some men stealing buffaloes and bullocks owned by his
co-villager Sanichar Bariyet and when they started chasing thieves, one of them
fired a gunshot in the air to scare them away, but another of them Mohd
Siddiqui was caught by the villagers while, others managed to escape. Mohd
Siddiqui was beaten up with sticks and fists and he succumbed to his injuries,”
said Fulkaha police station Inspector Nagina Kumar. He also said an FIR has
been lodged against unknown persons. Villagers said cattle thieves often sell
stolen cattle to slaughter houses in areas bordering Nepal. The victim Mohd
Siddiqui was identified as resident of the neighbouring district of Supaul. The
Hindu
4. Roseville City Council Rebuked for Honoring RSS's International Wing; Pieter Friedrich; Dec 18 2021 ;
Following are my remarks in full:
Almost 75 years ago, in January 1947, several members of the radical Hindu
nationalist RSS paramilitary who had just emigrated out of India gathered to
form the international wing of that paramilitary — the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh
or HSS. Meanwhile, back in the Indian subcontinent, on the eve of India’s
independence, the paramilitary gathered in the northern region of Jammu and
Kashmir to stage its first large-scale massacre of minorities. Accounts,
shrouded in the fog of conflict, vary, but historians estimate that the RSS and
its collaborators slaughtered anywhere from 20,000 to 200,000 Muslims. A few
months later, in January 1948, India had just gained its independence when an
RSS member assassinated Gandhi specifically because he hated him for supposedly
being too peaceful towards Indian Muslims. Gandhi’s assassination by an RSS
member led to the first of three bans on the RSS. Meanwhile, outside India, the
RSS’s international wing — the HSS — flourished and expanded around the globe,
setting down roots far and wide, including here in the US. And, eventually,
even here in California. Even here in the City of Roseville. Last month, the
City of Roseville — no doubt in innocent ignorance of the group’s ties to its
parent organization, the violent RSS paramilitary — welcomed the HSS into these
very chambers to honor them with a formal proclamation. Meanwhile, back in
India, the RSS — despite constantly and violently putting into practice its
belief that Christians and Muslims, especially, are “foreign elements” and
“traitors” to the nation who must be cleansed from the land — has gained such
strength and power that it now controls the country. With total impunity, it
is, at this very moment, routinely flooding the streets with mobs who attack
religious minorities to spread intolerance and hatred in its pursuit of the
victory of evil over good. That the City of Roseville, albeit unwittingly,
chose Diwali — the Hindu Festival of Lights which celebrates tolerance,
compassion, and the victory of good over evil — as the occasion to honor the
international wing of the most xenophobic and genocidal organization in India
serves, unintentionally but tragically, as an insult not only to the countless
victims of the RSS but also as an insult to the vast diversity and traditional
pluralism of the Hindu religion itself. Since, as Hinduism beautifully teaches,
“the whole world is one family,” we must realize that it is ultimately
self-destructive to platform the HSS here in America even while the RSS is
ripping our family apart back in India through acts of terror which are enabled
and empowered by the HSS’s commitment to serving as an international support
base and propaganda mouthpiece for the RSS’s fascist agenda. Thank you.
5.
Muslim man lynched;
Dec 18 2021; A 27-year-old Muslim man was
thrashed to death by goons in Palwal district of Haryana, his family said,
calling it a case of “lynching”. Rahul Khan, a resident of Rasoolpur village
near Palwal town, was kidnapped by a gang of goons on the night of December 13
when he had gone to attend a marriage, his brother-in-law Mohammad Akram told
media over phone. Khan succumbed to his injuries at a hospital on December 14
at around 10 pm. He was laid to rest on Wednesday afternoon. https://www.kmsnews.org/kms/2021/12/17/27-year-old-muslim-man-lynched-in-haryana.html
6. Muslims genocide; Dec 23 2021; The ‘Dharma Sansad’ organised at Haridwar in Uttarakhand
on December 17-19 saw an assortment of leaders from the Hindutva ecosystem
taking the stage to set a new benchmark for brazen hate speech in the country. “We
have to make preparations,” said Swami Prabodhanand Giri, president of the
Hindu Raksha Sena, a right-wing organisation based out of Uttarakhand. “And
I’ll tell you what preparations those are. I will make myself clear, this is
the solution, and if you follow this solution, then the path is made for you…
in Myanmar, Hindus were being chased away. The politicians, government and
police were just standing and watching. They started by killing them by cutting
their necks, and not only this, but they began to cut them in the streets and
eat them. The people watching thought we are going to die, we are not going to
live. “This is our state now. You have seen this at the Delhi border, they
killed Hindus and hung them. There is no more time, the case now is that either
you prepare to die now, or get ready to kill, there’s no other way. This is
why, like in Myanmar, the police here, the politicians here, the army and every
Hindu must pick up weapons and we will have to conduct this cleanliness drive (safai abhiyan). There is
no solution apart from this.” The statements calling for ethnic cleansing and
genocide are particularly alarming given Prabodhanand’s connections with the
BJP. https://thewire.in/communalism/hindutva-leaders-dharma-sansad-muslim-genocide
7. Pledge to
Kill: Hindutva Hatred Crystallizes in Fascist Oath of Genocide;Hindu
nationalists mimic Nazi Germany with a vow to "fight, die, and kill";
Dec 26 2021; In 1933, as Nazi Germany first emerged
with Adolf Hitler as head of government, the army’s traditional swearing of
loyalty to Germany’s constitution was replaced with an oath of loyalty to “the
Fatherland” and, not long after, an oath simply to Hitler himself. “I swear to God this holy oath that I shall render unconditional
obedience to the Leader of the German Reich and people, Adolf Hitler, supreme
commander of the armed forces, and that as a brave soldier I shall at all times
be prepared to give my life for this oath,” vowed German troops. Civil servants,
though not required to swear willingness to give their lives, were compelled to
take similar oaths of faithful obedience to Hitler. After the ceremony,
oath-takers traditionally sang the supremacist lyrics: “Deutschland,
Deutschland über alles, Über alles in der Welt [Germany, Germany above all,
Above all in the world].” On 19 December 2021, in India’s capital
city of Delhi, a crowded hall of hundreds of Hindu supremacists raised their
arms in a salute eerily reminiscent of the infamous Nazi salute — which is
banned in post-war Germany — as they pledged to “fight, and die, and, if
required, we will kill as well” to turn the country into a “Hindu nation.” The pledge was led by prominent right-wing Indian journalist Suresh
Chavhanke. It was no surprise that Chavhanke’s pledge echoed that of the Nazis
in both words and actions. He claims to have been a member of the Nazi-inspired
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) paramilitary since the age of three. The RSS, which has
risen to power in India through the premiership of Narendra Modi (an RSS
member, reportedly, since the age of eight), was founded in 1925, the same year
that Hitler published his manifesto, Mein Kampf, and formed the Schutzstaffel
(SS). That paramilitary served, first, as Hitler’s personal protection squadron
and, eventually, as the primary perpetrator of the Holocaust. The RSS’s first Supreme Commander, Hedgewar, set forward a doctrine
that mirrored the Aryanism of Nazi Germany. India, insisted
Hedgewar, should properly be called “Hindustan” [land of the Hindus] and
protected as a “nation of Hindu people” which he compared directly — and
contemporarily with the rise of Nazism — to a “Germany of Germans.” In 1931,
RSS co-founder Moonje visited Italy to tour dictator Benito Mussolini’s fascist
institutions. Applauding them for showing how “the idea of fascism” supposedly
produced “unity amongst people,” he declared that India needed similar “fascist
organizations” and subsequently praised the RSS as an already existing example
of one such institution. In 1939, as Nazi Germany initiated the Second World War with the
annexation of Austria, occupation of Czechoslovakia, and invasion of Poland,
the RSS’s second Supreme Commander published a book which identified both
Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany as examples of the India that the RSS
hoped to fashion. Golwalkar praised the “Race
consciousness” of the Italian Fascists and the “Race spirit” of the German
Nazis which prompted their territorial expansionism. “Even so with us: our Race
spirit has once again roused itself,” he wrote. According to the RSS chief,
these European fascist nations proved his belief that “every Race [possesses]
the indisputable right of excommunicating from its Nationality all those who,
having been of the Nation, for ends of their own, turned traitors and
entertained aspirations contravening or differing from those of the National
Race as a whole.” For Golwalkar, the “National Race” of
India is what he termed the “Hindu Race.” Describing non-Hindus as “internal threats,” “foreign races,” and
“traitors,” the RSS chief insisted that, if they stayed in India, such
minorities should be stripped of “citizen’s rights.” Claiming that only Hindus
are “of the soil” and that, in “the land of the Hindus, lives and should live
the Hindu nation,” he declared that every non-Hindu faced only two choices:
“Either to merge themselves in the national race and adopt its culture, or to
live at its mercy so long as the national race may allow them to do so and to
quit the country at the sweet will of the national race.” In other words, for the RSS, all non-Hindu Indians must either submit
to being Hindu or face loss of citizenship and even expulsion from the country.
Yet Golwalkar didn’t stop there. Pointing to Hitler’s Germany as his model, he
suggested that the choice was actually between expulsion or extermination. Nazi Germany, said Golwalkar, had kept up “the purity of the race and
its culture…. by her purging the country of the Semitic races — the Jews,” thus
demonstrating (in his mind) the impossibility of a pluralistic and
multicultural society and serving, he argued, as “a good lesson for us in
Hindustan to learn and profit by.” Notably, Golwalkar’s rhetoric, aside
from his direct praise for the European fascists, mirrored that of Hitler in a
wide variety of other ways. The December 2021 pledge in Delhi, led
by life-long RSS member Chavhanke, once more invoked the supremacist ideals of
Nazism with the words: “We all take an oath, give our word, and make a
resolution that, until our last breath, we will make India a Hindu nation and
keep it a Hindu only nation. We will fight, and die, and, if required, we will
kill as well. We will not hesitate a bit to make any sacrifice at any cost. To
complete this resolution, our Gurudev, our teacher, our goddess Mother India,
our ancestors, give us power, give us victory.” A preceding event
held from 17-19 December in Haridwar, Uttarakhand raised an identical spectre
of xenophobic fascism. “If any monster poses a danger to
Hindutva [ie, Hindu nationalism], then I won’t think twice before picking up
weapons to fight,” declared Pooja Shakun Pandey (aka, Sadhvi Annapurna Maa),
General Secretary of the Hindu Mahasabha (a political party that predates the
founding of the RSS by ten years; one of its most influential leaders,
Savarkar, penned the Hindu nationalist ideology’s quintessential manifesto,
Hindutva, while his brother served as one of the co-founders of the RSS
itself). “We will tear them apart,” continued Pandey.
“Don’t think that Muslims are growing in numbers. If we wake up today, and make
a resolution, and understand their plans, then what we want will be achieved.
India will be declared a Hindu nation, not an Islamic nation…. Make yourself so
capable, and increase your population. If we want to decrease the population of
Muslims, then we are ready to kill…. If we become soldiers and kill two million
Muslims, then we’ll be victorious.” Pandey’s fanatical rant was mimicked in
a chorus of hate raised by multiple other Hindu supremacist leaders from the
same stage in Haridwar. “Without picking up weapons, no society
will ever survive,” foamed Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati (who, notably, was
earlier this year invited to headline an event organized by a leading US
affiliate of the RSS). Referring, apparently, to the entire population of
non-Hindu Indians, he continued: “They are an economy of 400 million people.
You [Hindus] are an economy of one billion…. When will you take action? Forget
about the swords. They are just for display on stages. In a battle, the one
with superior weapons wins…. The best of weapons: these will save you.” Narsinghanand further vowed to give ten million rupees ($133,000) to
anyone “prepared to become the Hindu Prabhakaran” — a reference to infamous Sri
Lankan terrorist Velupillai Prabhakaran, the founder and leader of the
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Upping the ante, he pledged 1 billion
rupees ($13.3 million) to anyone willing to continue in that role for a full
year.
Hindutva activist Swami Premanand Maharaj reiterated
the call for Hindu nationalists to take up arms, stating: “You had asked how we
should protect our religion? I say that protection is not possible without
weapons.” Encouraging them to “own a weapon of a minimum of 100,000 rupees
[$1300, ie, a firearm],” he urged his audience to buy cheap phones and shoes so
that they could splurge on expensive weapons. Another extremist priest, Swami
Prabodhanand Giri of the Hindu Raksha Sena [“Hindu Protection Army”], declared,
“Either be ready to die or be ready to kill. There is no other option.”
Referencing the Rohingya Genocide, he added, “We have to repeat Myanmar. In
India. Police, politicians, soldiers, and every Hindu need to pick up weapons
and start this cleaning operation [ie, ethnic cleansing].” As RSS’s second, longest-serving, and most influential Supreme
Commander, Golwalkar, had pointed to the territorial expansionism of the
European fascists as a supposed justification for his own Hindu supremacist
beliefs. Ever since the Partition of India in 1947, the RSS has made one of its
primary goals the “re-establishment” of a mythical “Akhand Bharat” [“United
India”], which ostensibly stretched (at least) from Afghanistan to Myanmar, if
not further. Invoking the concept of “Akhand Bharat” at the Haridwar conclave,
yet another Hindutva activist warned that India — despite its nearly 80 per
cent population of Hindus — “is becoming Islamic.” He argued, “Let us go back a
little. Half of the nation is already Islamic, where green flags [of Islam] are
already being hoisted in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan.” It was a
crystal clear suggestion that these neighbouring nations of India actually
“belong” to India herself. Officials of India’s ruling Hindu
nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), including former Delhi BJP
spokesperson Ashwini Upadhyay and Uttar Pradesh State Minister Rajeshwar Singh,
were present in both Haridwar and Delhi. The two
synchronized genocidal conferences occurred in the wake of a rising wave of
Hindutva hatred and violence that first started escalating — to an extent
unprecedented in the past several years, with the exception of the 2020 Delhi
Pogrom — around October 2021. The present onslaught only began after the then
acting ambassador of the US to India, Atul Keshap, met with the current RSS
chief in what was perceived as a legitimization, normalization, and
whitewashing of the paramilitary’s fascism. Hindu nationalist attacks targeting
Christians, Muslims, and Sikhs have skyrocketed ever since. The son of the Deputy Minister for Home Affairs (the Central
Government agency in charge of internal law and order) allegedly ran over and
killed several peacefully protesting Sikh farmers in Uttar Pradesh. In
Chhattisgarh, a BJP official led a mob, chanting slogans about cutting Muslims
to pieces while, in Madhya Pradesh, another mob raised calls to “shoot the
traitors,” a slogan first raised by a BJP Cabinet Minister against peaceful
Muslim protestors in 2020. Again in Chhattisgarh, a Hindutva priest, flanked by
BJP leaders, urged a rally to “behead” anyone encouraging conversion. Meanwhile, The New York Times recently reported: “Anti-Christian
vigilantes are sweeping through villages, storming churches, burning Christian
literature, attacking schools and assaulting worshipers. In many cases, the police
and members of India’s governing party are helping them, government documents
and dozens of interviews revealed. In church after church, the very act of
worship has become dangerous.” Yet, as the NYT also reported after the two
genocidal conferences in Delhi and Haridwar, “even by the standards of the
rising anti-Muslim [and anti-Christian] fury in India” these events “produced
the most blatant and alarming call for violence in recent years.” In the 1990s, renowned India psychologist Ashis Nandy interviewed Modi
— years before the RSS activist became Chief Minister of Gujarat in 2002 and
was, immediately, implicated in an anti-Muslim pogrom that left thousands dead.
“Here was a classic, clinical case of a fascist,” wrote Nandy about (now Indian
Prime Minister) Modi. “I never use the term ‘fascist’ as a term of abuse; to
me, it is a diagnostic category comprising not only one’s ideological posture
but also the personality traits and motivational patterns contextualizing the
ideology.” Nandy explained that he “came out of the interview shaken,”
concluding: “For the first time, I had met a textbook case of a fascist and a
prospective killer, perhaps even a future mass murderer. As the NYT reported regarding the two recent Hindutva conferences:
“The government is allowing hate speech of this kind by remaining silent in the
face of calls for violence.” Silence is violence, many have opined, but the
silence appears calculated. As a member of the RSS, Modi remains intrinsically
committed to the paramilitary’s call for establishing India as a “Hindu nation”
where all “others” are expelled or exterminated, per the doctrines of the
group’s founders. Thus, his silence is complicity. He, it seems, agrees with
the xenophobic and genocidal ideology being espoused with impunity. As Indian journalist and human rights investigator Rejimon Kuttapan
observed about the oath-taking ceremony in Delhi, this represents “1933
Germany.” As Indian Member of Parliament, Shashi Tharoor pointed out, “They
have learned nothing from history, but those who have must stop them.” And, as
Indian MP Karti P. Chidambaram noted, “India is Germany 1933.” Chidambaram asked: “Are Kristallnacht and [the] Final Solution next?” I have sometimes
called Modi the “Hitler of the East.” To my mind, the only question remaining
is if and when the Hindutva pledge to kill will also include a vow of loyalty
to Modi as the Fuhrer of India. By Pieter Friedrich
8.
Muslim women on sale; Jan 3 2021; On January 1, Quratulain Rehbar, a journalist from
Indian-administered Kashmir, woke up to see herself listed for an “online
auction”. Her photograph was sourced without her permission and uploaded on an
app for “sale”.She was not alone Photographs of more than 100 Muslim women,
including prominent actress Shabana Azami, wife of a sitting judge of Delhi
High Court, multiple journalists, activists and politicians were displayed on
the app for auction as “Bulli Bai” of the day. Even Fatima Nafees, 65-year-old mother of disappeared student Najeeb Ahmed, and
Pakistani Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai were not spared by the perpetrators
behind the app. After last July’s “Sulli Deals“, in which nearly 80 Muslim women were put up “for sale”, “Bulli
Bai” was the second such attempt in less than a year. “Both ‘Bulli’ and ‘Sulli’
are derogatory words used for Muslim women in local slang. However, this time
the Punjabi language was used in the ‘Bulli Bai’ interface along with English,”
journalist Mohammad Zubair, who works for fact-checking website AltNews, told
Al Jazeera. Ara said she is not hopeful regarding the police investigation, her
fears stemming from the fact that the probe in “Sulli Deals” has seen no
arrests made even after six months. “It
is sad to see how these hate-mongers are licensed to target Muslim women without
any fear. This is not the first time such an auction has taken place,” said
Ara. “The women who have been targeted are vocal women who raise issues of
Muslims on social media. It is a clear conspiracy to shut these Muslim women
because we challenge the Hindu right-wing online against their hate crimes,”
she added. “Police complaints were registered during the time of ‘Sulli deals’.
However, no action was taken. That is the reason why these people feel
emboldened,” Chaturvedi told Al Jazeera. Rana Ayyub, a Mumbai-based columnist
with The Washington Post, told Al Jazeera people are “hailing targeted
harassment of women without being identified by law”. “‘Bulli Bai’ takes hate
crimes in India to another dangerous level where Muslim women are being virtually
violated and made a free-for-all for a bigoted mob,” she said. “These auctions
of women from the minority communities display the moral degradation of India
and its constitutional values.”
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/2/bulli-bai-muslim-women-auction-online-india
Monthly update 27: November 2021: Muslims in India
This page updates
news related to the plight of Muslims in India
.
1. Mosques attacked: Nov., 5, 2021: The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) in a message expressed concern over last week’s targeting of Muslims and burning of mosques in Tripura and urged the Union government to “stop violence against religious communities”. The violence in Tripura took place during a rally taken out by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) on October 26 in North Tripura in protest against the attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh. The High Court of Tripura has initiated a suo motu PIL. “USCIRF is concerned about ongoing violence in #Tripura against #Muslims, which some regard as retaliation for attacks against #Hindus in #Bangladesh last month. The Indian government must stop violence against religious communities.” USCIRF is particularly alarmed about reports from #Tripura of mobs desecrating mosques & torching properties of #Muslims. The Indian govt must bring those responsible for instigating & engaging in religious violence to justice & must prevent further attacks.” https://ummid.com/news/2021/november/04.11.2021/tripura-us-watchdog-on-religious-freedom-flags-attacks-on-mosques-muslims.html
2.
Bahraini lawmaker and India:
Nov., 11, 2021:
Bahraini lawmaker, Abdulrazzaq Hattab, has issued a scathing condemnation of
India for the violence against Muslim which has increased in the country over
the years, threatening to start a boycott of trade between the two countries.
In a speech he gave in Bahrain's parliament recently, Hattab spoke against the
deliberate targeting of Muslims by right-wing Hindu nationalists in India.
"These practices are against international laws and Abrahamic religions,
and also contradict with humanity and the country's obligation to provide
safety to its citizens and their freedom, regardless of their religion and
beliefs," he said. State-sanctioned and vigilante actions against Muslims
have increased significantly over the years under the current Indian government
headed by President Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist support base.
According to Hattab, that is especially seen in states like Assam and occupied
Jammu and Kashmir. The lawmaker added that "we strongly stand with respect
to Islam and the 150 million Muslims in India," and announced that if
attacks against Indian Muslims continue, "we will undergo severe action,
including trade boycott." Such a
boycott is predicted to have a significant impact, as trade between Manama and
New Delhi exceeds $105 billion annually. Hattab also revealed that he and
others "tried multiple times to meet with the Indian ambassador in Bahrain
to send our message to his government; however, he was making unjustified
excuses." The condemnation and the threat of a boycott by the Bahraini
lawmaker come two months after Kuwaiti lawmakers also condemned atrocities
committed against Muslims by India and Hindu extremists.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20211110-bahrain-lawmaker-condemns-violence-against-muslims-in-india-threatens-trade-boycott/
3.
Ehsan Jafri and Gujarat violence: Nov.,
11, 2021: The Supreme Court
on Wednesday heard Kapil Sibal, appearing for Zakia Jafri, said that the
Special Investigation Team (SIT) investigating the Gulberg society massacre
during the 2002 Gujarat riots did not question the accused, seize their phones
and ignored evidence showing conspiracy and hate speech, and discarded sting
reports which were used by in the Naroda Patya case. Sibal was making these
arguments in the plea filed by Zafri, the widow of Congress leader Ehsan Jafri
who was killed in the Gulberg society massacre, challenging the SIT’s clean
chit to 64 persons, including Narendra Modi who was the then Gujarat chief
minister. “They did not record
statements of witnesses. No phones were seized from the accused. No call record
details were analysed. They never arrested anybody, never checked why documents
were destroyed and why the police stood by doing nothing… They just accepted
the statements of the accused… There should be an investigation,” Sibal said.
Sibal began his arguments by stating that he would demonstrate, largely through
official documents, that the SIT did not conduct any investigation . “The
question is, has the SIT followed the procedure established by the law in
dealing with the evidence which was before the SIT and which they completely
disregarded and never investigated?” Sibal told the bench of Justices A.M.
Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari and C.T. Ravikumar. “Deliberate loopholes were left in the
investigation and there were no sincere attempts to nab the culprits. No
investigator with a sense of justice will discard this evidence. No judge with
a conscience will discard this evidence,” Sibal submitted towards the end of
his arguments for the day, according to LiveLaw. Ehsan Jafri, a former
MP, was among the 68 people killed in the violence, a day after the S-6 Coach
of the Sabarmati Express was burnt at Godhra killing 59 people. On October 26, the apex court had said it
would like to peruse the closure report of the SIT giving the clean chit to 64
persons and the justification given by the magisterial court while accepting
it. Sibal had earlier argued that Jafri’s complaint was that there was a larger
conspiracy where there was bureaucratic inaction, police complicity, hate
speeches and unleashing of violence”. On February 8, 2012, the SIT had filed a
closure report giving a clean chit to Modi, now the prime minister, and 63
others, including senior government officials, saying there was “no
prosecutable evidence” against them.
Zakia Jafri had filed a petition in the apex court in 2018 challenging
the Gujarat high court’s October 5, 2017 order rejecting her plea against the
decision of the SIT. The plea also maintained that after the SIT gave a clean
chit in its closure report before a trial judge, Zakia Jafri filed a protest
petition which was dismissed by the magistrate without considering “substantiated
merits”. It had said the petitioner can approach an appropriate forum,
including the magistrate’s court, a division bench of the high court, or the
Supreme Court seeking further investigation. According to The
Hindu, Sibal said though the complaint was never registered as an FIR, it
was “treated” as one. “Besides, there were no proceedings going on in the
magistrate court at the time as the Gulberg case trial was going on in a
sessions court,” he said. Sibal, who referred to the alleged inaction by the
concerned authorities during the violence, said one cannot allow communal
tension to reach such a stage where violence occurs and innocent people are
attacked.
https://thewire.in/law/gujarat-riots-sit-made-no-sincere-attempts-nab-culprits-kapil-sibal-zakia-jaffri
4.
Custodial killings and Muslims in India: Nov.,11, 2021:
The death of a young Muslim man in police custody in the northern state of
Uttar Pradesh and the subsequent clarification by the police has triggered
outrage in India. Police on Wednesday said 22-year-old Mohammad Altaf hanged
himself after he went to the washroom in a police station at Kasganj district
in Uttar Pradesh – India’s most populous state governed by the right-wing
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). A photograph showing Altaf hanging from
a water pipe in the washroom went viral on social media. Altaf, a
resident of Ahroli village in Kasganj, was taken into police custody on Tuesday
morning in a case related to the alleged kidnapping of a minor Hindu girl Times of India newspaper on Thursday reported
that Altaf was about 5ft 6 inches (167cm) tall and the water pipe was less than
three feet (91.4cm) from the ground. “This is clearly a custodial death. And
custodial deaths should be prima facie treated as custodial murder. The onus
has to be on the police to prove that it was not a murder but a suicide,”
Kavita Krishnan, a member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist),
told Al Jazeera Earlier this year,
India’s home ministry said in the Indian parliament that 348 people died in
police custody and 5,221 died in judicial custody in the last three years.In
Uttar Pradesh, 23 people have died in police custody and 1,295 in judicial
custody in the same period.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/11/india-uttar-pradesh-kasganj-police-muslim-man-custodial-murder
5.
Yogi Adityanath : Nov., 16, 2021:
Yogi Adityanath, the diminutive 49 year-old saffron-clad fire-breathing monk
and chief minister of Uttar Pradesh (India’s most populous and thus,
electorally, its kingmaker state), head priest of the powerful Goraknath Mutt
(a temple-monastery-shrine complex), part of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata
Party but boasting a famously frosty history with its elite, whose rampant,
purist Hindu nationalism many believe exceeds even Modi’s, is up for
re-election. And if the BJP wins the crucial state elections that are just four
months away, Yogi, who is universally addressed (according to his own request)
as Maharaj King) will be the front runner to be the heir and successor
to Narendra Modi, the
hardline Hindutva prime minister of India.
Yogi Adityanath is sui generis in the Hindu nationalist ecosystem, known
as the Sangh, as unlike the Modi and other current BJP government ministers, he
has no current connection to or background in the secretive and militant
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the mothership of the BJP and source of its Hindus First vision for
India. The RSS has been banned multiple times, most notoriously for its
involvement in Gandhi's assassination. And yet
Yogi is today a contender for the party's top job. So what explains the rise
and rise of Yogi as the new Hindu Hriday Samrat (Emperor of Hindu
Hearts), an obsequious piece of puffery over which, until recently, was Modi's
favored epithet? In two words: Muslim hate.
The RSS and its creature, the BJP, are excited by the idea that Yogi
gives voice to a brand of maximalist majoritarian politics without the filters
to which Modi is subjected and thus does not dare to say, hemmed in as he is
(so far) by India's Constitution and the office of the prime minister. Yogi
Adityanath, originally called Ajay Mohan Bhist, was born into the family of a
forest ranger. Having obtained a bachelor’s degree in mathematics, he
apparently became disenchanted with routine life and first joined the same
temple movement in Goraknath Mutt that eventually led Hindu nationalist mobs in
1992 to tear down the Babri Masjid,
an act that triggered nationwide intercommunal violence and which Yogi has publicly praised.
He took diksha, or ordination, as a monk disciple of his spiritual
father Mahant Avaidyanth and was named his successor. Yogi has always mixed
realpolitik with Hindutva. He has won five parliamentary elections,
representing the constituency of Gorakhpur. From the start, he's recognized the
power of a cult of personality, absolute loyalty backed up by physical
coercion. After his first win, he
established a vigilante force called the Hindu Yuva Vahini, which was
often accused of violence and extortion. His vigilantes would roar around in
cars and motorbikes with only Yogi’s image emblazoned where the license plates
were supposed to be. A popular slogan in his state amongst his supporters goes:
UP mein rehna hoga Yogi Yogi kehna hoga, if you want to live in UP,
chant Yogi’s name. Till Modi and the RSS
gave him his dream job ruling Uttar Pradesh, Yogi Adityanath was, together with
his band of vigilantes, set on an adversarial course against them. The Sangh,
though, sensed his potential as the ultimate instrument of Hindutva, finally
gave him the prize in 2017. For the RSS, the optics of a demagogic saffron-clad
monk who refuses to dilute his Hindu supremacism or his exclusionary bigotry
towards Muslims, ruling India's most politically significant state is a power
visual. All the more so if he wins the highest national office.Yogi Adityanath has singlehandedly
brought the term "love jihad" into both common use and has even
criminalized it in Uttar Pradesh (a move several other BJP-ruled states then
followed). "Love jihad" is a baseless conspiracy theory attacking
interfaith relationships by accusing Muslim men of seducing and Hindu women and
then forcing them to convert to Islam He
has closed down slaughterhouses and abattoirs using cows which were mainly run
by poor Muslims and
Dalits, and has banned the sale of beef: killing a cow or its progeny now
incurs a ten-year jail sentence. If this legislative agenda wasn’t bad enough,
Yogi Adityanath routinely incites against Muslims and other non-Hindus. He
declares his state government is focusing on building (Hindu) temples while
non-Hindus are focused on filling burial grounds. In the run up to the UP
elections he has oddly promised a "surgical strike" against the
Taliban. He once launched series of attacks on Mother Teresa, accusing her of
being part of a conspiracy to Christianize India. He has compared
Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan to the Pakistani arch-terrorist Hafiz
Sayeed, mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 civilians, and after
Khan spoke about growing intolerance in India, proposed he go live in Pakistan.
He told Indian Muslims suspicious of increasingly coercive efforts to institute
yoga in schools they should either leave the country or drown themselves in the
sea. Women are not spared Yogi Adityanath’s Stone Age views. On his
website, the monk writes that, "Women always need to be protected lest
their energy go waste." He adds that the patriarchal protection accorded
to a woman by her father, husband and brother is only to "channel"
her energy and her power – for the good of perfect procreation. It is
only a "controlled woman" who will give birth to mahapurush
(great men). Yogi Adityanath warns that women who acquire "masculine
traits" turn into demons and need to controlled for the good of society.
He once sat silent on the stage during an
election rally when a fellow speaker called for Muslim women’s bodies to be dragged
out of their graves and raped. Yogi did not utter a word of condemnation. Yogi’s
government routinely files cases against journalists for simply doing their job
under a terror law called the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act and the
Sedition Act. In one case, the journalist Siddique Kappan was on his way to
report a rape case and was booked before he even filed a single report. Because
of the stringent provisions of the Act, Kappan is still in jail for an
imaginary crime Despite lethal missteps in the
handling of the vicious second wave of COVID which saw bodies floating on the
sacred Ganges river, Yogi Adityanath has nonetheless managed to move political
debate in UP back to the usual polarizing issues of Hindus versus Muslims,
where he is most comfortable. A lacklustre opposition has not been able to pin
down his terrible governance record. While Modi, reluctantly, pays lip service
to the Constitution of India with its guarantee of equal rights for all
citizens, Yogi Adityanath is unfazed and wants an institutionalized "Hindu
Rashtra" (Hindus-first state) where non-Hindu minorities will be,
explicitly, second class citizens. That has always been the goal of the RSS.
They see in Yogi Adityanath a successor to Modi who will outperform even his populist Hindutva towards
the goal of a truly theocratic nationalism, or even a clerical fascism: fully
saffronizing India. https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/.premium-modi-to-yogi-the-militant-monk-who-could-lead-india-to-full-hindu-theocracy-1.10385471
6. Salman Khurshid’s house set on fire; No 16 2021;
Senior Congress leader Salman Khurshid’s Nainital home was allegedly vandalised
and set on fire on Monday, November 15, days after it became known that his
book on Ayodhya drew parallels between Hindutva groups and terrorist
organisations, such as Boko Haram and ISIS, drawing the ire of the BJP and
Hindu fundamentalist groups. Talking to Facebook, Khurshid wrote, “I hoped to
open these doors to my friends who have left this calling card. Am I still
wrong to say this cannot be Hinduism?” The Congress leader has been at the
centre of criticism from BJP and Hindutva groups after it became known that his
book Sunrise Over Ayodhya:
Nationhood in Our Times, released on November 10, contained
observations on Hindutva politics and how religion was being used to reap
electoral dividends by the BJP. Hindutva groups objected to a particular
passage in the book, which reads as follows: “Sanatan Dharma and classical
Hinduism known to sages and saints were being pushed aside by a robust version
of Hindutva, by all standards a political version similar to the jihadist Islam
of groups like ISIS and Boko Haram of recent years https://thewire.in/communalism/salman-khurshids-nainital-home-vandalised-days-after-controversy-over-hindutva-remarks-in-book
7.
Prayer restrictions: Nov., 20, 2021: Muslims cannot even safely go to
mosques in states such as Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. In Haryana, which has a
sizable Muslim population, Muslims are also facing government restrictions on
Friday prayer attendance. This comes a few days after reports of cow dung being
thrown at mosques and other Muslim places of worship, along with a new spate of
physical violence against Muslims and their businesses. In several cases, these
attacks have gone unpunished, despite some people even taking credit for the
attacks. Meanwhile, journalists and rights activists are facing penalties under
draconian laws for simply drawing attention to the violence. The BJP fully
backs the violence but doesn’t want its direct role exposed in front of the
world. . India prayer bans
(tribune.com.pk)
8. Section 144 imposed in Mathura after Hindu Mahasabha
threatens to install Lord Krishna idol in mosque; NoV 29 2021;;The
Mathura district administration has imposed prohibitory orders under
CrPC section 144 following an announcement by the Akhil
Bharat Hindu Mahasabha that it will install a Lord Krishna idol at the deity’s
“actual birthplace”, which it claims is in a mosque close to a prominent
temple.“Nobody will be allowed to disturb the peace and tranquillity in
Mathura,” District Magistrate Navneet Singh Chahal said. The clampdown comes
even as another right wing organisation, the Narayani Sena, has said it will
take out a march from Vishram Ghat to Sri Krishna Janmasthan, demanding the
“removal” of the mosque.Section 144 of the CrPC prohibits the assembly of four
or more people in an area. Police said they have detained Narayani Sena
secretary Amit Mishra in Mathura Kotwali, while the outfit claimed its national
president Manish Yadav has been detained in Lucknow. Chahal said he, along with
Senior Superintendent of Police Gaurav Grover, reviewed the security around
both the religious places, the Katra Keshav Dev temple and the Shahi Idgah. He
said the Hindu Mahasabha had requested permission to install the idol at the
mosque but it was turned down. Question of granting permission to any event
that may potentially disrupt peace does not arise, Chahal added. Hindu
Mahasabha leader Rajyashri Choudhary had earlier said her organisation will
install the idol of Lord Krishna in the Shahi Idgah after a “maha jalabhishek”
to “purify” the place on December 6. The date marks the demolition of the Babri
Masjid in Ayodhya, the site of a temple-mosque dispute, in 1992. The
Mahasabha’s threat to perform the ritual inside the Shahi Idgah comes at a time
when the local courts are hearing a series of petitions seeking the “removal”
of the 17th century mosque.
9.
10.
Munawar Faruqui hints at quitting after Bengaluru Police deny
permission for show ; NoV
29 2021; Stand-up comedian Munawar Faruqui on November 28
hinted that he may not do any more shows, a day after his scheduled event in Bengaluru was
cancelled. Police had
“advised” the organisers to call it off, citing possible law and order
problems. Earlier, his shows have been cancelled in other cities on similar
grounds. City police had said that the organisers of the event, scheduled to be
held on November 28 evening, “should cancel the show”, as several groups are
opposed to it and this “could create chaos and could disturb the public peace
and harmony, which may further lead to law and order problems”. The police
issued the letter on November 27 night. Faruqui, who had come to the city for
the show, left on November 28 morning after posting a statement on his social
media handles, hinting at quitting the space. Lamenting how he was jailed for a
joke he did not do, and of 12 shows being cancelled in the last two months
because of threats to venue and audience, he wrote: “I think this is the end.
My name is Munawar Faruqui and that’s been my time, you guys were a wonderful
audience. Goodbye! I am done.” Organisers of the November 28 event
said Faruqui felt dejected at how he is being systematically targeted. Faruqui
was himself not available for further comment. Faruqui was arrested in Indore
in January earlier this year after a Hindutva right wing activist alleged
he denigrated Hindu gods. He spent 37 days in jail before the Supreme Court
granted him bail. Bengaluru Police cancelling the show comes close on the heels
of 12 shows of the comic being similarly cancelled by the police in Maharashtra
and Gujarat this month alone, following a campaign by Hindutva right wing organisations
calling for a ban on the artiste and threatening protests if his shows are
held. The city police move has come under severe criticism by rights activists
in the city. “It is sad that a systematic campaign by Hindutva groups has
scuttled a comedian, just because of his religion,” said advocate-activist
Vinay Sreenivasa. “It is sad to note that a threat of a protest leads to
stifling of freedom of expression in this city. Some groups cannot hold the
city to ransom. Society needs to stand by the artist,” said human rights
advocate B.T. Venkatesh.
Monthly update 26: October 2021: Muslims in India
This page updates
news related to the plight of Muslims in India
.
1.
Namaz
denied; October 18 2021: Muslims offering namaz in the open on Friday,
October 15, in Gurugram’s Sector 47 faced protests from some people who
attempted to reach the spot, prompting police to cordon off the area. This is
the fourth consecutive week when Friday prayers by the Muslim community in the
area have been targeted .As a mark of protest, around 12:40 pm, 70 to 80 people
attempted to march towards the site where the Muslim community congregated
singing bhajans using a microphone and portable speaker. The protestors also
raised slogans against the government for allegedly not stopping namaz from being
offered in public places and open government lands. The said site in Sector 47
in Gurugram is among the list of 37 designated sites locally where prayers
could be offered in the open. The list of sites was a result of a negotiated
settlement between Hindus and Muslims after similar disruptions for prayers in
the open were reported in 2018. Sensing
trouble on Friday, the police had asked Muslim community members offering namaz
in Sector 47 to reach the site from the Subhash Chowk side, to avoid any possible
confrontation between two religious communities. “Prayers were offered
peacefully. In the last week, we have held meetings with representatives of
both communities and we are working towards resolving the issue According to Muslim community members who
have been coming to the prayer site for the last three years, the latest
controversy is because of a few people who want to gain political mileage by
causing disruption to prayers. The protestors did not relent even as the Muslim
community moved 100 metres away from the original prayer site after police had
instructed them when protests were witnessed first a few weeks back. “This has
only become an issue in the past few weeks. Some people who are trying to gain
political mileage from this are creating a ruckus,” said Taufiq, who has been
attending prayers regularly in Sector 47
As The Wire reported earlier, one Dinesh Bharati a
leader of the Hindutva group Bharat Mata Vahini is central to these protests.
He was also arrested earlier for disrupting Friday prayers. Bharati had said,
“This is an international conspiracy. They are offering namaz as part of this
conspiracy of… love jihad, land jihad. If we don’t raise our voice, they will
build a mosque here.” On September 24, he put out a video on his social media
pages asking his followers to disperse Muslims offering namaz in the open. “If
the government does not stop this, we will open a gaushala and a gurukul
here, and build a Hanuman mandir here,” he was seen saying in the video. On
September 29, another video went viral in which a local resident was seen
protesting against Muslims offering Friday namaz on public land. He claimed
that due to the presence of Muslims locally, there had been an increase in the
instances of sexual harassment against women. The video went viral on Twitter
gaining a lot of traction among Hindutva supporters. “By October 8, 2021, this
had escalated into a full-scale protest at the area, with dozens of people
carrying placards and shouting slogans to protest the Friday gathering,” The Wire had reported. Ever since
right-wing groups have continued to amplify the issue which actually began as a
protest by not more than seven to eight people.
https://thewire.in/communalism/gurugram-sector-47-protest-namaz
Urdu in India: October 27, 2021: Last week, Hindu right-wing forces in India forced a leading firm to withdraw its festive season advertisement after it featured a couple of words from the Urdu language, which in the popular imagination in the country is a “Muslim language “The Hindutva project sees Urdu as a ‘Muslim’ language. And invisibilising Urdu is part of the larger project of marginalising the Muslim community, in fact, physically eliminating it,” Nivedita Menon, professor at the Centre for Political Studies at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, told Al Jazeera. Today, Urdu is among the 22 languages officially recognised by the Indian constitution. Apart from poetry and literature, Urdu had a huge influence over Bollywood, the site of India’s “Hindi” film industry based in the western city of Mumbai. A large number of Urdu poets and writers wrote film scripts, songs and dialogues. But many believe that too has changed in a religiously polarised India. After the FabIndia controversy, many social media users shared memes featuring popular Bollywood dialogues and songs, replacing their Urdu words with Hindi counterparts in an attempt to showcase that the effect is not the same. Screenwriter Javed Siddiqui, who has written several Bollywood films, told Al Jazeera that Urdu had a “better position than any other language” in the Indian film industry and that the “trend changed in the past few decades”. But Siddiqui added that the influence of Urdu in India’s popular culture will always remain. “You cannot write [any song] without ‘dil’ [heart in Urdu] and ‘mohabbat’, ‘ishq’ [both mean love in Urdu] and so on. I don’t think there is a lack of words in Hindi or it doesn’t have words but the phonetics and the music which Urdu has, no other language can provide,” he said. Legendary Urdu writer Saadat Hasan Manto, who died in 1955, perhaps summed it up best. “Why are Hindus wasting their time supporting Hindi, and why are Muslims so beside themselves over the preservation of Urdu? A language is not made, it makes itself. And no amount of human effort can ever kill a language “From 1857 onwards, this Hindi-Urdu dispute was created, particularly in present-day Uttar Pradesh state, which continued until 1900,” Mohammad Sajjad, a professor of history at the Aligarh Muslim University in the same state, told Al Jazeera. Sajjad said the linguistic divide, “aggravated by the colonial state”, was based on the script. Urdu uses Nastaliq, borrowed from the Perso-Arabic script, while Hindi uses the Devnagri script. Christopher Rolland King in his book, One Language, Two Scripts: The Hindi Movement in Nineteenth Century North India, wrote that Hindi and Urdu are “considered two different languages on political and cultural – not linguistic – grounds”. Despite Urdu’s Persian-Arabic script and its so-called “Muslim” association, many leaders of India’s freedom movement used the language in their fight against British rule. Linguist Ganesh N Devy told Al Jazeera that when iconic freedom fighter Subhas Chandra Bose, from what is now the West Bengal state, formed an army to fight the British in 1942, he named it “Azad Hind Fauj”. “Azad” in Urdu means free or independent while “fauj” is an army. “He did not use ‘swatantra’, the Hindi word for freedom,” he said, adding that most slogans of the freedom movement were in Urdu, including “Inquilab zindabad” (Long live revolution).“There is a move towards unity and also a move towards segregating the two, and both the tendencies existed in pre-independent India during the late colonial times,” Devy said. Devy said Urdu was among the top seven languages spoken in the country, according to the 2001 census. In the 2011 census, the data of which was disclosed in 2018, the “fortunes of Urdu started sinking in our country”. “When the [2021] census takes place, my fear is that many speakers of Urdu might simply report Hindi as their mother tongue. There is a fear perception among Urdu speakers of getting identified as Muslims though Urdu is not a language of Muslims,” he said.Experts say while the number of Urdu speakers in India was dwindling, Hindi speakers have shown steady growth since independence. The ruling BJP has time and again hinted at making Hindi India’s national language, but has so far faced stiff opposition from non-Hindi speaking states, mainly in the south and the east. “If Urdu was a Muslim language, people would be reading the Quran in Urdu and not in Arabic and Muslims in [West] Bengal and Kerala would be speaking Urdu and not their local languages such as Bangla and Malayalam,” she told Al Jazeera.Safvi said Urdu was projected as the language of Muslims because of its Perso-Arabic script. Academic Menon said the “outrage against the [FabIndia] ad was manufactured” and not a “genuine outrage on the part of ordinary people”. Ali Khan Mahmudabad, a historian and political scientist who teaches at Ashoka University in the capital, agreed with Menon and said the whole controversy was broadly more illustrative of the “deep-seated prejudice over anything associated with Muslims now”. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/10/27/india-urdu-hindu-groups-hate-campaign-muslim-language-fabindia
Monthly update 25: September 2021: Muslims in India
This page updates
news related to the plight of Muslims in India
.
1.
Muslims
of India ; Sep 3 2021; Despite the rising number of
hate crimes against Muslims of India, the country's Prime Minister Narendra
Modi-led BJP government hardly ever condemns such incidents as Hindu mobs
"routinely" target the largest minority, BBC reported. In August, a video went viral on social media, showing a
terrified little girl clinging to her Muslim father as a Hindu mob assaulted
him. The daughter of a 45-year-old rickshaw driver could be seen in the footage
showing the helpless man being paraded through the streets of Kanpur city as
the mob kept hitting him. The attackers asked the rickshaw driver to chant
"Hindustan Zindabad" or "Long Live India" and "Jai
Shri Ram" or "Victory to Lord Ram" - a popular greeting that's
been turned into a murder cry by Hindu lynch mobs in recent years. He complied,
but the mob still kept hitting him. The man and his daughter were eventually
rescued by the police. Three men arrested for the attack were freed on bail a
day later. The report stated that a few days later, another viral video
surfaced showing a Muslim bangle-seller being slapped, kicked and punched by a
Hindu mob in Indore city. "The attackers could be heard abusing Tasleem
Ali and telling him to stay away from Hindu areas in future." In a police
complaint, the victim later said that he had been "beaten by five-six men
who hurled communal slurs at him for selling bangles in a Hindu-dominated area
and robbed him of money, his phone and some documents". But in a strange
turn of events, the report added, Ali himself was arrested the next day after
the 13-year-old daughter of one of his alleged attackers accused him of molesting
her. His family and neighbours have strongly denied the accusation. They said
it was inconceivable that the father of five would do something like that. And eyewitnesses, quoted in
the Indian press, said he was attacked because of his religious identity and
the molestation accusation against him seemed to be an afterthought. The two
attacks were among several instances of anti-Muslim violence in August, but the
last month by no means was cruellest for India's biggest religious minority
group, with a population of more than 200 million. Similar attacks were
reported in the preceding months too - and many made headlines, the BBC report added. "The
violence is overwhelming. It's rampant and common and also very
acceptable," says a freelance journalist Alishan Jafri was quoted in the
report as saying. Alishan has been documenting attacks on Indian Muslims for
the past three years. He said that he came across "three-four such videos
every day" but is able to verify only one or two which he then shares on
social media The BBC report
quoting critics said that anti-Muslim violence has risen since 2014 under the
Hindu nationalist government of PM Modi. "Communal violence is not a
recent phenomenon, but it grows in sync with the strategies of those in power
and political mobilisation," Prof Tanvir Aeijaz, who teaches politics
science at Delhi University, said.
"The distrust was always there but cleavages have been sharpened
now by religious nationalism and ethno-nationalism." During Mr Modi's
first term in power, the report added, there were numerous incidents of Muslims
being attacked by so-called "cow vigilantes" over rumours that they
had eaten beef, or that they were trying to smuggle cows - an animal many
Hindus consider holy - for slaughter. The prime minister did not condone such
attacks. In 2019, a fact-checker website that counted "hate crimes"
in India reported that more than 90% of victims in the past 10 years were
Muslims. And the perpetrators of the attacks remain unpunished amid accusations
that they enjoy political patronage from Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party after a
government minister garlanded eight Hindus convicted for lynching a
Muslim. "Such attacks have become
so common in our country today only and only because of the impunity these
thugs enjoy," said Hasiba Amin, a social media co-ordinator for the
opposition Congress party. "Today hate has gone mainstream. It is cool to
go attack Muslims. The hate mongers are also rewarded for their actions." BBC report stated that since Modi's
return to power for a second term in 2019, the anti-Muslim violence has
expanded in its scope. The report said that Muslim women haven't been spared
either. "In July, dozens of them found they had been put up "for
sale" online. In May, many of them, including Amin of the Congress party,
were offered in a mock online 'auction'." In August, participants at a
rally, organised by a former BJP leader in Delhi, shouted slogans calling for
Muslims to be killed. "It's a very sustained, organised campaign by
nationalist politicians to radicalise Hindus into believing that Muslims need
to be marginalised if Hindus are to progress," said. Prof Aeijaz said that
the attack on working-class Muslims, such as tailors, fruit vendors,
electricians, plumbers and bangle sellers, is also an attempt to take control
of the political economy and jobs through religious nationalism. "The
religious divide has deepened. The distrust has deepened. But the hate is also
for profit. The idea is to make Muslims the other, the enemy. "The process
of creating the other is by propagating the idea that if we don't destroy the
other, we will be destroyed. So you stoke hate, create fear, and violence is
part of this larger narrative." But religious nationalism, Prof Aeijaz
said, is a dangerous idea that can lead to sectarian violence. "The buck
stops with the political executive in a parliamentary democracy. How long can
they look the other way," the report quoted Prof Aeijaz as saying. https://tribune.com.pk/story/2318288/attacks-on-muslims-becoming-routine-in-modis-india-report
2.
Youth lynched; Sep 11
2021;A 22-year-old Muslim youth was lynched by a mob of extremist
Hindus in Shamli district in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. The deceased
identified as Samir Chaudhary as lynched by the extremist Hindus when he was
returning home from the work on Thursday evening. Samir’s Cousin, Pravez
Chaudhary told media that the assailants lynched him for his “Muslim identity”.
“While returning from work some boys caught hold of him near Shamli bus stand.
They attacked him with sticks and iron rods and killed him,” he said.“He has
been killed just because he is a Muslim and there can be no other reason,”
Parvez said. He
said that the Hindu groups attacked two other younger boys who were with Samir
but they managed to escape.Samir was the sole breadwinner in his family after
his father died of cancer four years ago. He left behind a family of two
brothers, a sister and a mother. https://www.kmsnews.org/kms/2021/09/10/hindu-extremists-lynch-22-yr-old-muslim-youth-in-uttar-pradesh.html
3. Muslims Marginalized;
Sep 14 2021;
. It was the latest attack on the livelihoods of India’s Muslims, a
trend now so far-reaching that even industrialists are not immune to it. Before
this, a series of shocking videos had gone viral showing Hindutva supporters
attacking working-class Muslims as they went about doing their jobs. In Madhya
Pradesh, a Muslim bangle seller was beaten up for doing business in a “Hindu
area”. In Uttar Pradesh, a dosa vendor’s stall was vandalised simply because he
had, as a Muslim, named his shop after a Hindu god. In Madhya Pradesh, a Muslim
scrap dealer was surrounded by a gang of men and forced to chant the Hindu
religious slogan “Jai Shri Ram”. In Lucknow, a horse carriage owner was hounded
to chant “death to Pakistan” because of the fake claim that he had painted that
country’s flag on his cart. This is just the latest wave of such violence aimed
at attacking Muslims for simply doing their jobs. The
last few years have seen extremist politics around the issue of beef and even
meat itself. Just after the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in Uttar
Pradesh in 2017, it launched a thinly veiled communal campaign against the
informal meat industry, shutting down slaughter houses and shops that, it
alleged, did not conform to laws and regulations. Given that a major part of
Uttar Pradesh’s economy is informal, the reason for singling out meat was not
difficult to miss: it was dominated by Muslims. Even five years later, the Uttar Pradesh
government is continuing along the same lines. On August 30, Chief Minister
Adityanath announced that meat would be banned completely from Mathura given
the town was holy for Hindus. In one stroke, the BJP had ended the livelihoods
of thousands of people associated with the meat industry in Mathura, most of
them Muslim. Even
worse, officials across North India have winked at mob violence against Muslims
involved in the cattle and dairy trade. In 2017, a dairy farmer named Pehlu
Khan was lynched in Rajasthan with all accused walking free in 2019. In fact,
the lynching of Muslims transporting cattle is almost a routine occurrence in
India now. So
entrenched is communal sentiment in India that even the Covid-19 pandemic was
weaponised to attack Muslim livelihoods. The first wave of Covid-19 in India
saw vituperative, bigoted campaigns absurdly blaming Muslim fruit vendors for
spreading the disease. In Mahoba district of Uttar Pradesh, for example, this
led to mob action against Muslim vegetable vendors, preventing them from
selling their goods. The
economic marginalisation of Muslims in India is not new. In 2005, the Sachar
committee report pointed out that the economic conditions of Muslims lagged
even those of Dalits on key parameters. A 2018 study showed that Muslims were the only
group in India with lower social mobility than even their parents. As a religious group,
Muslims rank last when it comes to holding jobs which provide regular wages and
salaries as per data from the National Sample Survey 2009-’10. Most Muslims are
involved in low paying, irregular jobs Incredibly, rather than lending the
community a helping hand, many Indian politicians have concentrated on trying
to push down Muslims even further. The past few decades have seen a rise in
allegations of Muslims being “appeased”. The charge is absurd given the
community’s dismal socioeconomic indicators but serves to further marginalise
them. To all of
this is now added the fact that violent attacks on Muslims doing their jobs is
now being normalised. At
the start of its second term, the BJP had promised a Citizenship Amendment
Act-National Register of Citizens “chronology” that would subject Muslims to a
communal citizenship test, thus reducing the community to second-class
citizens. While that project has faced several obstacles, another equally
insidious form of marginalisation is taking place in the economic sphere, with
Muslims being pushed to the wall by being denied a chance to making a living. Indian democracy has
faced a number of challenges since it was instituted 70 years ago. But attempts
to reduce its massive population of 200 million Muslims to a life without hope
and the prospect, at best, of second-class citizenship, is the gravest danger
it has faced till now.
https://scroll.in/article/1005133/from-industrialists-to-hawkers-in-india-muslim-livelihoods-are-coming-under-increased-attack
4. Muslim Families evicted: Sep.,
23 2021; The Assam government carried out a massive
eviction drive in a village on a sandbar in the Darrang district on Monday,
September 20, leaving at least 800 families homeless. This was the second round
of evictions carried out in the last three months at the village – Dhalpur –
which is populated mostly by Muslims of East Bengal origin. A fact-finding
committee had visited the village soon after the district administration
carried out the first eviction drive in June. The committee had stated that 49
Muslim families and one Hindu family had been uprooted in the drive, which
local newspapers said had “cleared” 120 bighas of land (1 bigha is around 900
square yards), purportedly belonging to “pre-historic” Shiva temple. The
September 20 drive, however, was a much larger exercise. A report
by the Sentinel called the state
government’s actions a “never before seen massive eviction drive at Dhalpur No.
1 and Dhalpur No. 3 areas”. These areas fall under the Sipajhar Revenue Circle
in the Darrang district. The newspaper said that the government’s actions were
taken to “evict encroachers from government land.” The news reports said the district administration cleared
“8000 bighas” of land which led to the eviction of 800 people. Some residents
of Dhalpur told The Wire that the number of evicted families was more
than 900, which would take the count of affected people to at least 20,000. Photos
and video clips surfaced on social media showing evicted families taking shelter
under makeshift sheds to protect themselves from a heavy bout of rain after
their dwellings were demolished. The drive was carried out while the state
government still has multiple pandemic-related restrictions in place. According to the villagers, the local administration
engaged more than 1,200 police personnel and jawans
from the Assam Police’s 14th battalion to carry out the drive at Dhalpur No. 1
and No. 3. “The drive was carried out by the Darrang administration and led by
the chairman of the proposed Gorukhuti multi-purpose agricultural project. At
the same time, the district administration used 22 tractors to plough the
cleared, cultivable land right after the eviction,” said a villager. https://thewire.in/rights/assam-government-evicts-hundreds-of-families-from-dhalpur
5. Biden to Modi; Sep 25 2021; In his first meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi,
US President Joe Biden spoke about the need for non-violence, tolerance and
diversity in current times, even as he said that both countries are destined to
be “stronger, closer and tighter”. Biden’s comment marks the second time the US
has spoken to Modi in public about the importance of democracy in as many days.
Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday said “it is imperative that we defend
democratic principles and institutions within our respective countries”. These
remarks come against the backdrop of growing concerns abroad over the rise in
anti-Muslim rhetoric in India and curbs on dissent. “Kamala Harris presses
India’s Modi gently on human rights in historic meeting,” the Los Angeles Times reported
in its headline.
https://thewire.in/diplomacy/biden-to-modi-gandhis-message-of-tolerance-respect-diversity-needed-more-than-ever
6. HRs Organizations on India in Kashmir and India;
Sep 25 2021; As Indian Prime Minister is set to address the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) forum in New York on September 25, the Human Rights Watch (HRW) has urged the international community
to "spotlight the human rights abuses" of his government. On September 22, the U.S. congressional briefing on 'Religious freedom in India' by the Human Rights Watch revealed an appalling record of the human
rights violations by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The
testimony of John Sifton, Asia Advocacy Director put forward "scathing criticism" of the Indian government's assault on religious minorities inIndia. The U.S. congressmen were briefed that the attacks against religious
minorities in India, especially Muslims, had increased especially since the BJP came to power in 2014. The testimony
also documented the Indian laws and policies to discriminate against religious minorities, the
bias against Muslims in the Indian justice system, ongoing clampdown in Jammu and Kashmir, BJP's government's empowering of vigilantes and crackdown on civil society for raising these issues. It was highlighted that
the BJP leaders and affiliated groups had long stigmatized minority communities as a "threat to national security and to the Hindu way
of life", and making hate-filled remarks against Muslims around state and national elections.
The Modi government has adopted laws and policies that systematically discriminate against Muslims and other minorities. This divisive political discourse has served to
normalize violence against minorities, especially Muslims, in India. The prejudices embedded in the government have infiltrated independent institutions, such as the police, empowering nationalist groups to threaten, harass, and attack religious minorities with impunity.
https://www.urdupoint.com/en/pakistan/modis-rights-abuses-in-spotlight-ahead-of-un-1359060.html
7. Muslim Business attacked; Sep 28 2021; Experts say
rising attacks on Muslim vendors and businesses by Hindu supremacist groups
point to a worrying trend. Not
everyone in India is excited about the upcoming festive season in October and
November. For Afzal, a mutton seller in Greater Noida – a suburb in Uttar
Pradesh state neighbouring capital New Delhi – who did not wish to give his
real name for fear of reprisal, it would mean a loss of business for nearly 10
days. “The Bajrang Dal [Hindu far-right group] in this area distributed
pamphlets ordering the closure of shops during the festival period. They have
become very active ever since Yogi Adityanath came to power,” he told Al
Jazeera, referring to the saffron-robed Uttar Pradesh chief minister, who
belongs to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). “We
have nowhere to complain. The police and the municipality officials side with
such groups,” adds Afzal, with some trepidation. Afzal has been fortunate:
though he has been targeted, he has not faced any physical violence. Many
others have not been so lucky. On September 23, two Muslim men in Mathura, a
temple town in Uttar Pradesh, were badly beaten up for carrying meat. Earlier
this month, the government decided to make a large part of the city alcohol-
and meat-free. About a month ago, in Indore city of Madhya Pradesh state, also
governed by the BJP, a Muslim bangle-seller, Tasleem Ali, was beaten up because
he was selling his wares in a “Hindu locality” allegedly under an assumed Hindu
name. Within a week or so, in Ujjain city in the same state, a Muslim scrap
dealer was forced to shout “Jai Shri Ram” (Victory be to Lord Ram), a war cry
used by Hindu supremacist groups. Similar incidents were reported in Uttar
Pradesh as well in the same month. The owner of a horse carriage in Lucknow was
forced to chant “Death to Pakistan” on the basis of a fake claim that he had
hoisted a Pakistani flag on his carriage. Then again, in Mathura, a Muslim
eatery owner was forced to change its name from “Shrinath Dosa” to “American
Dosa Corner” because right-wing groups objected to him using the name of a
Hindu god. All these incidents were recorded in a series of disturbing videos
that went viral. The common thread in the videos is that they showcase Muslim
vendors and small traders being assaulted because of their religious identity. Also,
the assaulters in all such cases are alleged members of Hindu right-wing
groups, who feel emboldened under Modi’s government and exercise significant
impunity. Such incidents are being seen
as part of a larger attack on the livelihoods of Muslims, many of whom are
self-employed or are engaged in low-paying jobs. Nearly 46 percent of Muslims are self-employed in urban India, the
largest as compared with any other community, according to data from the
government’s National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO), 2013. The report adds
that Muslims are the poorest among all religious groups in India and are
concentrated in low-paying jobs in the informal sector. Jeremy Seabrook and
Imran Ahmed Siddiqui, in their book People Without History: India’s Muslim
Ghettos, have documented a gradual “de-skilling of Muslim workforce” due to
globalisation, which has forced them into low-paying jobs. If these frequent
incidents of attacks on Muslim livelihoods are seen “in consonance with some
policy measures which the BJP government has taken in different states in the
last few years, then it is a worrying trend indeed,” Abdul Waheed, professor of
sociology at the Aligarh Muslim University in Uttar Pradesh, told Al Jazeera. In
2017, when the BJP government came to power in the northern state, one of its
first moves was to shut down slaughterhouses and meat shops. The ostensible
reason was that such places were not following legal regulations. However, till
date, no related regulation has been enacted. “The absence of any regulation in
this regard makes it clear that the intention behind such a move was to
destabilise Muslim businesses,” Manoj Singh, journalist and researcher in Uttar
Pradesh’s Gorakhpur city, who has been tracking the rise of the BJP in the
state, told Al Jazeera. In March this year, the city council in Gurugram in
Haryana state – also governed by the BJP – decided to close all meat shops and
ban all restaurants from serving non-vegetarian food on Tuesdays to respect
“Hindu sentiments”. Such measures are likely to affect Muslims adversely. “This
is a clear attack on Muslim livelihoods since, traditionally, it is primarily
Muslims who are engaged in the meat and poultry business in India,” says
Waheed. Singh argues that such incidents belie the Uttar Pradesh government’s
claim that it is interested in the development of all. “We do not see members
of such vigilante groups arrested which only means that they have the tacit
support of the government.” https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/27/india-muslims-livelihoods-islamophobia-hindu-groups
8.
Qatar Boycott of Indian goods; Sep 29 2021; After over a year, an Indian embassy in the
Gulf again issued a warning about “false propaganda” against India after an
Arabic Twitter hashtag trended calling for a boycott of Indian products.The
reason for the twin tweets seemingly was one of the top Twitter trends in
Qatar. Translated from Arabic, it meant “Boycott Indian products”.In April
2020, a number of Indian missions in the Gulf had to also post on social media
urging the Indian community to remain vigilant against attempts to sow
religious divisions. There had been a social media backlash after some
prominent Arab Twitteratis highlighted Islamophobic posts by a couple of
Indians based in the Gulf. Screenshots of an older tweet of a BJP member of
parliament were also circulated The latest Twitter trend was largely related to
the shooting by Assam police firing during an eviction drive in Darrang, which led to the
death of at least one person. The video of the shooting had gone viral. At the
time of Indian embassy in Qatar posting the tweet, the hashtag, “#مقاطعه_المنتجات_الهنديه” was at number 2 on Tuesday night. It
remains in the top five of Twitter trends in the Gulf state on Wednesday. Most
of the posts with the trend claimed that the Indian government has been
persecuting Indian Muslims and called for a boycott of products from Indian
companies. https://thewire.in/government/false-propaganda-indian-embassy-in-qatar-after-boycott-indian-products-trend-on-twitter
Monthly update 24: August
2021: Muslims in India
This page updates
news related to the plight of Muslims in India
.
1. Sikhs; Aug 10 2021; A Written Statement submitted by Bhupindar
Singh and Boota Singh Kharoudh from Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar)
America Inc. to the Joint US Commissions hearing focusing on the multi- stages
of Sikh Genocide that has happened since 1984 has been accepted for
congressional and record. The Joint US Commission on International Religious
Freedom and Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission held a hearing on Ending
Genocide: Accountability for Perpetrators on July 28th
2021. The statement explored the different timelines; staged killings of Sikhs
in November 1984 and denial of justice, the
killings of Sikh youth during the counter-insurgency operation of 1990's,
synthetic drug infiltration and wiping of a whole generation and now through
the Indian Agricultural laws 2020 to acquire the ancestral lands of Sikhs. The
statement cited the congressional evidences of Sikh persecution to the tune of
2.3 to 3.2 million since 1947 by the Indian Government under different
timelines. These different timelines discuss the malicious intent of Indian
government against any minority community. Singh and Kharoudh further
reiterated that the Sikh community has lost one whole generation to
counter-insurgency operations in 1990s and another generation to deep synthetic
drug penetration. These different stages fit the eligibility criteria
prescribed by the ten stages of genocide by Genocide Watch. The written
statement further noted the accountability for perpetrators and urged the US
government to hold India accountable for these
human rights abuses and be addressed accordingly as per the existing
frameworks. The statement also mentions the ongoing Muslim persecution through
Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and deliberate attempt by Indian government to
wipe out the Sikh and Muslim communities. The
detailed written statement can be found at below links https://www.uscirf.gov/sites/default/files/Sikh%20written%20testimony.pdf https://www.prnewswire.com/in/news-releases/sikh-genocide-report-accepted-for-joint-us-congressional-commissions-of-human-rights-and-international-religious-freedom-hearing-824252964.html
2. Anti
Muslims protest; Aug 12 2021; Delhi court on Wednesday granted
bail to former BJP spokesperson Ashwini Upadhyay, arrested in connection with the communal slogans
allegedly raised during a protest at the Jantar Mantar here. Hundreds of
people had attended the protest organised by ‘Bharat Jodo Aandolan’ at Jantar
Mantar on Sunday.Shipra Srivastava, media in-charge of Bharat Jodo Aandolan,
had said the protest was held under the leadership of Upadhyay. The video shows
a group of people shouting inflammatory slogans and threatening Muslims during
the protest at Jantar Mantar.
3.
Muslim man assaulted ; Aug 13 2021; A Muslim man was assaulted in the public and allegedly
asked to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’even as his minor daughter tried to save him, said
police here on Thursday, PTI reported. A one-minute video of the incident
surfaced on social media on Wednesday. The 45-year-old man is seen being
assaulted by some men, who ask him to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’. The victim’s
daughter is seen trying to save her father, crying and asking the attackers not
to beat him. Later, some policemen took the man to their Jeep. The footage also
shows the man being hit while in police custody. The victim, an e-rickshaw driver, said that
around 3 pm, some people started abusing and assaulting him. They threatened to
kill his family. He said he was saved by police.
4.
Recent Incidents; Aug 24 2021; An Imam of a local mosque was forced to chant Vande Matram in
Bapauli, Panipat. Later, he was coerced to leave the village. (15 August,
2021). Shia mourners assaulted
with tear gas shells, pellets in Srinagar. (17 August, 2021). Tariq Bhat, a Kashmiri man was brutally
attacked by 5-6 men in Sector 44, Gurgaon. (19 August, 2021). Muslim man, Hindu woman dragged to cops by
right-wing group in Karnataka. (19 August, 2021). Old Bilal Mosque demolished in Faridabad by
authorities. (20 August, 2021). Two Kashmiris beaten up
in Himachal for ‘Islam Zindabad’ written on truck. (20 August, 2021). Assam Police slaps UAPA and arrests 14 Muslims over social media
posts supporting Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. (21 August, 2021). A Muslim
bangle seller was beaten by a Hindu mob for selling bangles in a Hindu dominant
locality in Indore. (21 August, 2021)
5. Missing; Aug 31 2021; Najeeb Ahmed went missing from the prestigious Jawaharlal
Nehru University (JNU) in the national capital of New Delhi on October 15,
2016, after a reported scuffle with members of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi
Parishad (ABVP), a student wing of the far-right Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
(RSS). Ahmed’s case has been investigated by the country’s top
investigation agencies but his family believes the authorities are in cahoots
with those responsible for the student’s disappearance. Nothing is known about
the disappearance of the 31-year-old biotechnology student who was doing his
masters at JNU. Hailing from a poor family, he was the eldest of three brothers
and one sister. But Fatima Nafees, Ahmed’s mother, said she has not given up
hope of seeing her son again.“I still believe that he is alive and has been put
in some jail. One day he will definitely come back,” she told the Anadolu
Agency. Ahmed enrolled at
JNU on August 1, 2016, and disappeared on October 15 that year. Kumar, a former
president of the JNU Students’ Union, was arrested along with two other
students in February 2016 on charges of sedition for an event held on the
campus In Ahmed’s case, police registered a First Information Report (FIR) was
on October 15, 2016. Nine people were named as suspects behind his
disappearance.The police investigation did not make much progress. Unhappy with
the probe, Nafees went to the Delhi High Court the next month. In May 2017, the
court handed the case to the CBI, which is controlled by the federal home
ministry. In December that year, Ahmed’s mother again alleged that the CBI was
not interrogating the suspects the way it should. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/8/30/india-nafees-ahmed-jnu-student-disappeared-muslim
Monthly update 22: June
2021: Muslims in India
This page updates
news related to the plight of Muslims in India
.
1.
Temple evections: June, 5 2021; Javaid Akhter, 71, has lived all his life in his 100-year-old
ancestral house built by his grandfather. The house is located just a few
metres away from a famous Hindu temple in northern India’s Uttar Pradesh state.
Akhter, a retired engineer with the Indian railways, says Gorakhpur district
officials, including the police, visited his house recently and took
measurements of the surrounding land. The next day, he was asked to sign a “consent letter”, which said
the residents living on the southeastern side of the Gorakhnath temple had
given their “consent to transfer or hand over (their) lands and houses to the
government” for the “safety of the temple premises”.Nearly a dozen families,
all from the minority Muslim community living in the vicinity of the temple, were
asked to sign the consent letter, with the signatories alleging they have been
asked to vacate their houses. Akthar told Al Jazeera that he saw a few families had already signed the
letter. “The officials told us that if we do not sign the letter, they
have other ways to get our signatures as well. We were pressured,” he said. Incidentally, Uttar
Pradesh’s right-wing Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is the “mahant” or chief
priest of the Gorakhnath temple.
2.
Before he became the chief
minister in 2017, Adityanath, a saffron-clad hardline leader from Prime
Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), was a member of
parliament from Gorakhpur for nearly two decades. Spread across an area of 52
acres (21 hectares), the temple traces its origin to the 11th century monk,
Guru Gorakhnath, who belonged to the Shaivite tradition within Hinduism. Last month, the local administrators in the
state’s Barabanki district demolished what Muslims in the area claimed was a 100-year old mosque,
causing anguish in the community. On May 27, Musheer Ahmed was not at home when
officials from the local revenue and police departments visited his house. The
officers also measured Ahmed’s house. The next day, the 70-year-old was asked
to sign the “consent letter”.Ahmed, who has suffered from hypertension and
depression for 10 years, says he is worried about his 125-year-old ancestral
house.“My tension has since then increased. Have I signed on my death
certificate?” he says. “I do not understand why my house, which is 125 years
old, is being taken away. I am scared.” Intezar Hussain’s house is lies
southwest of the Gorakhnath temple. He says he has been “verbally told” by
local officials that his house would be “acquired” for security reasons and
that he would be compensated for the loss. Shahnawaz Alam, the chairman of the
opposition Congress party’s minority department in Uttar Pradesh, said
journalists have reported that the administration “forcibly acquired the
signatures” of the residents around the temple. “Instead of acting against the
officials, the state government is instead threatening those journalists of
charging them under the National Security Act (NSA),” a statement released by
Alam said. A report by Maktoob website on
Friday said Gorakhpur officials threatened a New Delhi-based journalist, who
was covering the alleged eviction of Muslim families near Gorakhnath temple
with arrest under the “draconian NSA https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/6/4/muslims-near-india-hindu-temple-allege-pressure-to-vacate-homes
3.
Facebook and Hindu extremism: June, 2021; Facebook allowed a Hindu extremist group to operate
openly on its platform for months, even after the company banned the group’s
main pages for violating its policies. It was not until TIME pointed out a
network of more than 30 pages linked to the Sanatan Sanstha—with more than 2.7
million total followers—that the social media giant followed through and purged
them in April. The pages regularly shared hate speech and misinformation,
largely targeting India’s Muslim minority, including Islamophobic depictions of
Muslims as green monsters with long fingernails.The Sanatan Sanstha’s extended
presence on Facebook, despite the ban, raises questions about how effectively
the company is delivering on its commitment to root out hate speech and incitement to
violence—including in India, its largest market. And as governments around the
world increasingly
bring more stringent regulations to bear
on social media platforms, the case is also a window into how political
pressure may be having an impact on
the ways those platforms police extremist groups. At its headquarters in Goa,
western India, the Sanatan Sanstha preaches a radical variant of Hinduism to
devotees. Among its teachings: that a third world war is approaching, bringing with it “adverse times” that will only end
when India becomes a Hindu nation. The Sanstha, which has been called
an “extremist group” by the U.S.-based watchdog Freedom House, has been under
the watchful eye of Indian police for years. In 2011, the state of
Maharashtra’s anti-terrorism unit called on India’s central government to
outlaw it, though the government never acted. Since then, followers of the
Sanatan Sanstha have been accused
by Indian authorities of involvement in four murders, including the 2017 assassination
of Gauri Lankesh, a journalist who was fiercely critical of the Hindu
nationalist government. Police investigating her murder allege that her killers
were inspired by a book published in 1995 by the group’s hypnotherapist
founder, Jayant Balaji Athavale. A portion of the book, cited by investigators,
calls on adherents to “destroy evildoers.” “So long as evildoers exist in
society, we cannot live in peace,” a portion of the book reads. The victims in
the three other cases were progressive intellectuals. Facebook quietly banned
the Sanatan Sanstha’s main pages in September 2020, removing at least three
pages that had about 70,000 followers between them. The company did not
publicize the action, but explained its reasoning in an email to an administrator
of one of the pages, who was also banned. “We don’t allow credible threats to
harm others, support for violent organizations, or exceedingly graphic content
on Facebook,” the email, which was seen by TIME, said. But the ban was
only a small blow to the Sanstha’s wider presence on the platform. The Facebook
pages of the Sanatan Sanstha’s newspaper and online shop escaped the ban, along
with dozens carrying the branding of its sister organization, the Hindu
Janajagruti Samiti (HJS). In total, 32 pages with more than 2.7 million
followers between them remained active on Facebook until April. The
pages often shared identical posts, including misinformation and hate speech
targeting Muslims, and regularly linked back to websites maintained by the
Sanatan Sanstha. Content shared by the network was viewed more than 11.4
million times between September 2020 and April 2021, according to data from
CrowdTangle, an analytics tool owned by Facebook. Days after TIME asked
Facebook about the pages in April, all but three were removed from the social
media platform. “We have disabled Sanatan Sanstha’s accounts from Facebook for
violating our Community Standards,” a Facebook spokesperson said in a
statement. “We apply our policies globally and enforce content without any
regard to political affiliations.” The HJS and Sanatan Sanstha are two
arms of the same organization, according to Dhirendra K. Jha, a journalist who
visited their headquarters for his book Shadow Armies: Fringe
Organizations and Foot Soldiers of Hindutva. They are staffed by many of
the same people and are run in practice from the same building
in Goa, says Jha, who was sued by the group for defamation but had the case
dismissed in 2020. “The Sanatan Sanstha is basically the mother organization,”
he says. “The Hindu Janajagruti Samiti is its main outfit through which it does
all its work. Whatever you can think of that the Sanatan Sanstha wants to do,
that would be the responsibility of the HJS.” While the Sanatan Sanstha and HJS
are not officially affiliated with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP),
many of the posts shared by the pages dovetail with its Hindu nationalist
political project. In 2013, before he became Prime Minister, Narendra Modi said
he was proud of the HJS’s work on the eve
of a conference organized by the group. Three years later, BJP state lawmaker
T. Raja Singh addressed the same conference, calling for “action against those
indulging in cow slaughter, Love Jihad and religious conversion of Hindus by deceit”—all
references to India’s Muslim population and echoes of core BJP talking points.
Globally, Facebook has committed to removing hate speech from its platform and
banning any groups that “proclaim a violent mission or are engaged in
violence.” But in India, alienating the ruling Hindu nationalist government
could put its
multibillion dollar ambitions
at risk. The government is becoming
increasingly punitive toward foreign social media
companies. Last summer, India banned the social network TikTok nationwide after
a geopolitical spat with China. In April, it ordered Facebook and Twitter to
remove more than 50 posts that criticized its handling of the COVID-19
pandemic. And in May, Indian police entered Twitter’s offices in New Delhi
after the company affixed “manipulated media” labels to a handful of posts by
members of the BJP. The costs of not falling into line are clear: new rules
that came into force on May 26 require social media companies to appoint
staffers who face possible arrest if their companies don’t comply with Indian
law. “Facebook sees itself as stuck in a very difficult position in India,”
says Dia Kayyali, associate director of advocacy at Mnemonic, a digital rights
group. “Their stance has been to comply with the government as much as possible
to maintain their business interests.” Immediately after Facebook’s partial takedown
of the Sanatan Sanstha last September, the group publicly accused Facebook of
“anti Hindu bias,” calling Facebook’s ban part of a campaign of “anti Hindu
forces trying to stifle Hindu voices.” In a public post on the group’s website,
Sanatan Sanstha spokesperson Chetan Rajhans called on the Indian government to “take action against
Facebook” for “arbitrarily restricting the freedoms granted by the [Indian]
Constitution.” And in an email to TIME, Rajhans says the group has taken
Facebook to court over the matter, in a case that he said was still ongoing.
(Facebook declined to comment.) The company “acted in an arbitrary manner,”
Rajhans says. “It has become the judge, jury and the executioner. Facebook’s
actions have managed to keep invaluable knowledge from those desirous of
learning about Hindu Dharma and Spirituality.” in recent years, social media
has provided the Sanstha and HJS with the ability to reach millions more
people. They built up a presence everywhere they could, including on Twitter,
YouTube and Telegram messenger, services where they maintain an active presence
even today. But the jewel in their crown was Facebook, where the Sanatan
Sanstha and HJS had many times more followers than on any other platform.
TIME’s review of the now-deleted pages also uncovered a constant stream of
Islamophobic messages and misinformation. “The structure of building up a
follower-base with spiritual content and then leveraging it to spread political
hatred is something that has been a feature of Hindu nationalism online since
the early days of the web,” says Rohit Chopra, author of The Virtual Hindu
Rashtra, a book about Hindu nationalists’ use of social media. “There will
be dozens of articles about how you can do this puja [worship] online. But here
and there they will also make a point about how Muslims are violent.” A
post by the "Hindu Adhiveshan" page depicting a Muslim man as a green
monster with long fingernails. The accompanying text accuses
"Jihadis" of attacking a temple in Bangladesh, and urges Indian Prime
Minister Narendra Modi to "protect the Hindus of Bangladesh." Images
depicting Muslims as green monsters in menacing poses were shared by several
pages in the network, including Sanatan Shop, which advertised
books for sale carrying the depictions. Rajhans, the spokesperson for the
group, says the depictions were not hateful. “We do not believe that it
constitutes hate speech since the image is not born out of prejudice, but merely
states the facts as they stand,” he said in a statement to TIME.The HJS pages
generally steered clear of direct references to Muslims or Islam, which are
becoming increasingly easy for Facebook’s automated systems to detect as
potential hate-speech. Instead, the HJS pages are replete with coded language
and imagery. The
pages regularly shared allegations of violence by Muslims against Hindus—often
taken from unconfirmed reports in right-wing news outlets. But the posts rarely
even mentioned the words “Muslim” or “Islam;” in India, it is often possible to
assume someone’s religion by their name alone One recent post on the largest
page in the network, with 1.4 million followers, reported that somebody called
“Junaid” (a common male Muslim name) had concealed his religion in order to
marry a Hindu girl, whom his family then allegedly tortured. The name “Junaid”
was rendered in green text—a color associated with Islam. The post referred to
the alleged perpetrator only by his first name, and did not link to a source.
It was illustrated with a cartoon picture of a menacing Muslim man with a beard
and prayer cap, beside a picture of a crying Hindu woman. Copies of the image
were shared on several other pages in the network.The posts were part of a
wider Islamophobic conspiracy theory popular among Hindu nationalists known as Love
Jihad, which alleges that Muslims
are waging a secret holy war against Hindus by tricking women into marriage and
forcing them to convert to Islam. Pages in the network repeatedly raised
examples of so-called “Love Jihad,” stoking “an existential fear of minorities
among the Hindu population by associating them with acts of violence,” says
Ayushman Kaul, a research assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic
Research Lab who first flagged three of the pages in the HJS network to Facebook in 2020. Kaul also analyzed the wider HJS network as part of a report that the DFRLab is publishing alongside this one. “On multiple occasions, we saw the
same content posted across several pages in the network within minutes,
suggesting either a degree of coordination between page managers, or that the
content dissemination was centrally managed,” he says. Other posts shared by pages
in the HJS network in 2020 referred to Corona
Jihad, a conspiracy theory
popularized by Hindu nationalists in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic
that alleged Muslims were purposely spreading the disease to attack Hindus. The
HJS being allowed to operate for months after its parent-group was banned
suggests the existence of what activists and observers say is a blind spot for
Facebook with regard to Hindu nationalist hate speech in India, Facebook’s
biggest market where it has at least 328 million users. “Facebook’s general
attitude toward Hindu extremist groups has really been to do the bare minimum,
and with this group, it clearly hasn’t changed,” says Kayyali, the digital
rights activist. “They have consistently removed speech critical of the Modi
government, and left up dangerous speech coming from people who are in
political power.”Specifically at fault, critics say, is Facebook’s “dangerous
organizations” policy, which outlines its most severe punishment—a form of ban
reserved for groups or individuals that “proclaim a violent mission or are
engaged in violence.” The company keeps a list of hundreds of groups around the
world that fit this description. When Facebook labels an organization
dangerous, not only is it banned, but so is any “content that expresses support
or praise” for the group, according to Facebook’s rules. The rules
also cover “hate organizations,” which Facebook defines as any group that “is
organized under a name, sign or symbol and that has an ideology, statements or
physical actions that attack individuals based on characteristics, including
race, religious affiliation” and other characteristics. Part of the
reason may be that any such reckoning risks provoking retaliation from the Modi
government, with which Facebook has a delicate relationship. Last year
Facebook’s safety team concluded that a militant Hindu nationalist group, the
Bajrang Dal, supported violence against minorities and should be designated a
“dangerous organization,” the Wall Street Journal reported
in December.But Facebook decided not to apply the ban after its security
team warned that doing so “might endanger both the company’s business prospects
and its staff in India,” according to the Journal. The same team
also “issued warnings about banishing” the Sanatan Sanstha in 2020, the Journal reported.
It is unclear whether those warnings were followed. “We don’t comment on issues
of employee safety,” a Facebook spokesperson told TIME. The quasi-independent
Facebook Oversight Board criticized the company in
January for its lack of transparency around the dangerous organizations list,
and called on the company to make the list public. Facebook has not complied
with the request, which was non-binding.Despite Facebook’s failure to fully
purge the Sanatan Sanstha from its platform, the company has now done more to
tackle the group than any of its competitors. As of early June, the Sanatan
Sanstha and HJS continue to maintain an active presence on Twitter, Telegram
and YouTube. “These social media platforms should go into the detail,” says
Jha, the journalist who studied the Sanstha. “They took a position when they
banned Donald Trump. They should take a position here also. It is very
important for Indian democracy.” https://time.com/6072272/facebook-sanatan-sanstha-india/
4.
Mosques in
India: June 15 2021; Indian Muslims worry that several mosques will meet
the fate of Babri Masjid, which was first demolished by Hindu mobs in 1992 and
then officially handed over to the Hindu community in 2019. “This time mosques may not be knocked down like it was when
Babri Masjid was demolished,” she said, pausing for thought. “This time the
courts may approve construction of temples, razing the mosques.”A 16th-century
Mughal era mosque Babri Masjid was demolished by a large crowd of Hindus in the
winter of 1992. The demolition triggered a decades-long legal dispute with the
far-right Hindu groups claiming that the Mughal king Babur destroyed a temple
of Hindu god Ram and replaced it with a mosque that was named after him. The
legal tussle ended in 2019 when the Supreme Court of India handed over the ‘entire disputed land of 2.77 acres in
Ayodhya’ to the Hindu community, allowing the
construction of a temple devoted to Lord Ram.“Following the Babri judgement,
the political parties are aware that if public opinion can be swayed in one
direction, courts will be nervous enough to go against the mood of the masses
as it may trigger unrest,” Khan, the activist, told TRT World. Buoyed by
the 2019 judgement, lawyers “with a mission” are regularly filing suits– mostly
in UP state– challenging the legality of centuries-old mosques.“Conversion of
mosques to temples will be faster and smoother following Babri judgement,”
opined Khan, a researcher in Gandhian Institute of Studies in Varanasi. The
number of disputed mosques and monuments across India is around 50, inferred
Vishnu Jain, a 35-year-old Supreme Court advocate who authored many of the
recent petitions to dismantle mosques. Jain said his “mission” is to challenge
the legality of disputed mosques” as he believes many Islamic houses of worship
were constructed “by demolishing” Hindu temples. The Delhi-based advocate’s
recent petitions are premised on findings of Jadunath Sarkar, a major early
20th-century Indian historian. Two of Sarkar’s observations on two of UP
mosques– the Shahi Idgah of Mathura and the Jahanara Mosque (Jama Masjid) in
Agra – formed the two petitions of Jain where he challenged the legality of the
mosques. First of the key mosques to come under Sarkar’s scrutiny is the Shahi
Idgah which was allegedly built on the 13.37 acres (5.5 hectares) of land where
Hindu god Krishna, as yet a mythological character, was born. Sarkar translated
from Persian the annals of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb– Maasir-I-Alamgiri (1707) –
composed soon after the emperor's death. Aurangzeb, Sarkar posited, “issued
orders for the demolition of the temple situated in Mathura.” Page after page
of the Bengali historian’s book was quoted in Jain’s petition. “I have great
respect for Sarkar,” said Jain, who is not affiliated to any religious groups but
represented a Hindu nationalist outfit, Hindu Mahasabha (HMS) in the Babri
Masjid case as an advocate-on-record. In another work, ‘Anecdotes of Aurangzib
and Historical Essays’ (1917), Sarkar asserted, the Mathura temple– where the
Hindu god Krishna was ostensibly born– “was razed to the ground in January 1670
and a mosque (was) built on its site” while the “idols were brought to Agra and
buried under the steps of Jahanara’s mosque.” The observation formed the crux
of another petition seeking a Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) test to ascertain
if the idols were buried under the steps of the Agra mosque. Jain told TRT
World a petition seeking GPR for the Shahi Idgah “will be moved in due
course.” A week before the GPR
application was filed in Mathura court a similar plea advocated GPR in Gyanvapi
mosque in Varanasi in eastern UP, adjacent to a Hindu temple, Kashi Vishwanath.
It was filed on the basis of an original suit filed in 1991 with the claim that
Aurangzeb destroyed parts of the Kashi Vishwanath temple in the 17th century to
construct Gyanvapi. The Varanasi court’s judge not only admitted the plea but
also ordered a GPR. On October 23, 2002, the UP High Court ordered “to carry
out” a GPR on Babri Masjid, the order eventually facilitated handing over of
the site to the Hindus. The Varanasi court’s order is controversial on two
counts. One, a land ownership dispute in the Kashi Vishwanath–Gyanvapi Masjid
case is pending in the states’ High Court. Two, a 1991 ‘Places of Worship Act’
noted in its Section 4 (1) that “the religious character of a place of worship
existing on the 15th day of August, 1947 (day India’s independence) shall
continue to be the same as it existed on that day.” Thus the order surprised
Anjuman Intezamia Masajid, the management committee of the mosque.“Despite the
Act clearly narrating, characters of religious places cannot be changed, the
Varanasi court ordered the GPR,” the joint secretary of Intezamia Masajid, S.M.
Yaseen told TRT World. Yaseen and the committee do not accept that temples
were “flattened” to construct Gyanvapi. “We conducted our investigation and
failed to figure out how the mosque was built on a temple.” The fear of the
Muslim community, says Yaseen, is about the dilution of Section 4. “If the
Section is removed then petitions to flatten mosques will be filed in UP on a
daily basis as thousands of mosques are claimed to be under dispute,” said
Yaseen. Indian Muslims did not “utter a word” when disputed Babri Masjid land
was handed over to the Hindus assuming it would put an end to the temple-mosque
row. “But it has prompted more claims and now even the 1991 Act is challenged
in the Supreme Court,” Yaseen said with a sigh of disappointment. Jain and his
father Hari Shankar Jain, 68, also an advocate in the Babri Mosque case,
challenged the constitutionality of the Act in the Supreme Court in 2020,
arguing “parliament cannot restrain Hindu devotees to get back their religious
places of worship through judicial process.”The Jains filed a range of
petitions in various courts seeking removal of mosques they considered
“disputed” and even pressed for the right of the Hindus to worship in the 12th
century Qutb Minar complex in India’s capital, Delhi India’s ruling Hindu
nationalists have nurtured its mosque deracination plans for decades, noted
US-cased academic Shridhar K Damle in his authoritative account of Hindu
nationalist organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Known for his
access to RSS, Damle noted in his 1987 book, ‘The Brotherhood in Saffron– the
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Hindu Revivalism’ that Vishva Hindu Parishad
(VHP, World Hindu Council affiliated to RSS) “identified 25 other mosques to be
converted.” Enthused by its “major role”
to obtain a favourable court decision in 1986 permitting Hindu devotees to
worship Lord Ram at the site of the Babri Masjid– being denied by law hundred
years ago– VHP furthered its agenda to convert “two other historic sites in
Uttar Pradesh'', the Shahi Idgah and Gyanvapi Mosque. Damle and his co-author
Walter K Anderson, a US State Department academic-analyst, forewarned: “While
this effort (to dismantle mosques) is clearly popular, and may result in
enhanced Hindu solidarity, it almost certainly will exacerbate Hindu-Muslim
tension. Another columnist Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar argued that the lower courts’ admission of petitions probe mosques is
“in clear contravention of the (1991) Act and the Supreme Court’s
interpretation.”“The1991 Act makes it criminal to attempt religious takeovers,”
Aiyar noted. Yet more petitions are being filed routinely and the courts are
hearing those too. https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/after-babri-masjid-india-s-far-right-seeks-to-raze-several-other-mosques-47518
5. Delhi Riots; June 6 2021; Ever since their son Mohammed Farman, their
family’s only earning member, was arrested in March 2020 just after the
violence that overtook North-East Delhi, Salma and Mohammed Farid have been
supporting their six-member family by begging and rag-picking. Having lost
their home in a fire after the police took 22-year-old Farman away last year,
the couple and the rest of Farman’s family now live in a shanty in the middle
of a small, barren park alongside old Wazirabad road near North-East Delhi’s
Khajuri Khas Pushta. This may explain why they had not heard anything about
their son till early June this year, when they were approached by social
workers who had been asked by Farman’s lawyer to seek his family. Farman is one
of the 17 people charged by the Delhi Police in connection with the murder of
Babbu Khan, who was killed by a mob at Khajuri Khas Pushta on February 25,
2020, during the violence in North-East Delhi in which 53 people were killed
and hundreds were injured. “Please bring
my son back, this is all I ask,” said 45-year-old Salma, sitting outside the
small shanty where the six members of Farman’s family live. “I wonder if he is
well. We are so helpless and have no idea what to do.”After the violence in
Northeast Delhi last year, many people, mostly belonging to the Muslim
community, were picked up by the Delhi police for investigation and later
pushed behind bars, charged with several offences under the IPC. When the cases
went to court, many were granted bail. However, some remain behind bars, including
Farman. According to Farman’s family, he had been with them for the whole
period of last year’s violence in Northeast Delhi. “He had no part in the
violence. He was with us the whole time,” said Salma. Farman’s parents have
been unable to see him even now since they lost all their identification
documents in the fire. “We have no way to hire a lawyer or know how we can
visit Farman. We just know that he has been in Mandoli jail and that he was
named in a Delhi riots case,” Salma said. Pappu, the younger brother of Babbu Khan
whose murder Farman is accused of, told The Wire that the chargesheet
does not list the names of the real perpetrators of Babbu’s murder. “They have
named Muslims from my neighbourhood in the murder, while it is clear it was
Hindus, a few of them even living on the other side of Khajusri Khas Pushta,
who killed my brother,” alleged Pappu who lives in Khajuri Khas. “This was a
clear case of communal violence. So why did the police pick up innocent Muslim
men in the name of Babbu’s murder?” “If you see my son by any chance, can you
let him know we are alive and getting by?” Salma asked the social activists
looking after Farman’s case.
https://thewire.in/rights/delhi-riots-family-starves-as-son-remains-in-jail-for-more-than-a-year
6.
Muslim man
attacked; June 17 2021; A 72-year-old
Muslim man was attacked by a group of Hindu extremists in the Indian city of
Ghaziabad, cutting off his beard with a pair of scissors and called him a
"Pakistani
spy". In a two-minute video, which
went viral on social media over the weekend, Sufi
Abdul Samad can be seen beaten with sticks by the attackers, who kidnapped the
old man in a rickshaw as he was going to the mosque. “He returned to the house in a state of shock on June 5 afternoon.
He was shaking and took some time before telling us what happened. His back
bore injury marks and his beard was cut, Asif, a relative of Samad, was quoted
by The Times of India as
saying. Asif said that Samad, who was in Ghaziabad city to meet his niece and
did not know the routes, was taken to a secluded house where four youths
started hitting him with sticks, adding that the 72-year-old told him that one
of the men brought a pair of scissors to cut his beard and then forced him to
say "Jai Shri Ram" and "Vande Mataram". According to
Samad's relative, the attackers even called the man a "Pakistani spy"
and kept hitting him. https://tribune.com.pk/story/2305659/hindutva-mob-cuts-off-elderly-muslim-mans-beard-beats-him-to-pulp-in-india
7. Street vendor Jihad; June 28 2021; “redi jihad”
(street vendor jihad) has been unearthed by right-wing activists intent on
targeting Muslims. Activists from India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party are
involved in this communal campaign . On June 20, 2021, several Hindutva
activists blocked a busy road in Uttam Nagar, New Delhi, to protest against the
encroachment of fruit sellers in the area. The activists raised anti-Muslim
slogans and gathered with lathis to send a “strong message” to
the mostly Muslim vendors that they were not welcome in the neighbourhood.
Later, in the evening, some of them recited the Hanuman Chalisa in the middle
of the road in a display of ‘Hindu unity, local Bharatiya Janata Party leaders
and various Hindutva organisations have taken the route of vigilantism. But
apart from threatening to evict Muslim fruit sellers from the area by force,
but the activists who descended on June 20 also called upon Hindus to stop
doing business with Muslims. Sudarshan News, a far-right TV channel often accused of
broadcasting hatred against
Muslims,
reported the Uttam Nagar protest in an extremely inflammatory manner.
Throughout the show, Sudarshan reporter Sagar Kumar and anchor
Shubham Tripathi referred to Muslims as “jihadis” and used other derogatory
terms. Two days before this show of strength,
a Muslim vendor named Rizwan was assaulted by unidentified Hindutva
activists. “It started because of a petty fight between a fruit vendor and
shopkeeper. However, many anti-social elements got involved and communalised
this matter. Later, one of our vendors named Rizwan was targeted by a mob armed
with sticks and rods. He was grievously injured and admitted to Deen Dayal
Upadhyay hospital. Instead of arresting the criminals, the police are harassing
the street vendors now,” “Around 9 PM on June 18 2021, I was pulling my fruit
cart away from the market. An angry mob of 10 to 15 people attacked me. They
said nothing but rained blows. I don’t know who they are,” Rizwan told The
Wire. While Rizwan was reluctant to speak about the matter and wanted to
move on, the FIR registered by the Bunda Pur police station in Delhi’s Dwarka
on June 19 notes that he was accosted by a group of men shouting ‘Jai Shri
Ram’, asked to give his name and then brutally assaulted when he said it was
‘Rizwan’. They told him he should no longer bring his cart to the area. Though
Rizwan sustained serious injuries and the FIR describes an attack which is
clearly communal in nature, Delhi Police did not invoke the relevant – and more
serious – IPC sections (i.e. 153, 295 or 505) and instead limited the case to
one of ordinary assault. Ajay Singh, the fruit vendors union leader, said that the attack was committed by
anti-social elements with patronage of local politicians. He alleged that the
vendors had complained against illegal ‘vasooli’ and harassment by the
administration. “For a long time, this communal build-up was being allowed
because of ulterior motives. I had complained to the Police that this can
disrupt peace and even provoke riots in the area,” Singh added, sharing several
call recordings with the PCR in which he had complained about this violent
build-up. His claim is also supported by the fact that there have been multiple
incendiary videos and social media posts by Hindutva activists targeting Muslim
vendors for more than a year. We also found
inflammatory videos
promoting anti-Muslim violence on Hindutva social media networks in which all
the Muslim fruit vendors in Delhi were declared as Rohingyas. Present with
Vinod and Pulkit Sharma was another prominent protestor, who featured in many
videos, Himashu Yadav, a prominent local BJP local leader in Najafgarh. “Some
people will say that 90% of these people are Rohingyas. I believe that all of
them are Rohingyas.
They send juveniles and women forward to attack and murder people.” Yadav has
posted photos of himself with Union home minister Amit Shah and BJP MP Parvesh
Sahib Singh Verma on his Facebook page The thoughts of Mishra and Chavhanke on
the subject of Muslim domination of certain informal job segments are echoed by
Vinod
Sharma of
Sudarshan Vahini, another right-wing Hindu organisation. Sharma was one of the
prominent activists at the protest in Uttam Nagar on June 20 and is an ardent
proponent of the economic boycott of Muslim businesses. Last year, he had
joined Mishra his pro-Citizenship (Amendment) Act protests. Sharma
live-streamed the “redi jihad” protest on YouTube on June 20 and can
also be spotted in several videos with Hindutva leader Ragini Tiwari and Sudarshan
News’s Suresh Chavhanke. The Wire profiled Sudarshan Vahini and its
involvement in violent protests in a series
of investigative
reports.
Sharma had also joined Chavhanke’s protest at India Gate, calling for the
economic boycott of Muslims. “We want to support all Hindu brothers who want to
get into the business of fruit-selling, hairdressing or tyre fixing. Everyone
knows the problem, we are working on the solution. Suppose we tell you, don’t
get a haircut from ‘them’ [Muslims] then we have to give options… if we want to
remove ‘them’ from these businesses then we need to have our own men,” Sharma
had said last March at the India Gate protest.
His speech was recorded in a video that went viral. The goal of the Hindutva
groups’ ‘redi jihad’ campaign is to cripple Muslims economically and
drive them out of informal trade and social life in India. To achieve this
goal, right-wing activists spread the fear that India’s Muslims are conspiring
to take over Hindu livelihood and employment opportunities. However, the
campaign is not limited only to the fringe elements of the Hindutva movement.
It gained more currency after the media trial of the Tablighi
Jamaat in 2020
when BJP MLAs and right-wing leaders obstructed the
entry of Muslim hawkers in their neighbourhoods, sticking up boards outside
villages that banned the entry of Muslims and marking the carts of Hindu
vendors with saffron flags. In April 2020, the Hawkers Federation of India
issued a statement on the discrimination against Muslim
vendors during the lockdown. “They [the hawkers] are being profiled and
surveilled, stopped and harassed, and heckled and beaten up by vigilante groups
who are acting with complete impunity. These incidents seem to have been
spurred by a maelstrom of disinformation and propaganda campaigns being run by
motivated agents and spread amongst people through social media [platforms]
like Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and WhatsApp,” the statement said. Ghazala Jamil, assistant professor at the
Centre for the Study of Law and Governance at the Jawaharlal Nehru University,
Delhi, and author of the 2017 book Accumulation
by Segregation: Muslim Localities in Delhi, explained the politics and economics
behind the militant Hindutva campaign targeting Muslim livelihoods. “Labour
market segments in the informal sector in India are organised largely around
caste and kinship networks. This is why you will see only people of certain
castes and regions working in certain occupations. Muslims are known to be
segregated into certain sectors. For example, the term ‘puncture wala’ is used
as a slur for Muslims because a lot of automobile mechanics are Muslims,” she
told The Wire. “Through complicated processes that include subtle
discrimination, open hostility, targeted violence and caste-based notions of
pollution and purity, Muslims tend to be segregated into segments that contain
the worst jobs, marked by low wages, thin profit margins, low on dignity too,
but high on hardships. They are able to take up space in these segments because
these jobs are either not desired by others or are out of bounds for others.
Street vending is one of these segments,” Jamil added. She believes that the
large-scale shrinkage in the informal economy due to the lengthy lockdown in
2020 to control the COVID-19 pandemic is catalysing these campaigns. The
ever-present anti-Muslim prejudices are merely being refashioned as
fear-mongering related to COVID-19 infections or economic attacks on Hindu
livelihood, she said. “They want to push Muslims out of more labour segments.
The boycott might be successful in edging many Muslims out of the fruit- and
vegetable-selling business on the streets, but only so far, as not many [Hindu]
workers are willing to work in this segment,” Jamil explained. One thing is
certain: public places have become more hostile towards Muslims in the last few
years; not only to those who are visibly Muslim, but even to Muslims who are
working hard to somehow earn a livelihood. The Hindutva vigilante drive has
made their lives even more precarious. In the ten stages of genocide described
by Gregory Stanton, founding president and chairman of the international NGO
Genocide Watch, discrimination through boycotts occupies the third
position. In January 2021, addressing a “Hindu
Panchayat” in
Meerut, controversial anti-Muslim preacher Swami Anand Swaroop explained the
rationale of these campaigns in clear words: “My argument is that if you
[Muslims] want to remain associated with us, you should first stop reading the
Quran and stop offering namaz.” Then he offered a solution to Hindus: “You
decide that you will not buy anything from a Muslim. If you destroy them
socially, politically and economically, they will begin converting to Hinduism
from Islam Tanvir said, “Protesting with
lathis or any other weapon and openly advocating the boycott of a
community is a criminal offence. It violates several sections of the Indian
Penal Code and promotes enmity amongst Hindus and Muslims. Shockingly, it’s
happening with no action from the police.” In the wake of incessant calls to
boycott Muslims after the Tablighi Jamaat media trial last year, lawyer
Mohammad Afeef wrote in The
Wire
about the ‘unconstitutionality’ and explicit criminal nature of these boycott
calls. According to him these calls violate basic international human rights
law. “Enacting an unambiguous law on inter-community boycott is not only
urgently required in India, it will also bring India in accordance with its
legal obligations under the United Nations Convention on Genocide,” he wrote.
https://thewire.in/communalism/hindutva-ecosystem-muslim-fruit-sellers-threat-india
Monthly update 21: May
2021: Muslims in India
This page updates
news related to the plight of Muslims in India
.
1.
Muslim man killed; May 19 2021; Muslim man was abducted and beaten to death
in India’s Haryana state while he was returning home after buying medicines His family said Asif was lynched by a mob and was forced
to chant Jai Shri Ram. Two of his cousins were injured in the attack too.The
deceased’s uncle, Maktoob Khan, said that Asif’s car was intercepted by a group
of men and he was thrashed by them.“They abused Asif and his cousins and forced
them to say Jai Shri Ram,” Khan said. https://www.samaa.tv/global/2021/05/muslim-man-forced-to-chant-hindu-slogans-killed-in-india/
2.
Makkah Masjid blast Case;
May 18 2021; 14 years ago, when Friday
prayers were ongoing at historic Makkah Masjid in Hyderabad’s Old City, a bomb
blast took place which left nine dead and at least 60 severely injured. Five
others were killed in police firing in the violence that followed immediately
after the blast. But the pain inflicted in the blast still remains fresh as the
role of National Investigation Agency (NIA) failed to prove anyone guilty in
all these years. A special court of NIA on April 16 acquitted all the five
accused charge-sheeted in the cell phone-triggered pipe bombing inside the
mosque in 2007.In a very interesting development, Justice Ravinder Reddy,
within hours of delivering the judgment, resigned from his job citing personal
reasons and went incommunicado.The role of NIA came into question as it failed
to prove anyone guilty after pursuing investigations against the accused for
more than seven years after taking over the case from the CBI. The removal and
transfer of officer-in-charge Pratibha Ambedkar, two weeks before the
controversial verdict, raised more eyebrows about the integrity of the NIA
https://www.siasat.com/14-years-on-makkah-masjid-blast-case-has-no-accused-nia-silence-raises-suspicion-2138339/
3. Mosque demolished; may 29 2021: Two
days ago, on Monday, Monday 17, a mosque in the central Uttar Pradesh town of
Barabanki was demolished by the administration in defiance of an order of the
Allahabad high court. The Gareeb Nawaz Al Maroof Mosque had been around for at
least six decades, according to electricity bills held by its committee
members, and was registered with the UP Sunni Waqf Board. “They demolished our
century-old mosque. Thousands of people used to offer namaz (prayer)
here,” Maulana Abdul Mustafa, a mosque committee member, told The Wire. On
March 20, a day after protests broke out against the administration’s plan to
demolish a mosque in Uttar Pradesh’s Barabanki, close to 180 Muslims were
booked under serious charges, including attempt to murder. It is important to
note that in FIR 89 – the main FIR, which named 22 people and charged another
150 “unnamed” – 16 named and several of the unnamed accused were granted bail
in a district court on April 12. Around six additional FIRs were filed in
relation to this and roughly 30 people are still in jail, locals say. On April
11, nearly three weeks later, Barabanki police also arrested one Ishtiyaq alias
Sonu in this case under the National Security Act (NSA), considered to be a
draconian law often used to target dissenters. An official press release by the
police on the matter said that he was arrested in a mission against criminals
in the district. “On April 11, the administration took action against a dreaded
criminal Mohammad Ishtiyaq, son of Mohammad Iliyas…who had attacked and
attempted to murder police force on March 19.” Five weeks later, the mosque was
demolished with the administration claiming the mosque’s supporters “ran away”
and chose not to contest the demolition order. The fact is that the
indiscriminate arrests made in March weighed heavily on the community’s mind,
say locals. No Muslim “dared” to protest on the day of the demolition, Maulana
Mustafa told The Wire. “They did not even dare to go close to the mosque
while it was getting demolished because of fear of the police,” he said. Locals
say that dozens of Muslims have left their homes since the incident and are
hiding in other areas because they fear being incriminated in fake cases. On
March 15, the mosque authorities received a notice questioning the presence of
an “unofficial mosque”, requesting evidence for the permission they had to
occupy the land. It also cited a court ruling that said illegal religious
constructions could be demolished if they caused obstructions. The mosque
authority says that they had filed a detailed response in this matter,
including an electricity bill from the year 1959. The response also made it
clear that the mosque was not obstructing traffic on the road. However, the
administration never officially acknowledged their response and proceeded with
the demolition. On March 18, three days after the notice was sent, the mosque
committee knocked on the doors of the Allahabad high court with concerns of
“imminent demolition” of the mosque. The high court disposed of the petition
and ruled that the local administration was only seeking documentation. “In any
case, considering the fact that the notice has been given to the petitioners
only for the purpose of seeking documentary evidence, and not for demolition,
nothing needs to be proceeded any further in this writ petition,” the order
said. According to locals and photographs that The Wire has seen,
the debris of the mosque was thrown into a river. Since then, security forces
have been deployed in the area to prevent people from coming to the location of
the mosque. Residents also say that a wall was being built to block access to
the mosque. On March 19, Muslims were disallowed from offering Friday prayers
inside the mosque, which resulted in tension and protest. At least 35
protesters were arrested and several serious charges were levelled against the
protesters. The mosque committee says the demolition was in violation of a high court
order issued on April 24, stating that buildings in the state should be
protected from any eviction or demolition until May 31 “in the wake of the
upsurge of the pandemic”.In that order, the Allahabad high court said, “That
any orders of eviction, dispossession or demolition, already passed by the High
Court, District Court or Civil Court, if not executed till the date of passing
of this order shall remain in abeyance for the period till 31.05.2021.” Zafur
Ahmad Faruqi, chairman of the Uttar Pradesh Sunni Waqf Board, condemned the
demolition, calling it “illegal.” He added that this will further alienate the
Muslim population in the state, referring to the Babri masjid’s demolition by
right-wing groups in 1992. In a court ruling in 2019, the Supreme Court handed
over the land to Hindu groups, permitting the
construction of a new Ram temple, which is now under construction. However, the
Supreme Court had also noted that the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya
was an “egregious violation of the rule of law” and that “Muslims have been
wrongly deprived of a mosque which had been constructed well over 450 years. Dozens
of people in the area have left their homes so far and the rest live in fear, a
Muslim resident who wished to stay anonymous, told The Wire. Syed Farooq
Ahmad, another resident of Barabanki, said, “People got scared. They were
worried that more people would be implicated in fake cases and left the place
as soon as they could.” He added that since the court promptly granted bail to
many people, it was clear that the FIRs had been filed without any basis or
investigation. He said, “It became clear that these FIRs were filed by the
police simply to scare people so they do not speak against the demolition or
protest it. None of the charges could be proven in multiple cases, and the
court granted bail in the first hearing itself,” Ahmad further said. At least
seven FIRs were filed on March 20, a day after Muslims protested the demolition
plans. People were booked under sections of the Arms Act. Other charges, such
as rioting, unlawful assembly, attempt to murder and causing grievous hurt to
deter a public servant, of the Indian Penal Code.Several were also charged with
Section 7 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1932, which deals with molesting a
person to the prejudice of employment or business. https://thewire.in/rights/before-demolition-of-barabanki-mosque-wave-of-arrests-spread-fear-scuttled-protests
4.
Hindus on Palestine; May 26 2021; As violence escalated in Israel–Palestine earlier this month,
Fatafta, who is Palestinian and works as a policy analyst for an online think
tank focusing on Palestinian human rights in Berlin, had been posting pictures
and stories about families killed in the Gaza Strip to her 14,000 followers. In
response, she was being trolled. Some of the hate speech, which called
Palestinians like her “terrorists,” came from far-right Israeli accounts. But
many seemed to be from India — Fatafta said that they had Indian names and the
Indian flag in their usernames. “It seemed like all these ethno-nationalists
from India and Israel coming together,” Fatafta told BuzzFeed News. “It was a
fascinating phenomenon. I haven’t been trolled by people from India before.”
the conflict has also stoked an online wave of hate speech and misinformation
against Muslims around the world. A full-page ad in the New York Times accused
pop star Dua Lipa and models Gigi and Bella Hadid of antisemitism. Last week,
the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel lobbying group, ran
Facebook ads that superimposed Rep. Ilhan Omar’s face onto Hamas rockets, with
the factually inaccurate caption: “When Israel targets Hamas, Rep. Omar calls
it an act of terrorism.” Israel’s official Arabic-language Twitter account angered Muslims by tweeting verses from the Qur’an along with an image of an
Israeli airstrike on Gaza (that tweet has since been deleted). That conflict in
the Middle East could set off waves of hate and lies against Muslims is not
new. But what is novel is the source: India. In the world’s largest democracy,
anti-Muslim hate has steadily become mainstream, both online and offline. On
Saturday, First Draft News, a UK-based nonprofit that researches
misinformation, published an analysis of more than 300,000 tweets relating to the Israeli–Palestinian
crisis. They found a campaign containing thousands of tweets and hashtags that
appeared to have been created in India, one of Twitter’s key markets. “While
analyzing the tweets, we noticed that the top hashtags always had some Indian
references,” Carlotta Dotto, senior data journalist at First Draft, told
BuzzFeed News. “It was striking.” Dotto focused on #UnitedAgainstJehad, an
intentionally misspelled hashtag that was mentioned more than 40,000 times by
nearly 6,000 accounts between May 12 and May 17. The analysis showed that the
hashtag was at the heart of a coordinated campaign aimed at getting it to trend, accompanied by tropes about
Muslims that Indian Hindu nationalists have spouted for years — such as love jihad, a baseless conspiracy theory that accuses Muslim men of
converting Hindu women to Islam through marriage. Ten percent of the accounts
using the hashtag were created in May.“It was clear that they were using the
Israel–Palestine conflict to promote their own narratives on Twitter in India
and around the world given the amount of attention that it was getting online,”
Dotto said. Although India had previously tended to avoid becoming involved in
the region, relations between India and Israel improved dramatically under
Modi, who became the first Indian prime minister to visit the country in 2017.
In part that’s because the leaders of both countries are conservative
nationalists. In addition, right-wingers in India draw on their country’s
long-standing rivalry with neighboring Pakistan. “India’s right wing finds
Israel fascinating for multiple reasons,” Jency Jacob, managing editor at Boom,
a leading Indian fact-checking organization, told BuzzFeed News. “It’s a small
country surrounded by Muslim neighbors that’s battling it out, it has a strong
leader who is focused on protecting its borders “Whenever there is tension between an Islamic country and any
other country, the far-right ecosystem gravitates towards whoever is on the
non-Muslim side,” Jacob added. “For them, it’s a natural aggression that brings
out all their prejudices about Muslims in general.” Members of India’s ruling
Bharatiya Janata Party and its supporters have seized on the conflict. Tajinder
Pal Singh Bagga, a BJP spokesperson, called Islam a “Virus” that was
“generating Terrorism in the world” and said, “Israel is Vaccine of this Virus,
please support Israel.” Each of Bagga’s
tweets got thousands of retweets and likes. Hundreds of messages vilifying
Muslims were also forwarded through WhatsApp, the Facebook-owned instant
messaging app used by hundreds of millions of Indians.
5.
“Checked most of the
#IndiaStandWithIsrael tweet handles,” tweeted Rana Ayyub, a high-profile Indian journalist frequently
targeted by far-right Modi supporters. “A common thread that runs through is a
visceral hatred for Muslims and a bloodlust to see Muslims massacred and shown
their place.” As watchdogs within Israel struggled to keep up with the glut of hate and lies, their counterparts outside the
country weren’t having it easy either. Boom, for instance, has fact-checked
nearly two dozen stories, some of which painted Palestinians as faking their distress.
“It’s become one of our big topics,” Jacob told BuzzFeed News. viral clip tried to pass off a 2017 news report about Palestinian makeup artists as
Palestinian residents faking injuries during the current conflict. “Repression
is transnational,” Fatafta said. “Islamophobia is the common denominator here.”
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/pranavdixit/anti-muslim-bias-india-israel-palestine
6.
Lakshadweep islands ; May 27 2021;
Locals on an Indian archipelago — Lakshadweep islands have expressed
resentment at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) appointed administrator Praful
Khoda Patel's recent policies which they consider as "anti-Muslim"
and a way to "settle outsiders" on the islands, similar to the
Narendra Modi-led government's policy in Kashmir, it emerged on Wednesday. The
recently proposed regulation for the creation of a Lakshadweep Development
Authority (LDA) has been widely resented by the local population, according to
a report by Indian publication The Hindu which said that hundreds of islanders
had written to the administrator for the draft regulation to be withdrawn.
"The regulation empowers the government, identified as the administrator,
to constitute Planning and Development Authorities under it to plan the
development of any area identified as having 'bad layout or obsolete
development'," the report said. The law would give the administrator the
power to remove or relocate islanders from their properties if required by
planning or development activities, according to Arab News. Around 93 per cent
of the island's population of 70,000 are Muslims, the report said. "The island
community is a close-knit group with families living in close proximity. The
regulation will destroy the way of life practised by them for generations"
an islander told The Hindu. "The way the government is trying to settle
outsiders in Kashmir, I feel a similar design is at work on the islands,"
Dr Ayshabi Kalpeni, chief medical officer at the Life Care Hospital in
Malappuram, Kerala, was quoted as saying by Arab News. However, this is not the
only controversial regulation introduced by Patel — who was Modi's home
minister in Gujarat before he became prime minister — with previous decisions
including a proposed ban on the slaughter of cows and the consumption of beef;
draft legislation that would disqualify people with more than two children from
contesting local elections; and the introduction in January of the Prevention
of Anti-Social Activities Act (Pasa), a draconian law under which individuals
can be detained, without any public disclosure, for up to a year, according to
the report. "Our existence has come to be questioned with these decisions
and we feel that the government is working with the same majoritarian mindset
here as it is working elsewhere in the country," Kalpeni added.
Politicians and activists in Kerala — the closest Indian state at a distance of
240 kilometres — have launched a "Save Lakshadweep" campaign along
with the islanders. "The whole idea of the BJP is to change the demography
of Lakshadweep and create another Kashmir in southern India," Tasleem
Rehmani, a member of the Kerala-based Muslim Political Council of India, was
quoted as saying by Arab News. K. A. Shaji, a political analyst in Kerala, told
Arab News the proposed ban on cow slaughter is a "clear expression of
Patel's vindictive agenda targeting Muslims". "I do believe this is a
move to weaken the Muslim demography on the islands and to open up the islands
to private corporations from the mainland," he said. Meanwhile, the main
opposition party — Congress — has written a letter to the Indian president
demanding Patel's removal and "immediate withdrawal of [his] 'unilateral
and anti-people' orders
https://www.dawn.com/news/1625839
7.
Monthly update 20:
April 2021: Muslims in India
This page updates
news related to the plight of Muslims in India
.
1. Protests: Apr.,1, 2021: Pakistani-Kashmiri, Bangladeshi and Sikh rights groups have
vowed to stage demonstrations across the United Kingdom (UK) on Indian Prime
Minister Narendra
Modi's
scheduled visit to attend G7 summit 2021. Tehreek- e- Kashmir TeK (UK)
President Raja Fahim Kayani, Dalkhalsa Chairman Gurcharan Singh, and Former
Councillor and Chief Advisor of British Bangladeshi Community Alliance,
Mozaquir Ali held a discussion on Wednesday to chalk out the campaign under the
banner of United Front against Modi, on the occasion of his scheduled visit to
the UK in the Coastal Town of Carbis Bay Cornwall to attend the G7 Summit being
held on June 11-13. Dalkhalsa Chairman Gurcharan singh, representing Sikh's in
the UK, said that he would like to call on the British people to oppose PM
Modi's visit to the UK. “Modi is a fascist dictator whose sole aim in politics
is Hindu supremacy and creation of a Hindu state.”
https://tribune.com.pk/story/2292574/protests-planned-for-modis-visit-to-attend-g7-summit-in-uk
2. Ishrat Jahan: Apr.,1, 2021:On the day when a special CBI court discharged three police officers accused in the 2004
alleged fake encounter case, the mother of Ishrat Jahan, the woman killed in
the firing, said she had expected this.“This has been happening for the last 17
years,” says Jahan’s mother, Shamim Kausar. Jahan was 19 years old from Mumbra
when she was killed with three others in an encounter alleged to be fake near
Ahmedabad on June 15, 2004. Special CBI judge V.R. Raval allowed the discharge
applications of IPS officer G.S. Singhal, retired police officer Tarun Barot
and Anaju Chaudhari. The CBI court observed that the officers had acted within
the purview of discharge of official duties “No one talks about her. Though we
live in the same compound we just know that a girl existed who was killed in an
encounter. She has been forgotten now, except to her mother and close
relatives,” says one of the neighbours, requesting anonymity. Police claimed that those killed in the
encounter – Jahan, Javed Shaikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjadali Akbarali Rana
and Zeeshan Johar – were terrorists working with Laskar-e-Taiba and had planned
the assassination of then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi. The Gujarat
police had claimed that they had received intelligence inputs regarding the
group, and based on that, the operation was carried out. Ishrat’s family has consistently claimed she
is innocent and was killed as a part of a conspiracy by the policemen involved.
An investigation by the SIT set up by the Gujarat high court established that
the encounter was staged. The Supreme Court later handed over the case to the
CBI, which filed a chargesheet against several Gujarat police officers for
their involvement in the crime. Jahan’s mother Shamim says the trial was
one-sided from the start. “I had hopes when the Special Investigation Team
filed its report stating that the encounter was fake, but as events progressed,
I was left shocked and broken,” she says. “We haven’t got justice and the
killers are being set free. This is nothing new. These are their people, their
law and their verdict. What else can be expected?” she added. Shamim feels that
the ground is prepared for the encounter to now be called a genuine one. As
The Wire has noted in its report, “A fake encounter is illegal
no matter who it is conducted against, and the murder charge against police
officers is not dependent on the identity of the victims” – i.e. whether they
are terrorists or not.“They said she was a terrorist and now they say even the
encounter was genuine. But then, why did the SIT earlier say that the encounter
was fake? Clearly the SIT in its report had stated that it was a cold-blooded
murder and not an encounter. When the government can over rule this report then
it became obvious that one day the accused will walk free,” Shamim says. “Right
now I am very disturbed by all this but I will take this up again. I will be
consulting my lawyers and doing the needful. We have still not got any justice.
I don’t intend to give it up at all,” she says.
https://thewire.in/rights/ishrat-jahan-mother-cbi-fake-encounter-discharge
3. Delhi riots: Apr., 8, 2021: In
February 2020, this was one of the sites of the worst communal riots in Delhi’s
history since the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom. Fifty-three people were killed and
thousands more were injured or displaced. At Gali number 13, rioters damaged
the Madina mosque; and Muslim families’ homes near it were burnt, damaged or
vandalised. One year later, even as communities and
courts come to terms with what happened in those harrowing days, a major change
is slowly unfolding in these lanes – a change best described by 40-year-old
Zubaida Begum. Although her house was spared from violence, and her son
narrowly escaped rioters, in July 2020 Begum and her husband Salim sold their
house and moved out. “We were stressed that every other Muslim
family from the lane was leaving and we were getting lonely,” Begum told me one
morning in February 2021, from a new house she has taken on rent. “We were the
last to move out, five months after the riots.” Begum moved within Shiv Vihar,
but out of the Gali and near the main road where she says she feels safer.In
the last one year, the number of Muslim families selling their homes in the
riot-hit neighbourhoods has increased. Muslims families sold their houses at
low prices – at least 25% below market rates, according to several testimonies
including from property dealers, some of whom appear to have encouraged the
sales. Mohammed Rizwan, a property dealer who
operates from an office near Gali number 13, said he is looking for buyers for
nearly 40 homes put up on sale by Muslim families. He is so busy, he is barely
in his office. There were about eight Muslim families who lived in Gali number
13 before February 2020; only two or three have remained, said Mohammad Mukhim,
another resident of the lane who shifted into a rented house in another lane of
Shiv Vihar phase 6. When asked if he will manage to sell all the
houses, Rizwan said that sales happened when sellers were open to selling at a
sizeable loss, and had no restrictions on the buyers’ religion – meaning they
were open to selling to Hindu families. The segregation in neighbourhoods as seen in
Delhi can cause more violence in the future . “As long as you live in a mixed colony,
there is a greater chance to intermingle,” says Harsh Mander of the Centre for
Equity Studies in Delhi. “Now, the next generation will not even have the
opportunity to call a member of the other community as their friend. Then the
manufacturing of hatred becomes easy.” In Delhi, neither the NCT nor the Union
governments have made any effort to address the sale of properties and
segregation of neighbourhoods. Without intervention from the government, there
will be permanent changes to the demographics of North-East Delhi, which may
make the region vulnerable to more riots in the future. Zubaida Begum, whose
husband works as a welder, sits in a tiny room in her rented house on 25 feet
main road of Shiv Vihar Phase-6. A small rickety staircase leads to a terrace
and the house’s only toilet. She and her family of ten moved here in July
2020 after selling their old home. This is a rented house; they have been
looking for a house of their own but it is difficult to buy one because they
sold their earlier house for much lower than the price of equivalent homes. “It
is our makeshift house,” she says. They had made up their mind to sell their
house while they were still living at their relative’s place after the riots.
She told us that she sold her 25 gaj house (equal to 225 square metres)
house for Rs 12 lakh, though the market value would be around Rs 18 lakh. “After the riots, the property rates have gone
down by 20-25% in Shiv Vihar,” says Mohammad Ameel of Pappu Bhai Mansuri
Properties in Shiv Vihar. “Several Muslim families we came across reported
regular harassment from Hindu neighbours after the riots, such that they had to
move out,” says Ashmeet Kaur from the Institute of Social Studies Trust, which
is involved in relief work in Seelampur. Not only riots but the “fear of riots”
has been driving housing segregation, says Mehmood Pracha, a Supreme Court
lawyer who has been defending several persons accused in the riots in Delhi. He
added that local strongmen – other than the real estate agents – play on this
fear and have become prominent in these localities. “The intentions of communal
violence or those who perpetrate the riots is to ghettoise neighbourhoods and
drive the other community out,” says Teesta Setalvad https://thewire.in/communalism/a-year-after-delhi-riots-muslim-families-are-selling-homes-and-moving-out
4.
Delhi riots: Apr., 9, 2021: That afternoon, half a dozen policemen in helmets and riot gear
converged on the 23-year-old Faizan, a meat-shop worker. Wielding batons and
wooden sticks, they first beat him, repeatedly striking his head, and then
taunted a group of injured men — including Faizan — to sing the national
anthem. The assault was caught on multiple videos. Later that night, Faizan was
held at a police station without charge. When he was released the next night,
he could barely walk, recounted his mother, Kismatun, 61.“They beat him
mercilessly,” said Kismatun “When we got
him home, I had to cut off his clothes. He couldn’t even raise his hands.” He
died at a hospital the following day. The postmortem report detailed 20 wounds
on his body and said he died as a result of a head injury. Faizan was one of
more than 50 who died in the deadliest Hindu-Muslim violence in
Delhi in over seven decades. Police were later criticized for failing to quell the clashes and in some cases were
accused of participating in them. Hundreds of people from both communities have
been arrested in many of the killings. But more than a year later, no one has
been charged in Faizan’s death, raising questions about the police department’s
ability to act as an impartial investigator in instances of police brutality.
Most of those who were killed were Muslims.
Hundreds of Muslim families fled their homes in Hindu-majority
neighborhoods where they had lived all their lives. Mosques were vandalized,
shops looted and homes ransacked in clashes that lasted over two days, while President Donald Trump was in Delhi for a
state visit. Faizan and the other men beaten by the police on camera were
“being targeted on account of their religious identity,” said Vrinda Grover, a
lawyer representing Kismatun. “This is a very clear and lethal illustration of
institutional bias present in our law enforcement agencies.” An investigation by Amnesty
International India six months after the riots documented a “disturbing pattern of
grave human rights violations”
committed by Delhi police that went unpunished.
5.
The police responded to the Amnesty
report by issuing a statement that questioned the credibility
of the organization, calling it “lopsided” and “biased.” Amnesty International ceased its human rights work in India in September after authorities investigating the group’s
funding sources froze its bank accounts. Kismatun,
the mother of Faizan, at her home in northeast Delhi. She says she will not
give up until the policemen responsible for her son‘s death are punished. (Niha
Masih/The Washington Post). In court filings in Faizan’s case,
the police say they have enlisted an expert to enhance images from the video to
identify the perpetrators of the beating. They claim Faizan was seen “standing”
among a mob throwing stones in media footage obtained by them and that he was
held at the police station at his own request because of the riots. The family
says the police claim is hard to believe, because Faizan had been beaten by
them. They also say that Faizan might have lived if he had received immediate
medical care and not been detained. In March, the police told a court that the
closed-circuit TV camera at the police station where Faizan was held for over
24 hours was not functional.“The police are protecting their own,” she said. “But
I lost my dear son. I will not give up.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/04/06/india-delhi-riots-deaths/
6. Minorities in India: Apr., 18 2021: In
recent weeks, these “hypocrites”, as the minister called them, must have noted
the thrashing of a Muslim boy for drinking water in a temple and the bullying
of nuns in a train by Hindutva activists. Taken together with a
vice-chancellor’s protest against the muezzin’s pre-dawn call to prayer on the
grounds that it disturbed her sleep, it is clear that those who “find it very
difficult to stomach that somebody in India is not looking for their approval”,
in Jaishankar’s words, will have a great deal to mull over the conditions of
the minorities in India. As if the adverse comments by Sweden V-Dem Institute
and America’s Freedom House were not enough, the chairman of the foreign
affairs committee of the US Senate, Bob Menendez, had called upon the US
defence secretary, Lloyd J. Austin, to raise the question of human rights with
the Indian leadership during his visit to New Delhi. India is going through a
phase which it hasn’t experienced before.
Now, it has been dimmed again though not fully snuffed out. But the
threat of the light being permanently quenched is probably greater than what it
was four decades ago because there is an ideological agenda behind its dousing
backed by official clout and the organizational heft of the BJP and the RSS. If
Hindu-Muslim polarization and the incarceration of prominent social activists
are features of a “partly free” India, in the words of the Freedom House, then
the Left-Right divide abroad will tend to determine India’s place in the
company of nations. Before the BJP’s rise, India was generally in the
Centre-Left section of the international ideological spectrum largely because
of its democratic status which made the West ignore its non-aligned position
during the cold war when it was perceived to be close to the then Soviet Union.
Among the offshoots of this position was India’s proximity to the Palestinians
and distance from Israel. Now, the rightward shift in Indian politics has
brought it closer to Israel.These diplomatic oscillations wouldn’t have caused
much of a flutter if India was not seen to be sliding towards an “electoral
autocracy”, as the V-Dem Institute has said. The fundamental nature of such a
change is more significant than the periodic adjustments in the relations
between different countries depending on varying circumstances because it
signals a transformation in India’s internal politics which can have fateful
consequences for its people and even for the nation’s stability. History tells
us that an autocracy is inherently fragile because the authorities can only
maintain their hold on power with increasing high-handed conduct and even
external adventurism. A declining democracy, therefore, is a recipe for
internal unrest, especially in a country of India’s size and diversity. There
is little doubt that it was democracy which kept together a nation of 4,635
communities, 325 languages, 22,000 dialects and 24 scripts. An achievement of
this magnitude is beyond the capacity of a “partly free” country.
https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/india/western-concerns-at-indias-slide-towards-electoral-autocracy-not-unwarranted
7.
Minorities in India ; Apr 22 2021: A US commission on Wednesday recommended for the second year in a
row that India be placed on a blacklist for religious freedom, saying treatment
of minorities had deteriorated further.The commission, which offers
recommendations but does not set US policy, said in its annual report that
“religious freedom conditions in India continued their negative trajectory.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government “promoted Hindu nationalist policies
resulting in systematic, ongoing and egregious violations of religious
freedom”, it said. It pointed to allegations of police complicity in violence
against Muslims during deadly riots last year in New Delhi and continued
concerns over a citizenship law championed by Modi that critics say defines
Muslims as non-Indian. It also said the Indian government has been stifling
dissent and voiced concern over the rise of restrictions on inter-faith
marriages including in India's largest state Uttar Pradesh. The commission
recommended that the State Department designate India as a “country of
particular concern”, a blacklist that includes China, Saudi Arabia and
Pakistan. Other nations already on the State Department's blacklist are Eritrea, Iran, Myanmar, Nigeria, North
Korea, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. In addition to India, the commission called
on the State Department to add Russia, Syria and Vietnam to the blacklist.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1619526
8.
RSS and minorities: Apr., 25 2021: The relationship between the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the
BJP is that of the soul and the body. The BJP disposes of what the RSS
proposes. Most chief ministers, governors, and civil appointees, including the
president of India were recommended by the RSS. The RSS is at the forefront of
every election in India. Founded in 1925, the RSS has been overtly and covertly
supporting the Hindutva parties. RSS’s ideological offshoot BJP took nearly 89
years to form d a Govt in 2014 at the Center with 282 majority seats of its
own. The BJP fulfilled the RSS’s desire to abolish 370 and the conversion of
the Babri mosque into Ramjanam Bhoomi (god Ram’s birthplace Lashing out at PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti,
RSS’s Muslim Rashtriya Manch chief Indresh Kumar on Monday, termed Mufti a
‘traitor to Islam and India’ for not raising the national flag in
Jammu-Kashmir. Lauding her decision to not contest elections till Article 370
is restored, he said it was for the greater good if Mufti remains away from
electoral politics throughout her life. A massive controversy has broken out
between BJP and PDP over Mufti’s remark to ‘not raise Indian flag till
Kashmir’s state flag is restored’. The
RSS’s idea of Hindu Rashtra is to expel all minorities from India. It wants the
minorities to revert to Hinduism or leave India. While speaking at the RSS’
annual Vijayadashami (foundation anniversary) at Nagpur, the RSS’ then chief
and ideologue Mohan Bhagwat listed various “noteworthy incidents” like Article
370 abrogation, Ram Mandir Bhoomi puja, Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) that took place in the
last one year. The RSS leaders declared former IHK chief minister Mahbooba
Mufti a traitor. It then rushed its goons to hoist India’s national flag at his
party’s headquarter. Muslims are even
forced to perform Durga pooja. The anti-Muslim amendments in India’s Citizenship Act were
contrived by the RSS. The RSS’s ideologue talks of India’s Constitution, but
the amendments are repugnant to provisions of India’s Constitution. The Citizenship Amendment
Act (CAA) goes against the principle of constitutional secularism envisaged by
the framers of the Indian Constitution. The CAA emerged out of a new, refined
Hindutva ideology, formulated by the RSS. The RSS and the BJP avoided talking explicitly talking about
Hindutva. The reason was that it was associated with Savarkar and Hindu
Mahasabha. But, after the judgment of the Supreme Court in 1997 on Ayodhya, the
BJP formally accepted Hindutva as its philosophy. Bhagwat is so clever that he does not make any
direct comment on citizenship in formal sense. Instead, focuses on explaining a
few core values of Hindutva. He says, “According to us, Hindutva has three
basics: patriotism, the glory of our ancestors, and respect for culture… The
collective notion of values belonging to the religions (sampradaya) that
are sprung from the entirety, that is India, is known as Hindutva. … This is
the mark of India. And, India belongs to that.” Bhagwat refines the punyabhumi
(pious land) argument of Savarkar. He invokes the distinction between the
Indian origin of a few religions as originally Indian to describe Islam and
Christianity as alien This new
Hindutva-driven ‘national consensus’ actually points towards a new package of
Hindutva politics (the Ayodhya conflict, Article 370, and triple talaq/Uniform
Civil Code, the CAA). Bhagwat’s queer logic is that he “Hindutva does not want a Hindu
state; instead, it wants a constitutional state of Hindutva nation”. RSS’s growing influence over all realms of
life in India indicates that would compel the BJP to amend the Constitution in
accordance with its whims. Under RSS and Hindutva’s influence, the judges in
India increasingly pass judgments in favor of the fanatic Hindus. The Courts
dabble in Muslim religious matters. They may one day pass a uniform religious
civil code upon all minorities. Under the RSS’s influence, the syllabi in India
have already been amended to include Hindu myths and distorted history as Hindu
religion.
https://www.globalvillagespace.com/exploring-the-unholy-nexus-between-rss-and-modis-bjp/
Monthly update 19:
March 2021: Muslims in India
.
1.
BJP on Muslims: Mar., 2021: In the last week of February 2020, 53 people were killed
in Delhi in violence that lasted four days. Even though three-quarters of those
killed were Muslims and most of the worst property damage was sustained by
Muslims, BJP leaders describe what happened as an ‘anti-Hindu riot’. And the
Delhi Police have also helped in this cover up, alleging a conspiracy to
trigger violence by Muslim and progressive activists involved in the protests
against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act.
focus on Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati and his associates whose hate
speeches and incitement played a crucial role in radicalising the rioters who
eventually unleashed a bloodbath in North East Delhi in February 2020. It is
now clear that the relentless call for violence against Muslims in the run up
to the riots was not abstract advocacy but an essential component of the real
conspiracy – executed in the open because they knew the police would never
touch them. Yati Narsinghanand is a
militant Hindutva leader with his headquarters in Dasna in Ghaziabad, where
Uttar Pradesh meets Delhi. His influence in Delhi’s overground and subterranean
Hindutva networks has grown exponentially because of his association with top
leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party like Kapil Mishra – and his willingness to say bluntly and
openly what mainstream Hindutva politicians baulk from saying about Muslims.
Two months before the Delhi riots, Narsinghanand described Muslims as rakshasas,
or demons: “Those we call Muslims in our current era were called demons in
earlier eras” Narsinghanand is also a self-confessed admirer of Gandhi’s
assassin, Nathuram Godse: “We cannot find words enough to praise Nathuram Godse
ji. I consider Veera Savarkar ji and Nathuram Godse ji as my biggest heroes.”
Narsinghanand’s calls for violence against Muslims actually predate the CAA and
the protests against it. Right after a militant Hindutva leader Kamlesh Tiwari
was stabbed dead in Lucknow in October 2019, he threatened all Muslims with
violence and said that he would eradicate Islam from India: “Muslims around the
world are celebrating because a Hindu lion has been killed and all our homes
are in mourning. I am telling every one of those bastards, telling the Muslims,
if I don’t make you mourn the way Kamlesh Tiwari’s house is mourning today,
then I am not my father’s son. As long as I am alive I will use weapons. I am
telling each and every Muslim, we will eradicate Islam from the country one
day.” And the man in the grey shirt and orange scarf is Deepak Singh Hindu, the
Hindutva leader who went on to post a video on the morning of February 23,
2020, calling for mobs to assemble at Maujpur chowk in Delhi at 2:30 that day.
The Delhi riots started soon after. Six weeks later, in a speech he delivered
on December 4, 2019, Narsinghanand expanded on his usual theme of Hindus having
lost the will to fight Muslims. He lamented the fact that riots had not taken
place of late, blaming this on the failure of Hindus to take to the streets
with weapons:“Today, many Hindus tell me, Maharaj, there are no riots happening
anywhere. Why aren’t there riots? Because the issues which used to bring Hindus
on to the streets with weapons earlier, no Hindu has the courage to even raise
his voice about those issues. I don’t know what use our organisations are. Big
or small, we are not prepared to fight for our brothers, not even prepared to
speak for our brothers. While not a day goes by in India when some Muslim cuts
the throat of a Hindu.” Yati’s public utterances in and around Delhi in the
weeks and months before the February 2020 riots were clearly aimed at remedying
what he saw as this weakness. And his stated aim was to bring Hindus on to the
streets with weapons so that there would be a riot in which Muslims would be
taught a lesson. What gave Narsinghanand’s propaganda added edge was his use of
social media and video. He was and remains a regular studio commentator on the
panels of leading Hindi news channels like News Nation, Sudarshan TV and
AajTak, and is a hero for a number of militant Hindutva networks on YouTube who
make sure his calls for violence reach lakhs of people. His speeches in
December 2019 and then January and February 2020 easily qualify as hate speech.
But seen against the backdrop of the anti-Muslim violence which eventually took
place, it is clear that his speeches were an important tool for radicalising
and mobilising hundreds and thousands of people to commit violence. Which is
why it is strange that the police would not regard Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati
as a key conspirator in the riots. We know that the riots started as an assault
on those protesting the CAA at Jafrabad and then quickly morphed into vicious
attacks on Muslim lives and property in northeast Delhi that lasted three days.
In the wake of the Shaheen Bagh protest by Muslim women against the CAA, which
started on December 14, 2019, Yati was an active participant in meetings and
demonstrations held in support of the CAA. The aim of these events was to
ridicule the Muslim protesters, demonise them as enemies of the Hindus and work
towards forcibly ending their protest. And the record shows how his rhetoric –
including the call for violence – gradually escalated from December 2019 to
February 22, 2020, the day before the violence started. there is no case
against him. the police turned a blind eye to this buildup which was taking
place on the streets and on YouTube. On December 22, 2019, he
said in Jantar Mantar in Delhi: “The CAA is not against Muslims but against traitors.
They thought they can increase their population and capture the country. But
Modi ji and Amit Shah have brought this law and smashed their dream. I urge
them not to step back but go forward with NRC, uniform civil code and then a
population control law.” On December 25, 2019, a rally in support of the CAA
was held at Jantar Mantar by Updesh Rana, founder of the extremist Vishwa
Sanatan Sangh. Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati was a star speaker. By now, his
rhetoric had already climbed several notches. Amit Shah may have insisted that
the CAA had nothing to do with Indian Muslims but for Yati, the CAA was the
first step towards controlling the population of Indian Muslims. And at Jantar
Mantar he also said for the first time that Hindus would have to come on to the
streets to teach a lesson to the Muslims who were protesting the CAA: “I appeal
to all you young people, these Muslims who keep coming out [on the streets],
they should find out what will happen to them the day we come out. And I would
like to tell Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, please don’t worry, we are all with
you. You have brought the CAA, now bring the National Register of Citizens and
after that put a stop to the population of the ‘katuon’. If these swine
increase their numbers, they will spread filth, so to save this country from
filth and dirt, please bring a law to stop their population, we will support
you.” Narsinghanand uses abusive terms like ‘sooar’ and ‘katuon’ for Muslims
and then calls for their eyes to be gouged out:“And all of you, you fighters
for dharma, each one of you tigers is more than enough for 125,000 pigs
(cheers). And if [the Muslims] are
seeing dreams of taking over India, then tell them that we will gouge their
eyes out.” Narsinghanand’s rhetoric in this period is suffused
with the idea that a final battle and final solution is approaching. He says on
December 25, 2019, eight weeks before the riots:“I am once again appealing to
Hindus, today the time has come, if even today we don’t stand up then we won’t
survive. I want to tell Hindus that this is the final battle, if you lose this
battle then nothing will remain.” However, Yati Narsinghanand had lots more to
say that day. After finishing his provocative speech, he gave interviews to
several Hindutva YouTube channels where he kept up his fierce rhetoric. A
report from one of these channels, ‘Hindu Publisher’, asked
Yati for his comments on the people who he said were opposing the CAA and ‘burning the
country’.“These people are enemies of the country, they should be put in jail.
And if they do not reform after being jailed, they should be sentenced to
death.” The ‘Hindu Publisher’ channel reporter then asks Yati who these people
are who want India to open its doors to Muslim refugees from Bangladesh and
Pakistan. Narsinghanand’s answer is shocking: He describes India’s Muslims as
jihadis who are out to destroy Hindus and India, and says finishing off such
people from their roots should be the basic religious duty of Hindus: “These
people are jihadis who want to spread filth in the country, these are jihadis
who want to destroy the country, these are jihadis who want to take over our
resources, these are jihadis who want to kill us all, these are jihadis who
want to make prostitutes of our sisters and daughters. Such people have to be
destroyed from their roots and this is our basic religious duty.”Narsinghanand
was prepared to say what Modi government advocates of the CAA wanted to leave
unsaid: that the CAA was an essential part of what the Hindutva groups call the
unfinished agenda of partition – the
expulsion of all Muslims from India: Yati: After partition, the jihadis Gandhi and Nehru kept
these traitors in the country. This is India’s biggest misfortune Q: But
maharaj ji these people say they stayed here by choice Yati: It was not their
choice, it was our weakness, we should have driven them out… Hindus will have
to understand, these are not our people, they are jihadis and we will have to
finish them off, this is our religion, this is patriotism. If there was any
doubt about the genocidal import of his message, Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati
told the Khabar India news channel that India had to follow China’s example in
dealing with its Muslims, which
is to treat Islam as a mental illness that must not be allowed to spread: Yati; The whole world
has seen what China is doing with the Muslims. The president of China has said
Islam is a mental illness and that we won’t let our country fall prey to this
disease. Q: So how should we save our country? Yati: Our country will save
itself by following China’s pattern There is no other way. On December 29, he
put out a video appeal for what he called ‘Hindu lions’ to come to his
headquarters in Ghaziabad for an important two day dharam sansad.
‘Nothing will happen if you don’t help me’, he said: “I appeal to all young
Hindus, wherever my voice reaches, you should all take part in the Dharam
Sansad in Ghaziabad on January 12 and 13. This is my appeal. My children, my
lions, nothing will happen if you don’t help me.” The dharam sansad, or religious
gathering, was held on January 12 and 13, 2020 and saw a number of
inflammatory speeches by Hindutva ideologues and religious figures.
Narsinghanand said one decision is that Hindus should not depend on the police
and army but assert their manhood and do what it takes for their own
protection. Every Hindu home should produce more children. Every Hindu home
should be armed. He also said the Dharma Sansad had resolved to honour Donald
Trump because he believes in killing terrorists in their homes: “Our Dharm
Sansad has decided that it will honour Donald Trump and will invite him for our
next dharm sansad. The way he is killing terrorists in their own homes, this is
very necessary for the whole world and we regard Donald Trump as our hero.” Was
this reference to Trump a subtle message about the timing of the final battle
that Nasinghanand had been speaking about since December 2019? Was it just a
coincidence that militant Hindutva activists, radicalised by the kind of
message Narsinghanand had been putting out, chose to honour their hero by
targeting Musims in their own homes during his visit? This is a question the
Delhi Police could have answered if only they had investigated the real
conspiracy. The reason Yati’s dharam sansad appears as a key event in the Delhi
Riots chronology is because its real message was to tell the hundreds of young
Hindus who attended it that their real enemy were Muslims and that this enemy
had to be killed. “Guru Gobind sahab once said that he would pit one against
125,000. Since then, we wondered who these 125,000 were. Yati ji in very clear
words has told who those 125,000 are. They are jihadis. They are enemies of our
religion. From here, young people have got clearance to understand the play of
words because earlier they could never realise who those sava lakh (125,000
people) were against whom Guru Gobind had said in his time that one should
fight and one should cut up.” Yatima
Chetna Saraswati, to make the closing comment. And what she said was an open
exhortation to killing, literally, in so many words (from 15’21’’). “Today,
Narsinghanand Saraswati ji, who is our guru, has given us this message: that
now the time has come for us to arm ourselves with weapons and massacre the
enemy. Because the account of these nar-pishaach (demons/vampires) can only be
settled when you have arms and the capability to uphold your faith. Otherwise
all is lost. So my request to all those to whom this message reaches, they
should listen carefully to this message and understand what the times are asking
from them.” One month after these chilling messages were conveyed and
circulated, the ‘sanghaar’ or massacre Narsinghanand’s dharma sansad spoke of
was enacted on the streets of north-east Delhi. And the young lions unleashed
were in no doubt about kaun hain woh log jis se ladne ki baat kahi gaee aur
kaatne ki baat kahi gaee aur jinki aankhein phod di jayengi – who was to be
fought and cut up and blinded. But there was a final, genocidal call that
Narsinghanand made, on February 22, 2020 – that is one day before the
anti-Muslim violence began – where he said Muslims had no right to live. He was
asked by another Hindutva channel whether he believed there could be ‘live and
let live’ with Muslims (from 6’00’’):“Good people should live and let good
people live but those who are our enemies, who are enemies of our religion, who
want to wipe us out, until we finish them off, until we remove this evil from
society known as Islam, how can we survive? Live and let live can only be for
civilised people, not for uncivilised thieves, not for terrorists, not for
jihadis. We have to let our friends live, those who don’t cause us any problem.
But those people have no right to be alive whose aim is to kill our children.
Such people cannot be given the right to live.”While inciting violence is an
offence by itself, a proper police investigation is needed to see whether Yati
Narsinghanand Saraswati played any direct role in the killings which followed
his call:We know that his aide, Pinki Choudhary,
leader of the Hindu Raksha Dal, claimed responsibility for an armed mob attack
on JNU; We know his close associate,
Deepak Singh Hindu of the ‘Hindu Force’, issued a video appeal on the
morning of February 23, 2020, for his supporters to gather in strength at
Maujpur chowk at 2:30 pm, when BJP leader Kapil Mishra made a provocative
speech;We know that at least one rioter – the RSS activist Ankit Tiwari, who we
featured in the first part of our investigation – attended some of the events
where Narsinghanand spoke. He was in the audience during the December 25, 2019
event at Jantar Mantar where Yati called for violence against Muslims. Ankit
Tiwari posted a video of the same speech on his Facebook page.After the first part of our expose, Tiwari has
deactivated his social media accounts but we have saved all his videos, in case
the police ever decides to investigate him. The chronology we have established
in our investigation makes it clear that there was indeed a conspiracy to
launch violence as early as December 2019, and that the ground was prepared
over the next two months, culminating in the violence that took the lives of 53
people. Sadly, this is not the conspiracy the Delhi Police is investigating. https://thewire.in/communalism/delhi-riots-conspiracy-anti-muslim-cleric-yati-narsinghanand
2.
Acquittal after 20 years: Mar., 8, 2021: Surat, Gujarat: A court in Gujarat’s Surat on Saturday
acquitted all the 127 accused arrested under the Unlawful Activities
(Prevention) Act for participating in a meeting organised here in December
2001. Most of the accused were in jail for over 20 years since their arrest
over the allegations of being members of a banned organisation Students’ Islamic
Movement of India (SIMI), an advocate said. The court of Chief Judicial
Magistrate AN Dave on Saturday acquitted 127 persons arrested on the charges of
being members of the banned outfit SIMI, giving them the benefit of doubt. In
its order, the court said that the prosecution failed to produce “cogent,
reliable and satisfactory” evidence to establish that the accused persons
belonged to the SIMI and had gathered to promote the activities of the banned
outfit. The central government had through its notification dated September 27,
2001 banned SIMI. https://gulfnews.com/world/asia/india/court-in-indias-surat-acquits-122-muslims-accused-of-being-simi-members-20-years-after-arrest-1.77669095
3.
Tablighi Jamaat : Mar.,
10, 2021:
Nearly a year ago, around 3,500 foreign nationals had visited India to attend the
Tablighi Jamaat event at Nizamuddin Markaz, a mosque in South Delhi. The
gathering, including men, women and children, soon found itself in a quandary
when Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a nationwide lockdown on March 24,
2020, giving them less than four hours to prepare for its onset and many dire
implications. By the time lockdown was announced, several attendees had moved
to different parts of the country, to attend smaller gatherings at local
mosques. And different state police forces responded in a different manner. In
Delhi, around 960 foreign nationals were held at quarantine centres for many
months. In Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and
other states, they were sent straight to jail. The police accused them of being
“super-spreaders” – a derogatory term applied to people who
were thought to spread the novel coronavirus to many other people – and charged
them under several sections of the Indian Penal Code, the Epidemic Diseases Act
and the National Disaster Management Act and Foreigners Act for defying
government restrictions. Police in some states also applied the unbailable
charge of ‘attempt
to murder’.The
country’s sub-par preparedness at the time for the COVID-19 epidemic was blamed
on the foreign visitors stuck in India. Both the government and several
sections of the media played a crucial
role in criminalising
those attending the Tablighi Jamaat. A year on, around 146 of the 3,500 or so
attendees are still struggling to find their way home; 26 among them still
await trial. The cases in Uttar Pradesh were divided into regions. Bareilly
handled cases in nine districts, of which two – in Moradabad and Bijnor – are
still pending. The Allahabad high court had directed the Bareilly trial court
to complete these trials in eight weeks, but to no avail. Of the 26 who face
trial, 16 are Indonesian and 10 are Thai. Lawyers coordinating the trial told The
Wire that in October last year, after the high court’s direction, the trial
court had received the relevant legal papers – but continued to drag its feet.
“Meanwhile, the Jamaat has continued to support those left behind, in some
cases even their families back home,” one lawyer said. Although the principal
Tablighi Jamaat event was held in Delhi, not one of the 960 foreign nationals
were sent to jail. “They were kept in quarantine; in some cases, the quarantine
extended to several weeks. But no one faced incarceration,” advocate Fuzail
Ahmad Ayyubi said. But this wasn’t the case in other states. And it didn’t
matter which party governed each of these states – foreign nationals were
promptly sent to jail for anywhere between a few weeks to several months. Those
in Uttar Pradesh in particular faced prolonged incarceration; the affected
individuals’ prospects were pretty grim in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu as well. Tamil
Nadu had in fact set up a detention
centre
exclusively for tourists attending the Tablighi Jamaat Despite these long jail terms, most states
didn’t manage to convict the detainees. For example, of the individuals in
Delhi, over 920 opted for “plea bargains” – an agreement between the
prosecution and the defence such that the accused person pleads guilty to receive
a lesser punishment. The lawyers said they picked this option because they were
desperate to return to their homelands. The remaining 36 were firm and wished
to face trial come what may – and were
all acquitted. It
was a similar
story in almost all states. One
lawyer in Delhi described the foreigners as “hostages”. “Look at the charges
they were booked under. They were really not accused of committing some crime
but were held hostages. And when you are held hostage, you don’t really get to
choose,” the lawyer said. ?” In Delhi,
the Nizamuddin Markaz, a mosque in South Delhi and the global headquarters of
the Tablighi Jamaat network, has been locked since last March 2020. Almost all
Indian states have lifted restrictions on visiting religious places – but the
Markaz remains out of bounds. A part of it that housed thousands of pilgrims
hasn’t been sealed but is in police control.In the writ petition filed before
the court, the Waqf board has said “the local police have put locks on the
entire premises ostensibly fothe purpose of its sanitisation and the said
premises are lying locked since then, i.e. almost a year.” https://thewire.in/rights/tablighi-jamaat-one-year-trial-struggle-return-home-covid-19-legal-action
4.
Hindu attack on Islam: Mar., 13,2021: A vitriolic anti-Muslim speech by Yogi Narsinghanand
Saraswati, mahant (chief
priest) of Dasna Devi temple Ghaziabad has become viral. In this speech, the
priest furiously spoke against jihad
and vowed to eliminate Muslims from India. He intends to hold a world congress
of religions inviting scholars from all religions except Islam. He harbours the
hallucination that there is a Muslim hand in all the evils in the world,
including the farmers’ protest aimed at repeal of new marketing and
distribution laws. He exhorted Hindus to have at least five children in a
family lest Muslims should outnumber them. Hindus draw inspiration from the
Jewish state of Israel. They want Hindus to be given preferential treatment and
minorities, particularly the Muslim be relegated to a lower class of. It is unfortunate that the international organisations took no
notice of hate speeches being delivered by Hindu priests, and followers of the
RSS and its affiliates. The Bajrang Dal is even giving military training with
live firearms to its recruits. https://www.globalvillagespace.com/distortion-of-jihad-by-hindu-priests-another-attack-on-muslims-in-india/
5. Middle East Oil and India: Mar., 27, 2021: Indian state refiners are planning to cut oil imports from Saudi Arabia by about a quarter in May, in an escalating stand-off with Riyadh following OPEC's decision to ignore calls from New Delhi to help the global economy with higher supply. Two sources familiar with the discussions said the move was part of the government's drive to cut dependence on crude from the Middle East. Indian Oil Corp, Bharat Petroleum Corp., Hindustan Petroleum Corp and Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd are preparing to lift about 10.8 million barrels in May, the sources said on condition of anonymity. State refiners, which control about 60% of India's 5 million barrels per day (bpd) refining capacity, together import an average 14.7-14.8 million barrels of Saudi oil in a month, the sources said. India, the world's third-biggest oil importer and consumer, imports more than 80% of its oil needs and relies heavily on the Middle East. Hit hard by rising oil prices, India's oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan has repeatedly called on the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies, known as OPEC+, to ease supply curbs. He has blamed Saudi's voluntary cuts for contributing to a spike in global oil prices. OPEC+ decided this month to extend most cuts into April. Responding to Pradhan's request, Saudi energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman suggested India dip into strategic reserves filled with cheaper oil bought last year. https://www.livemint.com/industry/energy/india-plans-to-cut-saudi-oil-import-as-stand-off-escalates-11615949230271.html
Monthly update 18:
February 2021: Muslims in India
This page updates
news related to the plight of Muslims in India
.
1.
Shaheen Bagh
Protest: Feb., 14, 2021:The
Supreme Court refused to reconsider its judgment that the Shaheen Bagh
protests, by a collective of mothers, children and senior citizens, against the
Citizenship Amendment Act was inconvenient for commuters.“The right to protest
cannot be any time and everywhere. There may be some spontaneous protests but
in case of prolonged dissent or protest, there cannot be continued occupation
of public place affecting the rights of others,” said a three-judge Bench led
by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, declining the review petitions.The original
judgment of October 7 last year had declared the demonstrations and road
blockades in the Shaheen Bagh area of the national capital as “unacceptable”.
The Review Bench, which comprised the same judges who delivered the original
judgment, said they did not find any “error apparent warranting reconsideration”
in their verdict. On October 7, the court had concluded that protesters should
express their dissent only in designated areas chosen by the administration. In
the review petition, Kazi Fatima and 11 others said the protesters were not
even heard by the court. The petitioners asked how the court could restrict
expressions of dissent to certain designated areas. “Restricting protests to
designated areas upsets the very concept of dissent and protests... Protests
are the only way for citizens in a democracy to show their dissent. Curb on
this freedom leaves citizens with no report to voice their concerns,” the
review petition had said. The review petitioners had referred to how the
“police have in the recent past acted arbitrarily by beating students and
protesters”. The observation made by the court in the judgment “clothes the
police with an arbitrary discretion to attack any peaceful protesters”.“This
would lead to a situation wherein the administration would never engage in
dialogue with protesters, but instead take action against them, including their
prosecution,” the review petition had argued.
2.
Samjhauta Express: Feb., 18, 2021: Thirteen years on, the families of victims of Samjhauta
Express mourn the tragedy when 68 persons onboard Delhi-Lahore train were burnt
alive including 40 Pakistani nationals on Feb 18, 2007. In the ‘travesty of
justice’, the Indian court in 2019 had acquitted all culprits of the incident
despite the availability of ample evidences, illustrating the unwillingness of
the Indian government to hold the perpetrators to account for their barbaric
action. A special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court in India’s Haryana
state on March 20, 2019 acquitted four individuals accused in the Samjhauta
Express bombing case. The ruling cited lack of evidence for the acquittal of
Swami Aseemanand, Kamal Chauhan, Rajinder Chaudhary and Lokesh Sharma. This was
the second major setback for the NIA in a “terror” case allegedly involving
Hindutva groups. In April 2018, the NIA court had acquitted all the 11 men
charged in the Mecca Masjid blast case, where six people were killed in
Hyderabad. Astonishingly, Indian courts have failed in provision of justice in
almost all cases where ‘Hindutva Wave’ was involved in brutalizing Muslims
whether it was Babari Masjid Case, Mecca Masjid Case, Malegaon Blast and
Samjhauta Express. Eight judges were changed during the proceedings of the
case. Vikash Narain Rai, former Haryana police officer who headed the Special
Investigation Team (SIT) from 2007 to early 2010, had confirmed Indore as the
epicenter, where RSS member Sunil Joshi and his two accomplices were found to
be complicit in the crime. Joshi was murdered in 2007 before he could be
interrogated. The prosecution had accused the NIA of pressure to ‘go soft on
the Hindutva extremists.’ It was revealed later that the explosions were
planned to take place in Delhi for more publicity and to involve Pakistan
through arranged investigation, but it actually took place in Pani Pat,
Haryana. So it became the Haryana case. Had it been a Delhi case, it would have
received more publicity. Kamal Chauhan, a RSS Sevak confessed during
investigation of planting the bombs onboard the Samjhauta Express after
undergoing training in arms and explosives in Haryana and Madhya Pradesh. According to India’s National Investigation Agency
(NIA), which probed the case, the attack was carried out by a Hindutva
far-right group to avenge similar attacks allegedly carried out by Muslim
groups with the aim of threatening the “unity and integrity” of India. Swami
Aseemanand, who featured prominently in the course of the investigations, had
said in a taped interview in 2014 to Indian magazine ‘The Caravan’ that some of
the worst attacks in the country were sanctioned by the then-RSS top
leadership. https://www.app.com.pk/top-news/13-years-on-victims-of-samjhauta-express-tragedy-mourn-indian-travesty-of-justice/
3.
Golwalker: Feb., 20,
2021: The RSS has
constantly faced criticism over non-participation in the Indian freedom
struggle. In 1942, Golwalkar is said to have forbade RSS volunteers from taking part in the
Gandhi-led Quit India Movement. He said that fighting against the British was
not a part of RSS’s mission. Golwalkar wrote about the glories of the
motherland, or punyabhoomi, and
its chief religion, Hinduism. The RSS chief wrote of Hindu society as the only
one that could fulfil the grand mission of salvation of mankind. He also wrote
about the caste system, defending it by
saying that it kept Hindus organised and united through centuries. Further,
Golwalkar wrote about nationalism and what his idea of a nation was. He wrote that hostile elements within the country
pose a far greater menace to national security than aggressors from outside. He
saw three major internal threats to India: Muslims, Christians and Communists.
Golwalkar also rejected the concept of democracy because it gave too much
freedom to the individual, and condemned Communism as a menace. He wrote that
the “framers of our present Constitution also were not firmly rooted in the
conviction of our single homogeneous nationhood”. https://theprint.in/theprint-profile/ms-golwalkar-the-rss-chief-who-remains-guruji-to-some-a-bigot-to-others/245534/
4.
Lopsided development: Feb., 25, 2021: the leader of
the political outfit, Asaduddin Owaisi, while addressing political gatherings
at Godhra and Modasa, pointed out how the development in Gujarat is lopsided
and does not touch Muslim-dominated areas. “You all know that in Godhra, no
development works have been carried out in areas that have Muslim majority.
There is a railway line passing through the city. On one side of this railway
line, ‘Sabka ka Saath, sabka Vikas’ can be seen. On the other side, where topi
and burkas can be seen, there is no Vikas (development),” said Owaisi in Godhra
town. He said there were 20
secondary schools in Godhra city of which, only three were in Muslim areas. He
said the dropout rate among school going Muslim girls were as high as 80 per
cent due to lack of Urdu medium schools. “Modiji then says, Beti Bachao, Desh
Bachao. How will daughters be saved, if there are no urdu schools for them…,”
he added. Owaisi said, “If people sitting in power in AMC think that they will
continue to ignore Muslim areas like they did in the past, then I would like to
tell that that so far you were engaged in a friendly duel with Congress or
independents. Now now we will fight (for development). In the upcoming
elections https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/ahmedabad/asaduddin-owaisi-ahmedabad-municipal-corporation-elections-godhra-modasa-7202316/
5.
Muslims
In India: Feb., 28, 2021: In a 39-minute interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire, Ghazala Wahab says Indian
Muslims are caught “in a pincer grip” comprising two prongs. The external is
“the socio-political discrimination they face at the hands of both lawmaking
and law-enforcing authorities”. It often amounts to physical and mental
violence. It denies them equal opportunity, even justice. “This forces Muslims
to seek security in their own numbers, and they withdraw into ghettoes on the
periphery of the mainstream, thereby limiting their choices in terms of
accommodation, education and profession,” the journalist says. Wahab also
speaks about her book Born a
Muslim: Some Truths About Islam in India. https://thewire.in/video/watch-what-does-it-mean-to-be-muslim-in-india
6.
Delhi riots 2020: Feb., 28, 2020: a year, Irfan has remained almost entirely in his house, too
terrified to leave. A Muslim living in north-east Delhi, he says that his
powerful Hindu neighbours, many belonging to the ruling Hindu nationalist
Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), are keeping a close watch on him. Jobless and
afraid, he spoke in whispers of his fear of being “eliminated” at any time. “I
take a safe route to occasionally leave my house to see my lawyer,” said Irfan,
who requested a pseudonym for protection. “I know that BJP leaders and their
followers are after me so I move around very carefully. I have to stay alive at
least to see those who attacked me are brought to justice.”It was one year ago
last week that Irfan’s life as a simple Muslim shopkeeper was ripped apart: 23
February 2020, now known as the first night of the Delhi riots. For three days, communal violence ripped through the north-east of India’s capital, the worst religious
conflict in the city in four decades.
it was predominantly Muslims who fell victim to violent Hindu rightwing
mobs roaming the neighbourhoods. Many of those involved had travelled from
outside Delhi and carried guns, rods and explosives. Muslims were beaten,
shot and lynched in the streets,
thousands of their shops and homes were attacked and at least four mosques were
left in charred ruins. Of the 53 who died in the violence, 40 were Muslim. Irfan is among those
still fighting for justice. He was sheltering in his shop when a mob of around
150 people, including many of his Hindu neighbours, descended, throwing stones
and armed with guns and rods. Irfan alleges they were led by a local BJP
leader, who put a pistol to his head. He says the rioters shouted Hindu
nationalist slogans and Muslim slurs as they looted his shop and then set it on
fire with a petrol bomb. Irfan had been a member of the BJP for almost a decade but, as a
Muslim living in a Hindu-majority area, it was not enough to protect him. Two
days later, on 25 February, as neighbourhoods across north-east Delhi burned,
the mob struck again, targeting his house, this time allegedly led in part by
Mohan Singh Bisht, a local BJP politician who, Irfan says, threw a petrol bomb
at his house and led the mob with the cry: “Kill all katwa [kill all the
circumcised Muslims].” Several of Irfan’s neighbours confirmed this account to
the Observer. Yet in the year that has
passed, the police – who, Irfan alleges, were complicit in the attacks – have
repeatedly refused to register his case naming Bisht, other local BJP leaders
and some of his Hindu neighbours as the perpetrators.More than 25 Muslims in
his neighbourhood were also allegedly denied the right to file a case by
police, despite claiming to know the identity of their attackers.They took
their cases to a lawyer, Mehmood Pracha, but Irfan is one of the few who has
kept up the fight after local BJP figures and police allegedly threatened them
with reprisals if they persisted in taking the matter to court. “I told them on
no condition would I withdraw,” said Irfan. Irfan’s case is not an
isolated one. Hundreds of Muslim victims who have attempted to file cases
against their alleged Hindu attackers – who have often been affiliated with the
BJP – have spoken of being harassed and threatened by Delhi police who have
refused to register their cases. In some instances, when victims went to police
stations to identity and file their cases against rioters, the police instead
charged them or their family members with rioting. Delhi police, a
predominantly Hindu force, is under the remit of the government’s ministry of
home affairs, led by Amit Shah, one of the most hardline Hindu nationalist
ministers in the BJP government. Of the nearly 1,750
people arrested in connection with the riots, more than half are Muslim, even
though disproportionate damage was done to their community. In charge sheets filed
by Delhi police, almost 70% name Muslims as the perpetrators of attacks, even
in cases when only Muslims were the victims Syed Zulfiqar, 34, a light-maker from Mohanpuri, was shot in the
head on the 24 February when a local Hindu leader, whom he knew personally,
fired at him during the violence. “He pointed a gun at me and I heard him cry,
‘you are a Muslim, we will kill you’, and then he fired the gun at me from a
distance of about 20 metres,” said Zulfiqar. “I almost died. But when I went to
the police station to register a case against this man, the police told me they
would only accept the report if I named my shooter as unidentified.” He alleges
police then filed riot charges against his brother. Mohammad Nasir Khan, 35,
a government employee, who was shot in the eye and blinded when a mob of
influential local Hindu men he knew fired at him, has still not been able to
file his case. “I have tried so many times but it has been one year and the
police still refuse,” said Khan, wiping the gently weeping wound where his eye
once was. Instead, police filed their own report on Khan’s case in June,
naming several Muslims as the perpetrators of the attack and not mentioning the
four local Hindus Khan alleged shot him. Pracha is the lawyer
representing many of these victims, yet he has also found himself a target and,
in December, his office was raided by dozens of members of Delhi police special
cell on allegations of forgery.“Due to the police’s proactive role in threatening,
assaulting and intimidating the riot victims, very few dare to open their
mouths,” said Pracha. “The police took some complaints from Muslim victims but
only on the condition that they would not name any police officer or any BJP
member,” said Pracha. In several bail hearings against accused Muslims, the police
have failed to produce any evidence. At a hearing last week, a judge granted bail to
three Muslims accused of shooting another Muslim, 25-year-old Shahid Alam,
during the riots on the basis it was “hard to believe” that Muslims would kill
other Muslims in a communal riot. Delhi police have also been accused of
protecting their own officers from being charged. Hundreds of eyewitnesses – in
allegations verified by CCTV footage – accused police of both taking part in
the attacks on Muslims, allowing the Hindu mobs to target Muslims unimpeded and
ignoring thousands of distress calls. Last year, Amnesty International released a detailed report on the Delhi police’s role in the riots. But not a single officer
has yet been arrested or charged. Instead, those who have felt the strong arm
of the law since the riots are those who say they had nothing to do with the
violence at all. After Shah, the home minister, told parliament that the riots
were a “deep conspiracy”, Delhi police began a crackdown on anyone who had been
involved in peaceful anti-government protests in the months before the riots. Activists,
academics, feminist collectives, students and civilians – who had been
described as “terrorists”, “traitors” and “jihadis” by government figures in
the weeks before the riots – have been charged with conspiring to stir up
communal riots in order to tarnish India’s reputation, some under draconian
terrorism laws. Many have described this as a turning point in the BJP government’s crushing of democratic dissent. “The Delhi riots have been used by the police to go after all activists and anti-government protesters in Delhi in the name of a false conspiracy that has no basis in
evidence,” said Nadeem Khan, co-founder of the activist group United Against
Hate, which has had multiple members arrested. “The whole of Delhi civil
society is living in a state of fear.” Notably absent from the Delhi police’s
charge sheet are the names of many Hindu rioters and BJP leaders, in particular
Kapil Mishra, the local BJP leader whose speech in north-east Delhi on 23
February, calling for his followers to clear the Muslim protesters and “teach
them a lesson”, is widely seen as sparking the riots. Sitting in the recently
rebuilt al-Faruqi mosque in the suburb of Mustafabad, Imam Mohammad Jalaluddin
carries a haunted look. He was beaten almost to death by rioters who broke into
the mosque and set it on fire on 25 February. His jaw, smashed into three
parts, is now constructed of steel plates and his face – ripped completely in
half – has been sewn back together. His fingers, built back together with steel
pins, no longer bend properly. No charges have been brought against
Jalaluddin’s attackers. He and the mosque president, Mohammad Fakhruddin,
allege it was police officers who led the violence, including firing tear gas
into the mosque and beating the imams. It was also allegedly police officers
who returned the next morning to destroy the CCTV evidence.“I find it very hard
being in this mosque and sometimes I get flashbacks to what happened to me and
I start shaking and break into tears,” Jalaluddin said softly. “Next week, I
will go back to my village in Bihar and live there,” he added. “I studied in a
madrasa here since I was 10 and later became an imam. I loved this city. But
after the violence that left me almost dead –and I have survived by the grace
of Allah – I am too afraid to live here any longer.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/28/delhi-muslims-fear-they-will-never-see-justice-for-religious-riot-atrocities
Monthly update 17: January 2021: Muslims in India
.
1.
Muslims forced to leave village: Jan., 8, 2021:“These
people victimise us. We keep meeting with their elders but they aren’t
listening. The police are also pressuring us. If they keep targeting us, how
will we live here? So we are leaving,” said Shakeel Ahmed of Mawi Meera in
Daurala area of Meerut, Uttar Pradesh. His is one of about 20 Muslim families
that have decided to abandon the village, putting up notices on their doors
that declare, “This house is for sale. We are leaving.” It all started on December
23. Sundar Singh had bought cigarettes on credit from a Muslim shopkeeper on
Muhammad Tayyab’s guarantee. That day, when Tayyab asked him to pay, Sundar got
violent. People standing nearby broke up the fight, and Sundar left. Sometime
later, he returned with a mob of about 20 men and attacked the Muslims. CCTV
footage from cameras installed on a couple of houses shows the Gurjar mob
vandalising Muslim homes and firing countrymade guns. The Muslims went to the
Daurala police station, about 5 km away on the highway to Muzaffarnagar, and
made a written complaint. Instead of taking action against the attackers the
police pressured the Muslims to “compromise” with them, Tayyab’s uncle,
Muhammad Yunus, claimed. The police have refused to file an FIR so far and the
village’s pradhan is also siding with the accused, he added. Instead, the
police have left the assailants free to harass the Muslims, leaving them with
no option but to abandon their homes. “These
people victimise us. We keep meeting with their elders but they aren’t
listening. The police are also pressuring us. If they keep targeting us, how
will we live here? So we are leaving,” said Shakeel Ahmed of Mawi Meera in
Daurala area of Meerut, Uttar Pradesh. His is one of about 20 Muslim families
that have decided to abandon the village, putting up notices on their doors
that declare, “This house is for sale. We are leaving.” https://www.newslaundry.com/2021/01/05/this-house-is-for-sale-how-muslim-are-being-driven-out-of-a-meerut-village
2.
Plight of Muslims:
Jan., 11, 2021 As the communal divide deepens with
every passing day, Muslims in today’s India have a lot to despair about and
much more to be afraid of. The concerted attack on the jewellery-maker Tanishq
over something as trivial as a TV ad was a small symptom of the ‘othering’ in which, not to speak of maintaining any sort of
relations, they would like the Muslims to vanish out of mind and out of sight.
When the Nazis’ Nuremberg Laws banned marriages with Jews, their objective was to
maintain ‘racial purity’. Their categorisation of Jews as sub-humans (Untermensch) was based on race, not religion. In today’s India,
through the anti-conversion laws, they are making religion the basis of
criminalisation. Recently, when a politico talked of carrying out a surgical strike on the old city of Hyderabad (that is, the Muslim
dominated area), it was not just political rhetoric or slip of the tongue; it
actually reflected their deepest, darkest desires. Another leader said that
every vote for Asaduddin Owaisi was a vote against India. Of course, he could
not be bothered to explain how a vote cast during elections in India, held
under the Indian constitution, becomes a vote against India. The Indian society
is now increasingly being driven by a strict binary system. Either you conform
to the majoritarian narrative or you are a traitor of some sort – jihadi, urban
naxal, ISI agent, whatever – who must be jailed or banished. That Muslims are
under-represented in all types of jobs and over-represented in jails as under-trial
prisoners is an old story. A relatively newer phenomenon is denial of rented
accommodation, residential or commercial, and ‘boycott’ in trade and businesses
– baby steps towards their eventual economic deprivation. Majoritarian violence is seldom punished.
Riots take place all the time because rioters know they will perhaps never be
punished. Surabhi Chopra et al of Centre for Equity Studies, in their research
‘Accountability for Mass Violence: Examining the State’s Record’, have shown
that despite some 25,628 lives having been lost in communal violence since
independence, there is massive bungling by the police at every stage. From
reluctance to register FIRs to registering deliberately flawed FIRs; from
extremely few arrests and remands to deliberately poor investigations, it is
natural that acquittal rates of the accused have been extremely high. In fact,
summary closure rates for communal violence cases are ten times higher than the
national rate, showing how the police abuse the discretion given to them under
the law. Recently, all the 32 accused in
the Babri Masjid demolition case were acquitted due to ‘lack of proof’ and more
than three months later also, I could not locate any information regarding the
CBI having filed an appeal. For the notorious Hashimpura massacre of 42 Muslims
by the UP police itself, it took over 31 years for them to be convicted by the
Delhi high court after they were acquitted by the trial court. The worst part
of majoritarian violence is that the victims are encouraged to ‘move on’ or it
is simply presumed that they have moved on. A demand for accountability and
justice is described as one disturbing the peace. In the wake of the
coronavirus scare, it took three high courts to debunk the summary maligning of
the Muslim community and call it ‘unjust and unfair’. It took the Allahabad
high court to conclude that the anti-cow slaughter law in UP was being misused
against innocent persons leading to their languishing in jail. Within just one month of bringing in the
notorious law against conversions primarily involving inter-faith marriages
(popularly known as anti-love jihad law), UP police has raced to register 14
cases and arrest 51 people. Remember, inter-faith marriages are only one of the
numerous pretexts possible. Tomorrow, they could very well object to certain
dress also on the pretext that it facilitates the concealment of terrorists. Experience
shows that, far from upholding the law, police have been acting as the agents
of communal forces in furthering their agenda. The law has been ‘weaponised’ as
the most preferred tool of harassment. Listing the cases of harassment of
innocent Muslims by the police by falsely implicating them in terrorism related
cases would be long. Whether it be the case of a comedian who did not crack any
insulting jokes or a street vendor who was selling shoes manufactured by a
regular company, they were charged essentially because they were Muslims –
never mind that a string of Supreme Court judgments make the police action
palpably wrong. Many people taking part in a rally organised by right-wing
groups in Mandsaur district in Madhya Pradesh went on a rampage in the Dorana
village, breaking open houses and looting. A nearly 100-strong police
contingent decided to watch the proceedings with great insouciance, without
using any force at all to disperse the rioters. Incidentally, a Muslim
constable was obliged to watch his house ransacked, vehicles damaged, and his
brother’s grain shop looted over a video that was shared amongst WhatsApp
groups. We must hang our heads in shame that even 73 years after Independence,
Muslims have so little trust in the police that, on the rally day, they had to
send their women to another village for safety. In a police state, the
government abuses its legal powers over its citizens. Ours is, however, more of
a case of selective abuse. We have therefore become worse than a police state
because the police are used to ‘selectively’ target and harass a part of the
citizenry. Obtaining justice through courts, given the inherent intricacies of
our criminal justice system, is such an uphill struggle that it will remain
beyond the reach of most people. What could be the ultimate objective of all
this? Is it political gains? I do not think so. The degree of communal polarisation
already achieved is more than adequate to ensure comfortable electoral
victories for the communal forces for years on end. Yet, they are unremittingly
discovering new methods of harassing the Muslims every day. Why? The ultimate
objective of the overkill could only be to harass the Muslims so much that
eventually, they come to accept their ‘social defeat’. Having started with the
process of ‘othering’,
they would force them first to accept a ‘second grade citizen’ status, then a
‘pariah’ status, and finally the status of ‘nowhere people’. The ‘grand design’
is to break their very will to live with self-respect, dignity and honour.
States implementing the so-called anti-conversion laws enthusiastically are
actually crucibles where ingredients are being melted to forge a sword that
will ensure the eventual and ‘complete subjugation’ of Muslims. During the
rampage in Mandsaur, the planting of a saffron flag on the local mosque as if
they had ‘conquered’ it, albeit for a little while, proved that the protectors
of law had once again failed Muslims. The triumphant pose struck by the rioter
with his arms raised up recorded on video, was acutely reminiscent of the
chilling photo of a man striking a similar pose during the Gujarat riots – a
photo that became synonymous with those riots. To me, the writing on the wall
is clear. Communal harmony, as we loved to envisage it, is dead. Those amongst
us who choose to ignore the inexorable envenomation of the Indian society as
some sort of fleeting aberration might be forced to stare in the face of some
very dehumanising acts, if not outright pogroms. Even blood cancer initially
shows up as low-grade fever only https://thewire.in/communalism/the-trials-and-tribulations-of-being-a-muslim-in-todays-india
3.
HRW Report:
Jan., 16, 2021:
A prominent international human rights watchdog has denounced Narendra Modi-led
Indian government for intensifying repression in Indian illegally occupied
Jammu and Kashmir, targeting Muslims in India and for harassing, arresting and
prosecuting activists, journalists, and others critics. In its World Report
2021, the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the Indian government
continued to impose harsh and discriminatory restrictions in IIOJK since
revoking special status of the territory in August 2019. The report said scores
of people remained detained in IIOJK without charge under the draconian law
Public Safety Act, which permits detention without trial for up to two years.
It said, the Indian government announced a new media policy in Kashmir in June
2020 that empowers the authorities to decide what is “fake news, plagiarism and
unethical or anti-national activities” and to take punitive action against
media outlets, journalists, and editors. “The policy contains vague provisions
that are open to abuse and could unnecessarily restrict and penalize legally
protected speech. The government also clamped down on critics, journalists, and
human rights activists,” it said. “The restrictions, including on access to
communications networks, since August 2019 adversely affected livelihoods,
particularly in the tourism-dependent Kashmir Valley. The Kashmir Chamber of
Commerce and Industries estimated that the first three months of the lockdown
to prevent protests since August 2019 cost the economy over US$2.4 billion, for
which no redress was provided. Losses nearly doubled since the government
imposed further restrictions to contain the spread of Covid-19 in March 2020,”
it added. The report said the pandemic made access to the internet crucial for
information, communication, education, and business. However, even after the
Supreme Court said in January that access to the internet was a fundamental
right, the Indian authorities permitted only slow-speed 2G mobile internet
services, leading doctors to complain that the lack of internet was hurting the
Covid-19 response, it said. The report maintained that the Armed Forces Special
Powers Act continued to provide effective immunity from prosecution to Indian
forces, even for serious human rights abuses. In July, the forces’ personnel
killed three people in Shopian district, claiming they were militants, it said.
“However, in August, their families, who identified them from photographs of
the killings circulated on social media, said they were laborers. In September,
the army said that its inquiry had found prima facie evidence that its troops
exceeded powers under the AFSPA and it would take disciplinary proceedings
against those “answerable”,” it added. The HRW said that the Indian forces also
continued to use shotguns firing metal pellets to disperse crowds, despite
evidence that they are inherently inaccurate and cause injuries
indiscriminately, including to bystanders, violating India’s international
obligations. In the 761-page World Report 2021, its 31st edition, Human Rights
Watch reviews human rights practices in more than 100 countries.In his
introductory essay, Executive Director Kenneth Roth argues that the incoming
United States administration should embed respect for human rights in its
domestic and foreign policy in a way that is more likely to survive future US
administrations that might be less committed to human rights. Roth emphasizes
that even as the Trump administration mostly abandoned the protection of human
rights, other governments stepped forward to champion rights. The Biden
administration should seek to join, not supplant, this new collective effort.
The HRW pointed out that the attacks continued against minorities, especially
Muslims, in India even as authorities failed to take action against BJP leaders
who vilified Muslims and BJP supporters who engaged in violence. The Covid-19
lockdown disproportionately hurt marginalized communities due to loss of
livelihoods and lack of food, shelter, healthcare, and other basic needs, it
said. “The Indian government seems determined to punish peaceful criticism
using draconian laws, while sending a broader message that chills dissent,”
Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in a
statement. “Instead of addressing growing attacks on Muslims, minorities, and
women, Indian authorities increased their crackdown on critical voices in
2020,” she added. The report said that last February communal violence in Delhi
killed at least 53 people, with over 200 injured, properties destroyed, and
communities displaced in targeted attacks by Hindu mobs. While a policeman and
several Hindus were also killed, the vast majority of victims were Muslim. The
attacks came after weeks of peaceful protests against the Indian government’s
discriminatory citizenship policies. “Violence broke out after BJP leaders
openly advocated violence against the protesters, while witness accounts and
video evidence showed police complicity. The Delhi Minorities Commission
reported that the violence was “planned and targeted” and found that the police
were filing cases against Muslim victims, but not taking action against the BJP
leaders who incited it,” the report said. The HRW said that crimes against
Dalits increased, in part as backlash by members of dominant castes against
what they might perceive as a challenge to caste hierarchy. “Crimes against
women increased too. In September, a 19-year old Dalit woman died after being
gang-raped and tortured, allegedly by four men of dominant caste in Uttar
Pradesh. The authorities’ response highlighted how women from marginalized
communities faced even greater institutional barriers to justice,” it added.
The report maintained that the intensifying repression in India resulted in
international criticism, including by the United Nations High Commissioner for
Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, who raised concerns over human rights
violations in Jammu and Kashmir, arrests of activists, and restrictions on
civil society. https://kmsnews.org/news/2021/01/15/hrw-slams-india-for-hr-abuses-in-iiojk-attacks-against-muslims-and-crackdown-on-critics/
4.
Human rights in India : an., 23, 2021: The Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC), an advocacy organization dedicated to safeguarding
India’s pluralist and tolerant ethos, has launched a report titled, “Crushing Dissent: 2021 Status
Report on Human Rights in India,”
detailing human rights abuses in India. At the launch of this report, UN
Special Rapporteur Ms. Mary Lawlor called upon the Indian government to
immediately release 16 human rights defenders who have been imprisoned on
charges of terrorism in the ‘Bhima-Koregaon Case’. “These people should not be
in jail. They are our modern-day heroes and we should all be looking to them
and supporting them and demanding their release,” Mary Lawlor, UN Special
Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders, said on Thursday. Along
with Father Stan Swamy, the octogenarian Jesuit priest against whose “arbitrary
detention” in this case she has already written to the Indian Government, Ms.
Lawlor said 15 others jailed in the same case must also be released. Ms. Lawlor
while read out the names of the imprisoned rights activists who have
worked to uphold the rights of the others should be acknowledged and they are
Surendra Gadling, Rona Wilson, Sudhir Dhawale, Mahesh Raut, Vernon Gonsalves
and Arun Fereria; Supreme Court lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj; authors Gautam Navlakha
and Anand Teltumbde; poet Varvara Rao; academicians Hany Babu and Shoma Sen;
and theater artistes Ramesh Gaichor, Sagar Gorkhe and Jyoti Jagtap. The
so-called Bhima-Koregaon case refers to violence at a public meeting called
three years ago by low-caste Hindus at a village known as Bhima-Koregaon in
Maharashtra state. Several civil rights investigations have established that
upper caste Hindus allied with India’s ruling party, Prime Minister Narendra
Modi’s BJP, carried out the violence. Police have; however, targeted human
rights defenders, who deny their involvement. Ms. Lawlor, whose three-year term
as UN Special Rapporteur began last May, also called out the Unlawful
Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), under which the Bhima-Koregaon accused have
been charged, as among the “several prominent pieces of legislation that would
appear on paper and in practice to undermine rights contained in the covenant
and the work of human rights defenders.”Amendments to the UAPA made in 2019,
which granted “greater powers” to designate individuals as terrorists “despite
the definition of a terrorist act not being precise or concrete,” failed to
“comply with the principles of legal certainty,” Ms. Lawlor said. “This has
opened up the Act, which was already being used to target human rights
defenders, to greater abuse. In 2020, it continued to be applied against human
rights defenders with the extremely damaging effect of conflating the defense
of human rights with terrorist activities,” Ms. Lawlor said, adding, there was
“a very concerning deterioration of the environment for defending human rights”
in India. Saying that India’s human rights “situation is very serious,” Ms.
Lawlor said she sent “six communications” to the Indian Government since May to
“convey our concerns on human rights issues”. India had responded to just one.
In June she wrote to the Indian Government raising concerns over the arrest of
11 human rights defenders for protesting the Citizenship (Amendment) Act.
“However, this communication has gone unanswered.” Noted human rights defender
Teesta Setalvad said “among human rights defenders who are today incarcerated,
besides those mentioned by Mr. Lawlor, we have a list of almost 23 very young
and dynamic human rights defenders incarcerated in post February 2020
anti-Muslim pogrom in Delhi. Among the 23, almost 19 happened to be young
Muslims activists, who actually came into the forefront of leadership to resist
the draconian citizenship Amendment Act. These young activists were
deliberately targeted by the state because of their clarity, courage and
determination. “The lower caste (the untouchables) have been singularly targeted
for thousands of years and subjected to othering and discrimination by the
dominant caste. Then, it is the Muslim community who is facing discrimination
and marginalization for the last 40 years. And since the 1990s, Indian
Christian community has also been subject to this kind of othering. added
Teesta. The Indian Government had arrested Father Stan Swamy only because he
had worked for four decades for the uplift of the poor tribal people in
Jharkhand state, Father Cedric Prakash, a Jesuit priest and a human rights
defender, said. Fr. Swamy became an obstacle for successive governments who,
“in collusion with vested interest, especially those who deplete the forests of
the precious resources, like the mining mafia, the timber merchants,” wanted to
wrest control of the forests from the tribal people. “Fr. Swamy was fighting
for the release of more than 3000 tribal youth, struggling for their rights,
accompanying them in their legal battles, and so on.” Former Australian Senator
Lee Rhiannon said “the notion that India is a great secular democracy has
become a cloak to conceal the extent of the injustice.” The foundation on which
is India’s judiciary, parliamentary and education systems have been
“extensively eroded” as Mr. Modi’s government’s “passing discriminatory laws,
neutralizing judges and cultivating a BJP controlled police force is at an
advanced stage.” IAMC National General Secretary Mohammad Jawad said “This
exhaustive report’s coverage of all the aspects — from the sedition laws and
hate speech, to national security legislation and the criminalization of
dissent, from the questions on the independence of the judiciary to the
dilution of labor laws and the universal health policies — demonstrates how the
Modi government is set to undo decades of positive and progressive work in
India.” IAMC will share the 2021 Human Rights report,
“Crushing Dissent”, with members of US
Congress, the White House, the Department of State, the National Security
Council, think-tanks, the US academia and research community and the civil
rights activists and NGOs, he added. https://twocircles.net/2021jan22/440701.html
Monthly update: Muslims in IndiaVolume II
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