The suffering of minorities in India: A test case
IN the modern day world, the global community is very much sensitive toward human rights abuses and minority persecution.
Even the nature of diplomatic terms is settled on the basis of the situation of human rights and minorities in a particular country.
But in the case of one of our neighbours, the world is behaving in a peculiar way by neglecting the state’s atrocious conduct against a specific minority.
Article-29 of the Indian constitution grants protection to both religious minorities as well as linguistic subgroups of the country.
But it seems like the Constitution is just a useless piece of paper for the Indian ruling fraternity as they do not feel any hesitation while cracking down against the minority communities, particularly Muslims.
Foreseeing the future of Muslims in India, Quaid e Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah once said, “those Muslims who remained in India would spend the rest of their lives proving loyalty to India.
” Recent incidents of Muslim persecutions and repression by the Hindu majority are the true depiction of what Muhammad Ali Jinnah feared decades ago.
Muslims are repeatedly asked by RSS devotees to prove their nationalism by adopting the Hindutva ideology and bowing down to Hindu supremacy.
From interfering with Muslim’s religious beliefs, lynching over cow slaughter and allegations of love Jihad to bulldozing their properties, the BJP government has tried every possible tactic to turn the lives of Muslims into a living hell.
This rapid transition of India into a total hegemon under the dogma of RSS ideology has now started haunting the country’s Muslim minority as well as the international community and the liberal voices within India.
Recently, a famous Indian author Arundhati Roy has completely exposed the so-called Indian egalitarianism, the disintegration and growing intolerance in Indian society, and the hypocrisy of those institutions that are meant to be custodian of justice and democratic norms.
In an interview with Aljazeera, she blatantly said, “The practice of bulldozing Muslim homes and businesses for purely punitive reasons is proof that India is transitioning pretty brazenly into a criminal Hindu fascist enterprise”.
She also added, “in the past, Muslims have been punished with pogroms, lynching, targeted murders, custodial killings, fake police encounters, and imprisonment under false pretexts.
Bulldozing their homes and businesses is only a new and highly effective weapon”. These are some very serious concerns that are being raised by Arundhati Roy, she undoubtedly exhibited the factual picture of the gravity of the situation where a helpless community is abandoned and left at the disposal of brutal, felonious, autocratic, extremist, and religiously fanatical groups.
She made these remarks in the wake of an ongoing bulldozing crackdown on houses and markets that belong to Muslims in BJP strongholds like Uttar Pradesh.
It is strongly believed that the BJP government under the cover of an anti-encroachment drive is deliberately hunting those Muslim figures who are raising their voices against the discriminatory conduct that the incumbent government is keeping against their community.
The worst part is that, the Chief Ministers of these states where the bulldozing campaigns are undergoing proudly tried to take the credit for demolishing Muslim properties in their electoral campaigns which shows the level of hatred and agony being disseminated in the hearts of Hindus against the Muslim minority by the BJP leaders who are in real, disciples of RSS’ extremist ideology.
BJP leadership, on the other hand, claims that there are no anti-Muslim motives behind the demolition campaign and the operation is entirely a municipal cleanup drive, but on the ground, the situation is contrary to the claims of BJP leadership.
Despite the fact that every city in India is full of encroachments and illegal constructions, still, the sufferers are Muslims only.
Their properties and business places are being razed without any prior notice or a chance to appeal.
They are being victimized by the partisans of a rogue Hindu extremist mindset whose ultimate goal is to turn India into a total Hindu Rashtra.
It seems like, the entire administration is helpless in front of political pressure exerted by the BJP Ministers, and not a single department is courageous enough to resist the unlawful instructions.
From police to Municipal Corporation, all are trying to take a lead in making their political and ideological masters pleased.
The judiciary, which is supposed to uphold the constitutional and the humanitarian customs in a democratic republic has also become a tranquil spectator and a political tool to suppress the already marginalized Muslim minority in India.
The anti-Muslim propaganda executed by India’s far-right leaders has also been supported by the country’s Islamophobic media, and the anti-Muslim laws and policies passed or proposed in many states were shamelessly applauded by the journalists working in mainstream media on BJP’s payroll.
Amidst these circumstances, the survival of Muslims in today’s India has become an eroteme where any sort of legitimized resistance against the atrocities of Hindutva ideologists is considered a heinous crime, where the horror is prevailing and the hopes are fading away and a humanitarian catastrophe is imminent.
It has also become a test case for the secular world, and the advocators of Human Rights, if the liberal voices like Arundhati are not taken seriously by the international community, no one will ever dare to speak the truth and the rhetoric of humanity by the international organizations and the champions of democracy will become invalid.
Moreover, the impervious silence of world powers is further encouraging majoritarian violence against the destitute groups around the globe.
—The writer is a freelance journalist and security analyst.
