Sohail A Azmie
KASHMIR remains in the brutal clampdown for con
secutive four months as Hindu fascism ensnares re
gressive radicals who attempt to turn the so-called ‘largest democracy’ into a fanatical theocracy. Passage of the exceedingly discriminatory Citizenship (Amendment) Bill reflects a stark reality of today’s India that has jettisoned the principles of diversity, inclusiveness and pluralism that it had ‘boasted’ for long. Recollecting the dots in the recent past from Gujarat Massacre, 2002, to Kashmir subjugation, 2019, one could clearly see the deep Indian denial of accepting Muslims as part of the Indian society. This ‘history of hate’ goes as far back as 1925, much before the partition, when the RSS was formed. Though Congress might appear to have acquiesced to the idea of Muslims being ‘equal citizens’ of India but RSS have always followed the doctrine of Hindu Rashtra, which has no place for non-Hindus, especially Muslims.
Remaining in power of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014, Modi learnt the mechanics of suppressing Muslims through popularizing the narrative of Hindu radical fanaticism, which suggests that ‘India only belongs to Hindus alone’. Muslim history has been systematically perverted through changes in the text books, the mainstream Indian media has been bribed to solidify the Hindutva vision of India and the Government colluded with Bollywood to produce films portraying the Muslim kings as killers and plunderers. Secularism is enshrined in the Indian Constitution, which has steadily been uprooted by the BJP, commencing in 2014. The Hindu extremist party re-formed the government in 2018 with an overwhelming mandate that gave it the power to alter the law as it pleases, and so it is on that path of unmistakable adulteration of India’s image as the ‘largest democracy’. The BJP government has earned titles like fascists, extremists, Hindu radicals, Hindutva-driven fanatics, monolithic theocratic party, to name a few. Nothing defines today’s India more precise than the phrase that ‘India has plunged into a new dark age’ with the coming into power of BJP, which arguably is the political face of RSS. In this new Indian dark age, the Muslims would be the only target of persecution, exclusion and facing trial of identity.
People’s Union for Civil Liberties, an Indian organization tasked an 11-member team to visit Kashmir, from 28 September to 4 October 2019, and published their report ‘Imprisoned Resistance’ in early November. The report unmasked several contradictions between the Indian official claims and the ground realities in Kashmir. Calling the blackout in Kashmir and curb on human liberties as ‘structured state violence’, the report observes that “besides the massive militarization, the surveillance and control by the [Indian] army is unprecedented.” Amnesty International’s report ‘Losing Sight in Kashmir’, published in 2019, suggests that a “weapon meant to be deployed for crowd control, has been responsible for blinding, killing and traumatizing people in Kashmir”. The report finds that the Indian military has been using these weapons since 2010 to suppress the popular uprising against the Indian occupation of Kashmir. Use of inaccurate pump-action shotguns firing metal pellets has caused deaths of hundreds of people and many more losing their eyesight permanently. Amnesty’s report is strongly instructive as it rebuffs the Indian government’s claim of ‘pellet shotgun being non-lethal’ by showing that “the injuries and deaths caused by this cruel weapon bear testimony to how dangerous, inaccurate and indiscriminate it is”. Death, torture and killing, as the report reflects, have now become refined markers of tyranny in the new Indian dark age.
Government of Pakistan issued its investigative report ‘Indian Human Rights Violations and Atrocities in IoK’, in August 2019. The report underscores the Indian attempt to change the narrative of ‘Kashmir freedom movement’ into ‘cross-border terrorism’. Indian strategic and military thought has been aligned with this thesis, which predicates on a highly fabricated assertion: ‘Pakistan-based terrorists infiltrating through LoC and attacking Indian military/ civilian infrastructure in Kashmir or mainland India, thereafter India responding with surgical strike; and if Pakistan responds to surgical strike then adopt more coercive/punitive posture’. Referring to revocation of Kashmir’s autonomy and imposition of curfew and substantial restrictions on freedom and human rights, the report calls the situation in Kashmir as a ‘major humanitarian crisis’. As late as of 10 December 2019, the Indian Home Minister Amit Shah has called situation in Kashmir ‘totally normal’, whereas the ground reality is in total contradiction. India’s violence-centric approach to Kashmir has caused well over 100,000 deaths in the valley from January 1989 till August 2019.
Indian Supreme Court decision, on 9 November 2019, to hand over Babri Masjid to Hindus to build a Ram Temple assured Indian Muslims that their faith in the justice systems was grossly misplaced. Courts becoming the government’s cohorts leave no hope or space for fairness and that has put the entire Indian judicial system into a significant ambiguity, which is also a marker of a dark age. Muslims, particularly the Kashmiri Muslims, face a legitimate danger of genocide in an India that thrives on bigotry, fascism and hate, especially after the infamous Citizenship Bill. Nehru once remarked in his 14 August 1947 speech about ‘India’s tryst with destiny’, and had he been alive he must have made another speech the leading line of which would, undoubtedly, have been ‘India’s tryst with darkness’.
—The writer is freelance columnist.
