Srinagar
Religious intolerance is growing in India ever since the Narendra Modi-led fascist nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party came into power in 2014.
An analytical report released by the Research Section of Kashmir Media Service, today, said that since the Bharatiya Janata Party won power in India in 2014, lynchings of the country’s minorities have surged. Quoting Human Rights Watch, the report said that at least 44 murders took place due to lynchings between May 2015 and December 2018. Similarly, according to a Reuters report, a total of 63 cow vigilante attacks had occurred in India between 2010 and mid 2017, mostly since the Modi government came to power in 2014. In these attacks between 2010 and June 2017, 24 Muslims were killed and 124 injured. Also, India’s news website The Quint has recorded 113 killings between September 2015 and September 2019 in spate of lynchings targeting minorities, especially Muslims in India, the KMS report added.
It said that Hindu groups were using violence, intimidation, and harassment against Muslims and other minorities in India. It said that hate crimes against Muslims and other minorities had alarmingly increased in Modi’s India.
The report said, extremist Hindus have been emboldened by BJP government’s support to unleash terror on members of minorities. Muslims, Christians and low-caste Hindus are treated as second class citizens in the so-called largest democracy of the world and their persecution has increased manifold since BJP came to power, it said.
“Modi is shaping India’s policy according to Hindutva dictates. Muslims and other minorities are living in a state of fear in the country. Communal violence has increased sharply over the past 2 years in cities and towns across India,” it said.
It maintained that even senior officials from Modi’s BJP are making inflammatory speeches against Muslims, who are the main target of extremists affiliated with Hindutva forces. “Indian Muslims are being killed and tortured on the pretext of eating beef or transporting cattle. Narendra Modi and his ministers are encouraging violence against Muslims and other minorities,” it said.
The report further said that new citizenship legislations introduced by the RSS-backed communal government were aimed at stripping the Muslims of their citizenship rights. “Fascist Modi government is working on the agenda of converting India into a Hindu Rashtara. BJP and RSS have never accepted Muslims as Indians and they are now on a mission to purge India of its minorities,” it added.
The report also said that the Babri Masjid demolition by Hindu mobs in 1992 and the last year’s Indian Supreme Court verdict awarding Hindus control of the mosque and paving the way for the construction of a temple at the site depict the discrimination of Muslims even at the highest levels. The report also stated that RSS and BJP have devised a plan to carry out genocide of Kashmiri Muslims. Anti-Kashmir moves and new citizenship laws are glaring examples of BJP’s anti-Muslim acts, it said.
The report said that the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) in its annual report recommended that India should be placed as a top religious freedom violator. It said that the international community must take notice of Hindu fascism in India and come forward to save religious minorities in the country.—KMS
