Salahuddin Haider
PUNDITS who had foreseen Nirendra Modi’s, BJP and his supporter, the RSS designs to imposed Hindu Raj in India, has started to bleed India, claiming itself to be largest democracy of the world, and secular State, but events of the past few years, has exposed its claim to be moderate and accommodating character, and now with growing hated against Muslims and other minorities, it is on the brink of disaster.
This is not an assessment of some Clerics, Muslim scholar or religious groups. It is now a common knowledge of the democracy-loving West but noting concrete stop discrimination of Muslims or torture of Kashmiris is on the card. The world has, unfortunately preferred to be silent spectator. Some brutal events of the past, though well known to be recounted, yet its reminder to the world is essential for the world conscience to be awakened to reality and stop BJP implementing it’s saffron agenda by supporting caste practice in India, India is the rape capital of the world, Caste hatred true face of secular India, ever second year Brahmans and Hindutva forces massacred Dalits in India.
Just for historical record, it is to be reminded here that the government policy has also reflected bias against Muslims. Since October 2018, Indian authorities have deported over a dozen Rohingya Muslims to Myanmar despite the risks to their lives and security. After winning a second term in May 2019, the government revoked the constitutional autonomy of India’s only Muslim-majority state, Jammu and Kashmir, and, anticipating protests, deployed additional troops, detained thousands, and cut off phone and internet connections. The police have failed to intervene when BJP supporters engage in speech inciting violence or mob attacks but are quick to arrest critics of the government.
During protests against the citizenship law, there was a similarly partisan response. In many cases, when BJP-affiliated groups attacked protesters, the police did not intervene. However, in BJP-governed states in December, police used excessive and unnecessary lethal force, killing at least 30 people during protests and injuring scores more. In Delhi in February, some policemen actively participated in the mob attacks on Muslims.
The government’s Hindu nationalist and anti-Muslim policies have touched off protests not just in India but abroad. The government crackdown on the protests in India raised further outcries. The United States, the European Union, and the United Nations secretariat have all called on the Modi government to scrap its discriminatory policies. Following the COVID-19 outbreak, Indian authorities said the citizenship verification plans had been indefinitely postponed
A video emerged from India in February 2020 showing five grievously injured men lying on the street being beaten by several policemen and forced to sing the Indian national anthem. The video was filmed on February 24 in Kardampuri, a neighborhood in northeast Delhi. One of the men, Faizan, a 23-year-old Muslim, died from his injuries two days later.
At least 52 more people were killed in the three days of communal violence that broke out in India’s capital. Over 200 were injured, properties destroyed, and communities displaced in targeted attacks by Hindu mobs. While a policeman and some Hindus were also killed, the majority of victims were Muslim.
Muslims in India have been increasingly at risk since the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi was first elected in 2014. Faizan died in carnage amidst rising communal tensions in the country. On December 12, 2019, the Modi administration achieved passage of the discriminatory Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA). Under the act, for the first time in India, religion is a basis for granting citizenship.
The law specifically fast-tracks asylum claims of non-Muslim irregular immigrants from the neighboring Muslim-majority countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. The amended citizenship law, coupled with the government’s push for a nationwide citizenship verification process through a National Population Register (NPR) and a proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC).
Throughout the country, Indians of all faiths have protested peacefully against the law, singing songs, reciting poetry, and reading aloud from the constitution, which commits to secularism and equality. Its background relates to the predominant form of Hindu nationalism in India. The term Hindutva has a long history, dating back to 1882, but is has raised its head in ugliest form
The BJP—controlled national government has passed several laws in recent years that have made life more difficult for religious minorities. In several states, local governments have also passed ‘anti-conversion’ laws that make it illegal to forcibly convert people to a new religion. The ostensible purpose of the measures is to shield Hindus from aggressive Christian proselytizing, or to protect them from Islam. But conversion has historically also. Jawahir Lal Nehru Banned it in his time as prime minister, but now things have changed for the worse, which is really unfortunate.
