Sajjad Shaukat
WITH the advent of social media, it is much difficult for rulers and politicians to speak lies and to hide information. In this regard, despite twisting the facts, under the regime of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India’s religious bigotry has continued unabated against the religious minorities, especially the Muslims. In this respect, in its recently released annual report, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) recommended that the State Department should designate India as Country of Particular Concern—pushed for imposing targeted sanctions on Indian government agencies and officials responsible for severe violations of religious freedom by freezing those individuals’ assets and/or barring their entry into the US under human rights-related financial and visa authorities. The USCIRF report said: “In December 2019, Parliament passed the CAA…for non-Muslim migrants already in India from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan by treating them as refugees fleeing religious persecution…The CAA…in conjunction with NRC…is a goal outlined in the BJP’s manifesto…this potentially exposes millions of Muslims to detention, deportation and statelessness…cow protection had been promoted by the BJP and the RSS…Lynch mobs, often organised over social media, have attacked minorities—including Muslims, Christians and Dalits…Since the BJP came to power in 2014, there have been over 100 attacks…often with the police’s complicity, Hindutva groups also conduct campaigns of harassment, social exclusion and violence against religious minorities…in August last year, India stripped the Muslim-majority occupied Jammu and Kashmir of its autonomy and imposed security measures, including restricting freedom of movement and assembly, cutting Internet and phone access, and arresting Kashmiri leaders, including religious leaders”.
It is notable that under the guise of Coronavirus, Indian rulers have been imposing various kinds of restrictions on the Muslims. Modi’s government and the health ministry claimed that Muslims are spreading this virus. Hindu extremists have set off a series of assaults against Muslims across the country. In the recent past, Western media reported: “Indian authorities had linked cases of COVID-19 to Tablighi Jamaat which had held its annual congregation in Delhi in early March. Muslims have been beaten up, nearly lynched, run out of their neighbourhoods or attacked in mosques…Hindu extremists are scapegoating the country’s entire Muslim population for deliberately spreading the virus through “Corona jihad, Indian hospitals segregates Muslim and Hindu Coronavirus patients…In what many are calling a case of “apartheid” during a global pandemic…made separate wards for Hindu and Muslim patients. It is a decision of the government”. It is mentionable that since the remote past, Tablighi Jamaat has been holding congregations so as to why this deadly virus did not emerge in India. In fact, under the guise of COVID-19, India fanatic entities are pushing Indian Muslims out of informal sector jobs. Muslims are facing a new form of concerted, deliberate economic marginalisation through blatant lies linking the community to the virus. Muslims are being shut out of the formal sector; many Muslims depend on the informal sector and self-employment for their livelihood. These zealots are instructing the Hindus not to buy anything from Muslims’ shops.
In this context, the Gulf News wrote: “India’s carefully cultivated Gulf policy has been at risk of unravelling over the past fortnight, with the OIC, the Kuwaiti government, a UAE royal princess, and the Arab intelligentsia decrying hate speeches by Indian nationals accusing the Tablighi Jamaat of deliberately exacerbating the Coronavirus pandemic as well as a crude tweet by a BJP MP on the sexual impulses of Arab women…it seems that the warnings of the Indian mission have fallen on deaf ears as the list of Indian expats facing action over vile Islamophobic remarks on social media keeps getting longer. At least three more have been suspended after their offensive posts were brought to the attention of employers by social media users. The men now join nearly half a dozen hate-mongers who have similarly landed in trouble in recent weeks”. In this regard, Al Jazeera wrote: “Did those who commit crimes against Muslims in India…think that Muslims will remain silent and do not move politically, legally and economically against them? a statement by the general secretariat of the Kuwait Council of Ministers said…people in the Gulf countries felt outraged over the way Indian Muslims were being blamed for the Coronavirus pandemic…the assault by the RSS — the BJP’s parent body — on Muslims is unacceptable and have labelled it a “terrorist” group that should be banned in the Gulf…Kuwait has appealed to the OIC to intervene in India to tackle anti-Muslim sentiment in the country”.
Meanwhile, taking cognizance of Modi-led religious discriminatory policies, the White House has unfollowed Premier Modi on Twitter sending the micro-blogging site into a frenzy over a possible souring of ties between the world leaders. It also unfollowed the Twitter handle of Indian President Ram Nath Kovind, the Prime Minister’s office, as well as, the Indian Embassy in the US. And responding to the US President Donald Trump’s claim that he had seen evidence which indicated the Coronavirus emerged from a virology institute in Wuhan, China—Beijing deliberately spread COVID-19, WHO Head of Emergencies, Dr Michael Ryan repeatedly said that “we are assured that this virus is natural in origin.” Notably, COVID-19 which has affected the entire world, does not see race, religion, colour, caste, creed, language or borders before targeting any country. Its elimination needs global unity. But, it is regrettable that Modi-led BJP, VHP and RSS, including other Hindu extremist parties are leading the racist Hindutva supremacists against the Muslims in the occupied Kashmir and across India. In fact, it is primary part of Modi’s belief system to persecute the Indian Muslims. Nonetheless, India’s anti-Muslim bigotry has been internationalized.
—The writer is freelance columnist based in Lahore.
