Reema Shaukat
COVID-19 is exposing India’s strategy towards low caste Hindu and minorities. Likewise border unrest between India and China where India is facing humiliation and defeat from Chinese forces, Indian soldiers are also rising against Modi’s discriminatory policies. Indian nationals have totally rejected Modi’s false assertions and claims where he boosts about shining India.
The plight of minorities in India is now an open secret. India which comprises different minorities’ including Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Zoroastrians and Jains entitles itself as human rights defender but unfortunately the ground realities are quite different and alarming. Lately India was declared as an intolerant and unbearable country for religious minorities in a report by The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).
Partition of the subcontinent after many years stands valid with the fact that Hindu extremism forced Muslims to fight for their rights and demand for a separate homeland to practice their ideology with complete freedom. Luckily Muslims were able to have their separate homeland but other minorities kept on suffering and till date they are fighting for their rights. Muslims who chose to stay in India say that today’s secular India has definitely turned into an intolerant and stifling place where one cannot offer prayers or practise religious beliefs. Dilemma doesn’t remain towards one particular minority but to all. Apart from Muslims and Christians another minority which endured most for their existence is Sikh community.
While being negated from practising their religious beliefs and finding themselves as sidelined by Hindu community in many walks of life, they decided to go for their separate homeland and gave that movement for freedom a name of Khalistan Movement. The Khalistan Movement is a Sikh nationalist movement that wants to create an independent state for Sikh people, inside the current north-western part of India. Sikhism is the 3rd largest religion in India and has existed for 548 years, beginning with the birth of its founder Guru Nanak.
The Sikhs are predominantly located in Indian Punjab and some in many other parts of India. It is also the fifth largest religion in the world with 25 million followers in the world as of the year 2010. Sikhs are also part of Indian Army apart from other government jobs but seeing the denial of rights and inequality, Sikhs in India now demand their separate homeland and time and again their struggle holds momentum.
Sikh Movement holds a prominent space in India since partition but in 1984 their holiest shrine “Golden Temple” was attacked by Indian Army through {in-}famous “Operation Blue Star” in which anti-Sikh riots took place and thousands of Sikhs were massacred, Sikh freedom movement has intensified.
Recently Gopal Singh Chawla who is the leader of Khalistan Movement has called for registration process of Khalistan Referendum which might get delay in prevailing Covid-19 pandemic, but he is preparing Sikh soldiers to leave Indian Army and join the Movement for their rights. Many Sikh soldiers claim that they are deployed near borders and hard areas intentionally by Indian Army so that they deal with scuffles. India calls itself a true symbol of secularism but nowhere in the world one can see how this secularism is grassed other than India.
Theoretically, Indian Constitution protects the rights of minorities, but Hindu majority led by BJP has shown complete disrespect to it and commit brutalities against Muslims, Sikhs, Christians and Dalits with liberty. What to talk about Indian brutalities in the IoK, Hindu fundamentalism is increasingly broadening its influence everywhere and has already established a firm base of radicalism in educational sector, bureaucracy and media. That is why such freedom movements are gaining impetus in India and can turn Modi’s table anytime.
— The writer works for Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies, a think-tank based in Islamabad.
