Hammad Sarfraz
Last month India made headlines when anti-Muslim fury reached a fever pitch in Haridwar and New Delhi. Hundreds of right-wing followers of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and its parent body, Rashtriya Svayamsevak Sangh, also known as the RSS, vowed to do anything to turn India, a constitutionally secular republic, into a Hindu Rashtra, or Hindu state.
In unison, they took an oath to eliminate Muslims, if necessary, to achieve their goal of converting India into a Hindu-only nation. The dog whistle of Islamophobia in India, which also claims to be the largest democracy, became a loud and clear call for genocide against its largest religious minority – more than 200 million Muslims.
“Be ready to kill and go to jail,” Pooja Shakun Pandey, who, in the past has publicly blamed Mohandas K Gandhi, the primary leader of India’s independence movement, for the partition and even called him a ‘traitor’ at a ceremony honoring his assassin, said to her charged followers. Pandey, the leader of Hindu Mahasabha, a group created by upper-caste, middle-class Hindus that is known for its militant nationalism, was referring to India’s Muslims in her clarion call to her supporters.
But experts say such blatant calls for violence against India’s Muslims come as no surprise. The first steps toward a Hindu nation were taken during the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) rule between 1999 and 2004. Some even argue the hate had been boiling since 1992 when a charged mob of Hindu militants and revivalists demolished a 16th-century Mughal-era Mosque, exposing India’s deepening political and religious fault lines. Historians recorded the incident as the first of its nature since partition, where Hindus razed a mosque. That evening the prime minister at the time, P V Narasimha Rao termed the event as a matter of great shame and concern for all Indians. But for the Hindu fundamentalists who summoned their followers from all over the country, just as Pooja Shakun Pandey did during the three-day conference in Haridwar last month, the demolition of the Mosque of Babar, a holy site for Indian Muslims was hailed as a monumental victory and the first step toward challenging India’s status as a secular society.
Hence, the fresh calls for organised genocide of Indian Muslims are not new or surprising. Genocide, like all developments in history, is a gradual process. Its foundations are laid brick by brick by generations of ideologues until the divide between ‘us and them’ reaches fever pitch. And that is how it is unfolding in India.
In an exclusive interview in February 2021, long before Pooja Shakun Pandey’s calls for the elimination of Muslims, the founder and president of the non-governmental organization, Genocide Watch, Dr. Gregory H Stanton, cautioned that the Indian government’s actions against the Muslims in Kashmir have been an extreme case of persecution and could very well lead to genocide. Dr. Stanton who previously predicted a genocide in Rwanda years before it took place in 1994 has repeated his warning of an impending genocide of Muslims in India. During a Congressional briefing on the “Call for Genocide of Indian Muslims”, organized by a coalition of 17 civil society groups, including Indian American Muslim Council, Dr. Stanton, the world’s leading authority on genocide and ethnic cleansing, compared the situation in India under Prime Minister Modi, to events in Myanmar and Rwanda.
Other analysts who closely monitor the situation in India say the rise of fundamentalists is at the tip of a broader trend which has increased alarmingly since Narendra Modi, a Hindu nationalist leader, who for much of his early political career was affiliated with the RSS, came to power nearly eight years ago.
According to several human rights organizations, now barred from entering the Indian occupied Kashmir, thousands of people have been killed since 1989, when New Delhi deployed its troops to quell what it claims was an armed rebellion.
For decades the situation inside, Indian occupied Kashmir has raised concerns. Rights activists and groups have limited or no access to the occupied territory where more than 600,000 Indian troops are stationed to control the Muslim-majority region.
According to Danielle Khan of the Kashmir Action Network, a Washington-based advocacy group, the Modi administration is leaving no stone unturned to stall the Congressional momentum on the Kashmir issue.
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, she mentioned, introduced House Resolution 745, urging the Republic of India to end the restrictions on communications and mass detentions in Jammu and Kashmir and preserve religious freedom for all residents. “Unnerved by these developments, the Indian government lobbied aggressively to prevent the Resolution from moving forward,” Khan told the Express Tribune.
Despite these challenges, the solution, according to Khan, is simple: “The United Nations and international community must hold the Indian government accountable and push to instill the security council resolutions.” Activists, especially in the US, must continue grassroots advocacy efforts, and US lawmakers must not let aggressive lobbying by the Indian government prevent them from pursuing House resolutions and committee hearings on the Kashmir crisis.” The Washington-based activist also urged the Biden administration to pursue sanctions on India for its war crimes in Kashmir – where according to external investigations, thousands have been killed by the members of the occupying force that receives its orders from New Delhi.
“These combined efforts have the power to pressure India into peace talks and a resolution. It is not about picking sides – it is simply about doing what is right, and that is allowing Kashmiris their UN-backed plebiscite,” Khan concluded.
