New Delhi: The Council of Minority Rights in India (CMRI) published a report on the Religious Minorities in India in November 2022. Through this report, Socio-Political Status of Religious Minorities in India in the year 2021 has been documented, through collecting primary and secondary data.
The report was released by lawyer Kawalpreet Kaur and student activists Safoora Zargar, Nidha Parveen, Sharjeel Usmani and Tazeen Junaid. The latter three were involved in compiling the report. The release event was presided over by senior advocate Colin Gonsalves.
“Role of law enforcement agencies constitutes a bigger bias in cases of hate crimes against minorities. The absence of a definite meaning and insufficient legal provisions to implicate offenders of hate crime leaves much on part of the law enforcement’s discretion to act upon. There is a definite lack of action on part of the law enforcement against perpetrators of hate crimes that reveals a bigger pattern of discrimination in the criminal-judicial system,” noted the report.
The report recorded 294 incidents of hate crimes against Muslims, Christians and Sikhs. Out of 294 crimes, 192 crimes committed against Muslims, 95 against Christians and 7 against Sikhs. Uttar Pradesh (62), Madhya Pradesh (23), Karnataka (22) and Delhi (22) are the states where the highest number of hate crimes was committed.
In the year 2021, 221 members of the Christian community fell prey to hate crimes in 95 instances of hate crimes. In the same year, 606 members of the Muslim community were victimised in 192 instances of hate crimes. The figure for the Sikh community was 21 in 7 cases of hate crimes.
The report pointed out that the records show a clear bias of the police by detaining or arresting the victims of hate crimes leading to their secondary victimisation. Several incidents have highlighted a trend of police detaining the victims on allegations of hate crime offenders of members of minority communities.
“There are also noted incidents of police helping the offenders in a crime or overlooking the offence that is committed. There are also incidents wherein law enforcement personnel have in fact engaged in offences against members of the minority community. Institutional power and lack of accountability of law enforcement make the victims of hate crimes directly or indirectly affected by police action or inaction,” it said.
The report has dedicated different chapters by the different writers related to the hate crimes. ‘Hate Crimes: The Case of Religious Minorities in India’ by Afreen Fatima, ‘Minorities on Prime Time: An inquiry into the portrayal of Chritians, Muslims, and Sikhs on Television News’ by Tazeen Junaid, ‘Journalism as Hitjiob: A Comparative Analysis of How Muslims, Sikhs and Christians are reported in indian Newspapers’ by Mohd Kamran and Mewish Asim, ‘Qualitative Changes In Hate Speeches Against Minorities by Visakan Pillai, ‘Repression of Christian-Run Educational Institutions In India’ by Mohd Uzair, ‘Gendered Islamophobia in India: The Phase of Targeted Hate Violence against Muslim Women by Nidha Parveen and Nada Nasreen, The State of Sikhs In India: Repression and Exclusion by Aditya Menon and ‘Universities as Sites of Resistance: Journey of Muslims To And In Higher Education Institutions’ by Sabah Maharaj are the chapters in the report.
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