Qaisar Mansoor
Caste violence is one of the most dangerous form of violence in India. Being born in a Dalit family is a curse, as human rights abuses against Dalits by upper caste Hindus have become normal routine in India.
Dalits are relegated to lowest jobs in India and have been victims of Hindu caste system for centuries besides subjected to numerous forms of caste discrimination and brutal violence. Incidents of violence against Dalits have climbed significantly since fascist Modi’s ascension to power and have witnessed systematic marginalization.
Modi’s government dual policies to curb the rights of minorities is evident in his address at Gurpurab celebrations of Sikh Gurus. On one hand, he is talking about unity & harmony, while on the other, he is supporting Hindutva and extremism. Across India, dozens of major incidents were reported, few of them are listed below: –
In Balrampur, UP, BJP’s Mandal General Secretory abused a “Dalit Employment Servant” with a caste indicator, then beaten him badly. Along with this, government work was also stopped by the leader.
In Ranpur, Rajasthan, an upper class Hindu assaulted a Dalit leader and got serious injuries for passing through his land.
In Bihar, Vaishali, 20 years old Girl was gang raped, murdered and then thrown into the canal by upper caste Thakurs.
In Reshim Bagh, Maharashtra, police have not permitted to Bhim Army (Samvdhan Rakshak Dal) to hold an event marking Koregaon Bhima Shaurya Day event.
Munawar Faruqui, a Muslim comedian in India, was arrested for jokes he didn’t crack. On the evening of January 1, 2021, he was kicking off a 14-city tour with a ticketed show in a café in the central Indian city of Indore. Eklavya Gaud, the son of a ruling BJP politician, had arrived and stopped the show, complaining that the comic was ‘insulting’ Hindu religious sentiments.
Indore is a prominent city in Madhya Pradesh, which is ruled by the Hindu nationalist BJP. Hindus make up the vast majority of India’s population. Faruqui ended up spending a month in jail.
In Indore, Madhya Pradesh, a 60-year-old man along with his two associates raped and impregnated a teenage hearing and speech impaired girl.
In October, activists of a Hindutvavadi fascist group turned up at the cafe seeking a ban on Faruqui’s shows. He has now hinted at quitting comedy after a dozen shows were cancelled in Mumbai and Bangalore following protests from fascist Hindu groups.
If this is the attitude of the ruling BJP-government towards humorous jokes, it is not difficult to fathom the horrible state of intolerance faced by hundreds of millions of religious minorities in India from the places like Kashmir in the west to Nagaland, Assam and Tripura in the east on a daily basis. They face genocidal pogroms, unjust detention, rape, or torture because of who they are and what they believe that is at variance with those of the majority Hindus.
Every Friday, Najis Mohammad would offer his afternoon prayers at a public ground near his barber shop in Gurugram, still popular by its old name Gurgaon — a satellite city on the outskirts of the Indian capital, New Delhi. He cannot pray Jum’aa there anymore. A number of politicians and Hindu priests, including Kapil Mishra, who belong to the BJP, have stopped Jum’aa prayer for the local Muslims there. It is worth recalling that Mishra has been accused of instigating religious violence in New Delhi that killed more than 50 Muslims last year, and yet, he runs free in Modi’s India.
‘Permission to offer prayers at eight previously-identified sites has been cancelled,’ Gurugram police said in a statement. It added that if objections were raised by the residents at other places, ‘permission to offer prayers will be cancelled there as well’.
The police move followed a weeks-long campaign by Hindu groups and local residents who had been disrupting the Friday prayers at those sites by playing religious songs on loudspeakers and raising hate slogans. An umbrella group of Hindu groups, called the Sanyukt Hindu Sangharsh Samiti (Joint Hindu Struggle Committee), even issued an ‘ultimatum’ to the authorities, saying they would stop Muslim prayers themselves if the Gurugram administration fails to do so.
Muslim parliamentarian Asaduddin Owaisi said the Gurugram administration’s decision to ban Friday prayers at some sites was a violation of Article 25 of the Indian constitution that guarantees Indian citizens the freedom to profess, practise and propagate religion.
“How it is that practising my religion or offering my Jum’ah namaz [Friday prayers] once in a week for 15 to 20 minutes is hurting anyone?’ he told Al Jazeera.
Religious intolerance against the Muslims shows no signs of ebbing in Modi’s India. It has, in essence, become a sure recipe to grab and hold onto power in this land of 1.4 billion people.
Muslim villagers living in Naraura in the Tripura State heard some villagers scream in panic around 10:00pm on October 23, 2021. As they rushed out, a wooden bier and some prayer mats in the courtyard of the local mosque were on fire. Allegedly, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council), which has been agitating against the Muslims is behind the mosque fire.
Lest one forgets, the VHP is affiliated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the ideological fountainhead of India’s Hindu supremacist groups which seeks to convert India into an ethnic Hindu-only state. (Most top leaders of India’s governing BJP, including Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, started their political careers as RSS workers.)
Tripura, an eastern state dominated by Bengali-speaking Hindus, bordering Bangladesh, is currently governed by Modi’s BJP. Muslims living there, like those in Assam, are traumatised and now live under fear.
‘There are 16 mosques which have been targeted in Tripura,’ said Mufti Abdul Momin, a Muslim cleric.
The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom — an independent, bipartisan federal government commission that makes religious freedom and foreign policy recommendations to the US president, the US senate and the state department — said in October that it was alarmed by reports of violence against Muslims in Tripura and urged the Indian government to prevent the attacks.
‘USCIRF is particularly alarmed about reports from Tripura of mobs desecrating mosques and torching properties of Muslims. The Indian government must bring those responsible for instigating and engaging in religious violence to justice and must prevent further attacks,’ USCIRF said in a tweet.
Earlier this year, India’s home ministry said in the Indian parliament that 348 people died in police custody and 5,221 died in judicial custody in the last three years. These numbers point to the anaemic health of the Indian Modi-fied democracy, which is increasingly becoming a joke.
Succinctly put, India, the so-called largest democracy in our world, has become a joke. It goes without saying that US president Biden’s recent invitation to India for its Summit for Democracy belies the ground reality that the country has become top-down under Narendra Modi’s watch.
Democracy cannot be defended, strengthened and renewed by mass murderers who make a mockery of human rights. Leaders need to walk the talk before they can be taken seriously.
