New Delhi: Intolerance toward Muslims and minorities on the rise in Narendra Modi-led India and in occupied Jammu and Kashmir with Hindu groups using violence, intimidation, and harassment against the minorities on daily basis in the country and Indian troops waging a war against civilian population in IIOJK.
Each year, International Day for Tolerance is observed on 16 November. The day aims to highlight the importance of inclusion, peaceful co-existence and respect for different religious beliefs, values and cultures. Any religion other than Hinduism has become a liability in Modi’s India.
Vicious Hindutva ideology, seeking Hindu domination in India, is the chief guiding principle for BJP-led Indian government. Under the patronage of Indian government, Hindu terrorists threat and kill minorities and vandalize their places of worship with sheer impunity.
Minorities are being persecuted physically, psychologically and economically. US Commission on International Religious Freedom recommended that India be put on its red list for “severe violations of religious freedom.” In 2021, three hundred incidents of persecution of minorities have been registered in India.
An Indian writer, Khushwant Singh has predicted doom for India due to its self-destruction course. Moreover, India’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) at Geneva also endorsed Mumbai-based Centre for Study of Society & Secularism and UK-based Minority Rights Group International which have indicated that minority groups in India are increasingly encountering hate crimes, such as lynching, threats, attacks on places of worship and forced conversion.
The right-wing Hindus have become a threat to Muslims which is manifested in the killing of hundreds of Muslims on charges of eating/slaughtering beef, assaulting on charges of converting Hindus to Islam, tempting Hindu women to marry Muslims, opposing the veil Muslim students, banning the sale of halal meat, removing the Islamic names of cities, villages & streets and placing Hindu names instead. Purposefully, anti-Christian vigilantes are sweeping through villages, storming churches, burning Christian literature, attacking schools and assaulting worshipers.
The very act of worship has become dangerous despite constitutional protections for freedom of religion. The rising attacks minorities is part of a broader shift in India, in which minorities feel less safe.
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