New Delhi: Relgious hate crimes against Muslims and other minorities surge during RSS backed Modi’s government’s second tenure.
Yesterday, Bajrang Dal, the youth wing of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP)– an organisation of Hindu hardliners distributed pamphlets in Uttar Pradesh ordering the closure of Muslim shops during Hindu festivals in October and November.
Hindu Extremists have become very active since Yogi Adityanath came to power. Muslim vendors and small traders are assaulted because of their religious identity. Such measures are likely to affect Muslims adversely.
This is a clear attack on Muslim livelihoods since, traditionally, it is primarily Muslims who are engaged in the meat and poultry business in India. It is an effort to create terror and insecurity in the minds of Muslims and restrict their free movement. Now an average Muslim trader will have to think twice before venturing into a Hindu locality. Such restrictions will only mean to destabilize Muslim businesses.
For Afzal, a mutton seller in Greater Noida – a suburb in Uttar Pradesh state neighbouring capital New Delhi – who did not wish to give his real name for fear of reprisal, it would mean a loss of business for nearly 10 days.
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“We have nowhere to complain. The police and the municipality officials side with such groups,” adds Afzal, with some trepidation.
Afzal has been fortunate: though he has been targeted, he has not faced any physical violence. Many others have not been so lucky.
On September 23, two Muslim men in Mathura, a temple town in Uttar Pradesh, were badly beaten up for carrying meat. Earlier this month, the government decided to make a large part of the city alcohol- and meat-free.
About a month ago, in Indore city of Madhya Pradesh state, also governed by the BJP, a Muslim bangle-seller, Tasleem Ali, was beaten up because he was selling his wares in a “Hindu locality” allegedly under an assumed Hindu name.
Within a week or so, in Ujjain city in the same state, a Muslim scrap dealer was forced to shout “Jai Shri Ram” (Victory be to Lord Ram), a war cry used by Hindu supremacist groups.
The rampage of Hindu mobs in MP continues. Shops of minorities forcibly closed, vandalized, men brutally attacked by mobs chanting “shoot the trait*ors” slogan.
Similar incidents were reported in Uttar Pradesh as well in the same month.
The owner of a horse carriage in Lucknow was forced to chant “Death to Pakistan” on the basis of a fake claim that he had hoisted a Pakistani flag on his carriage.
Then again, in Mathura, a Muslim eatery owner was forced to change its name from “Shrinath Dosa” to “American Dosa Corner” because right-wing groups objected to him using the name of a Hindu god.
All these incidents were recorded in a series of disturbing videos that went viral. The common thread in the videos is that they showcase Muslim vendors and small traders being assaulted because of their religious identity.
Also, the assaulters in all such cases are alleged members of Hindu right-wing groups, who feel emboldened under Modi’s government and exercise significant impunity.
Such incidents are being seen as part of a larger attack on the livelihoods of Muslims, many of whom are self-employed or are engaged in low-paying jobs.
Nearly 46 percent of Muslims are self-employed in urban India, the largest as compared with any other community, according to data from the government’s National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO), 2013.
The report adds that Muslims are the poorest among all religious groups in India and are concentrated in low-paying jobs in the informal sector.
Jeremy Seabrook and Imran Ahmed Siddiqui, in their book People Without History: India’s Muslim Ghettos, have documented a gradual “de-skilling of Muslim workforce” due to globalisation, which has forced them into low-paying jobs.
If these frequent incidents of attacks on Muslim livelihoods are seen “in consonance with some policy measures which the BJP government has taken in different states in the last few years, then it is a worrying trend indeed,” Abdul Waheed, professor of sociology at the Aligarh Muslim University in Uttar Pradesh, told Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera
