By Sardar Khan Niazi
For decades, India’s Hindu rightists led by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the parent organization with several arms, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have viewed Islam and Christianity as alien religions.
However, Modi’s tenure ever since 2014 has seen the Hindu rightists largely target Muslims. At any time, the BJP prepared for a political test pivotal to expanding its base, mounting attacks on Muslims and Christians sparked worries that the RSS might be replacing the coyness of the past six years with newfound aggression against the religious minorities.
Hindutva-driven BJP-RSS combine has a track record of conducting massacres and systemic human rights violations of Muslims under its watch, from Gujarat in 2002 to New Delhi in 2020. In today’s India, there is little space for minorities and their way of life,”
In a fresh spate of anti-Muslim violence in India, at least six mosques and over a dozen houses and shops belonging to Muslims were burnt in the BJP-led Tripura state during the last few days.
Hindutva groups Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Viswa Hindu Parishad (VHP), Hindu Jagran Manch, and Bajrang Dal with ties to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party reportedly carried out the attacks.
Photos and videos widely shared on social media show violent mobs wearing saffron and carrying swords raising anti-Muslim slogans. Brutal eviction of Muslims from their decades-old homes in Assam continues unabated.
Pakistan has called upon the international community to play its role to stop the rising tide of Islamophobia and attacks against minorities in India and ensuring their safety, well-being, and protection of their places of worship and heritage sites.
In the latest anti-Christian violence, some 200 men armed with rods and sticks stormed a church in northern India in Uttarakhand state during Sunday prayer service injuring at least five people. The frenzied mob destroyed furniture, photographs, and musical instruments. Most of the attackers belonged to Bajrang Dal, a Hindu vigilante group, and other similar outfits.
Since the beginning of the year, there have been similar attacks on Christian churches, mainly in Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh – two Indian states with large populations of marginalized, low-caste tribal communities.
Christians say the ruling BJP led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has failed to protect the minorities. Hindus comprise nearly 80 percent of India’s 1.3 billion population and critics say Modi’s two huge election wins since 2014 have empowered his hardcore followers.
The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom In its 2021 report said Hindu nationalist policies promoted by the Indian government were resulting in systematic and egregious violations of religious freedom.
In the first half of 2021, from January to June 145 cases of violence against Christians in India were documented. The cases are presented in the report entitled “Hate and targeted violence against Christians in India — half-yearly report 2021” published on July 23 by the EFI Religious Freedom Commission.
According to the Report, Madhya Pradesh tops the list with 30 cases in terms of geographical spread. The state, which has vast areas of forestland where Adivasis or tribals live, was among the first to enact “Anti-Conversion Laws”.
The neighboring state of Uttar Pradesh continued to record 22 cases, while the Karnataka and Chhattisgarh states; also polarized by a decade of religiously divisive political campaigns, report 14 and 13 cases each.
The most alarming development, notes the Report, was the expansion of the infamous Freedom of Religion Acts, popularly known as Anti-conversion law extended to multiple states ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party.
These laws target Christian and Muslim minorities to prevent marriages between Muslim men and non-Muslim women, especially those belonging to the Hindu upper castes.
