RISE IN COMMUNAL FRENZY

It has become quite common in India these days to see swords, knife, iron rods, sticks, pistol wielding RSS BJP supporters of majority community organising processions during Hindu festivals, intimidating the minority Muslims with choicest invectives, inciting and provoking them to react into violence even to the extent of mounting on their masjids to fix saffron flags on minarets. Wave of attacks are orchestrated and hate speeches are hurled to disturb the patience of minorities on the occasion of Hindu festivals by Right-wing Hindu groups intentionally holding processions in Muslim neighbourhoods without taking formal permission from the administrative bodies. 

Hate speech and online abuse are India’s growing extremism problem. Calls to kill minorities, weak mainstream media and negligent officials – India sees a rising tide of communalism.

It is without any doubt the politics of India today is fueling attacks on Muslims minority, which makes up roughly 14 percent of the country’s 1.4 billion population. The Hindu majority accounts for 80 percent. 

What is the use of not making any discrimination while rolling out the benefits of government schemes when the minorities are left unsafe to live in fear; exercising "drill practice" with their family members for escape routes in the event of the frenzied hindutva mob enter their houses!!!

The Guardian wrote "By attending the inauguration of a new JCB factory in Gujarat…., Boris Johnson might have thought he was leaving his troubles behind in Westminster…… Mr Johnson walked into a major human rights controversy over the use of JCB’s bulldozers in flattening Muslim homes and businesses in Delhi and in states run by Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party." 

The day before Johnson landed in Ahmedabad, seven of these JCB diggers had been used to raze Muslim shops and homes, and the gate of a mosque in New Dehli’s Jahangirpuri area, in defiance of a supreme court stay on demolition. The municipality that ordered the demolitions is run by Modi’s BJP, and the brazen disregard of the apex court’s orders seemed almost staged for television.

"The UK PM ought to have taken greater note of Narendra Modi’s democratic backsliding", wrote the Guardian editorial.

Johnson should not have mugged for the cameras with the machinery used to intimidate religious minorities by a regime seemingly bent on creating a theocratic Hindu state. Perhaps he is unaware of the growing sense of vulnerability felt by India’s 200 million Muslims. But no one who is paying attention could miss what Modi is about. He is the only person ever denied a US visa for “severe violations of religious freedom”. This was in 2005, after he failed, as Gujarat’s chief minister, to stop a series of deadly anti-Muslim riots.

Human Rights observers say recent incendiary rhetoric by politicians from PM Modi’s Hindu nationalist BJP is helping fuel the country’s growing religious polarisation. However, India’s Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi has tried to play down the recent upheaval by saying religious intolerance isn’t worsening in the country. The reality is Modi's success is built on an aggressive assault against minorities, with economic policies that favour the rich. Modi’s populist repertoire sees him claiming that the poor are his priority, while doing little to combat inequalities.

His appeal endures despite rising unemployment and Covid deaths. Judges rarely confront the government. Civil society opponents are jailed.

The fact remains violence against minorities has risen since Modi became prime minister. Even human rights watchdogs say the frequency of attacks has risen since 2014 – the year Modi became prime minister. Earlier last month the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said Washington was monitoring a rise in human rights abuses in India by “some government, police and prison officials”.

"Justice in India is increasingly meted out not by courts but by the long arm of heavy machinery (JCB)", writes Washington Post.

As India’s Hindus celebrated the birthdays of the gods Ram and Hanuman in April; while Muslims observed the holy month of Ramadan gatherings across the country were marred by violence instigated by hindus as local news and police reports suggested that most of the clashes were sparked by processions of armed Hindu men marching into Muslim districts. By all means Muslims have been punished by bulldozing their encroachment for reacting to the frenzied provocative statements of saffron clad BJP hindutva goons. 

The occasion and timing chosen for demolition are worthy of anybody's concern. The same administration bulldozed the poor and helpless, which once allowed encroachment for decades not without under-the-table exchange of huge amounts of money among the municipal, PWD, police, local authorities and political leaders. 

Delhi is full of encroachment. All big-wig posh areas from Chhatarpur to Ministerial bungalows on VVIP/VIP areas to planned colonies are in complete violation of building laws, encroachments and these have been done with connivance of authorities and politicians. Shouldn't the punishment drive start from the top and the poor should be treated on humanitarian grounds? Are the authorities not as guilty and need to be identified and  punished wherever they are now for allowing encroachment all these years? The heartless government  and her embedded mouthpiece media can go down to any extent to revel at the miseries of the poor and Muslims in furtherance of their communal agenda.