NEW YORK: Opinion pieces in leading US publications have lashed out at Indian celebrities for their hypocrisy in crying out loud over the killing in police custody of George Floyd, an African-American man, after remaining completely silent when police-backed Hindu fanatics massacred Muslims in India recently.
Writing in The Washington Post, Rana Ayyub, an Indian journalist and an author, said many Indians found that voicing outrage over Floyd's murder was a safe cause, and referred to Bollywood star Priyanka Chopra's instagram expressing her pain and anger while sharing the victim's last words, "Please, I can’t breathe. "But where have these celebrities been when Indian Muslims have been systematically targeted by a majoritarian regime and a prejudiced legal system," she pointedly asked.
"As an Indian Muslim, I see the use of #BlackLivesMatter not as an extension of real solidarity, but as a reflection of the moral disfigurement of a population that looks the other way when its own minorities are discriminated against and lynched.
Where were they when, during the Delhi carnage in February, police officials thrashed and beat to death Muslim men while demanding they chant the national anthem? "Do (Ms ) Chopra and (industrialist Ratan) Tata even know their names? What about solidarity with the 15-year-old who was lynched for wearing a Muslim cap? Where was the outrage when a cabinet minister honoured a group of killers who lynched a young Muslim man? Ms Ayyub added, "In Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state, Modi revoked the special autonomous status, leaving the valley in a state of military lockdown and isolation that has generated multiple human rights abuses.
"Soon after the Citizenship Amendment Act was passed, the Modi government pushed for the implementation of the National Register of Citizens, which has sought to delegitimize and erase Muslims in India.
Students and activists have been attacked on university campuses. And when the capital erupted in an anti-Muslim pogrom in February, officials like powerful Home Minister Amit Shah said the violence was ''unfortunate'' and praised the police.
Another Indian journalist, Raksha Kumar, wrote in Foreign Policy, a prestigious magazine, about the targeting of Muslims and other minorities as well as frequent cases of police brutality in India that evoke no response from public figures.
After seven decades of independence, India has yet to conclusively address the inequities within its society, the article said. "In the weeks following India’s strict coronavirus lockdown that began on March 25, a gush of media reports told a story of unfettered police aggression.
In the central Indian city of Pune, an ambulance driver was beaten by the police on suspicion of illegally transporting passengers in his vehicle. (He was not). In West Bengal, a man was allegedly assaulted by the police when he stepped out to buy milk.
He later died from his injuries. In just the first week of the country’s shutdown, the police assaulted 173 people and were allegedly responsible for 27 deaths, according to a report by a local nonprofit organization.
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