‘Indian govt gearing up for Muslim genocide like Holocaust’

ISLAMABAD: The World Without Genocide group based in Washington has revealed that the Indian government is gearing up for genocide of Muslims similar to the Holocaust through discriminatory policies and acts of state-sponsored violence.

Dr. Ellen Kennedy, founder and Executive Director of World Without Genocide, during a Congressional Briefing on Tuesday, reminded that “I speak to you as a Jew...We must pay attention to what is happening to Muslims in India today because it is beginning to echo what happened to Europe’s Jews 80 years ago.” He was speaking on the decision of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) to recommend India as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) in its 2022 annual report for egregious violations of religious freedom for the third year in a row.

Drawing parallels between the Indian government’s policies of forced statelessness for Muslims and Nazi Germany’s Nuremberg laws, Dr Kennedy stated that India’s growing Hindu extremist movement had “created anti-Muslim hate and official support and impunity for anti-Muslim violence.” “In the past few months, violence against Muslims in India has escalated to the point that the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum ranks India second in the world in this year’s Early Warning statistical risk assessment.”

Dr Gregory Stanton of Genocide Watch warns that a genocide of Muslims in India is about to take place. Professor Rohit Chopra, academic and author, drew attention to the infiltration of the Hindu supremacist ideology in all levels of the government, legacy media, and social media. “What has happened is essentially the BJP has fused with the Indian state… This is extremely, extremely alarming because it actually not just excuses violence or turns a blind eye to it, but actually calls upon Hindus to perform violence against Muslims… as proof of being a good Indian and being a good Hindu.”

“Lower level leaders have openly bayed for Muslim blood and nothing has happened to them,” he said. “Hindu nationalists defy their Constitution… by devoting themselves to creating a Hindu nationalist state where Hindu people have more rights than anyone else. And they will do anything, including the barring of non-Hindu visitors to India… to carry out their discriminatory and violent practices,” said Rev. Peter Cook, Executive Director of the New York State Council of Churches.

“USCIRF has made this recommendation three years in a row, and things are getting worse, not better, for religious minorities in India… Congress must hold hearings on human rights in India. Through its power of the purse, Congress can condition foreign and security aid to India based on religious freedom issues,” said Ria Chakrabarty, Policy Director at Hindus for Human Rights.

“Nearly every single pillar of democracy in India seems to have crumbled under the weight of Hindu nationalism… United States foreign policy is going to suffer immeasurably if it continues to behave in an ostrich-like manner and ignore the violations of human rights and religious freedom in India,” said Ajit Sahi, Advocacy Director at Indian American Muslim Council. The briefing was co-hosted by Genocide Watch, World Without Genocide, Indian American Muslim Council, Hindus for Human Rights, International Christian Concern, Jubilee Campaign, 21Wilberforce, Dalit Solidarity Forum, New York State Council of Churches, Federation of Indian American Christian Organizations of North America, India Civil Watch International, Center for Pluralism and American Muslim.

Meanwhile, a group of Hindu extremists in Indian state Uttar Pradesh has announced to hold an all-night Hindu ritual, known as a Jagran, in a Muslim area of Meerut city on the night before Eidul-Fitr. The group, led by a Hindu extremist priest, was recorded on video threatening to hold the Jagran despite the fact that police explicitly told them they did not have permission to do so.

The Hindu priest in Meerut told the police that he would conduct the Jagran regardless of whether permission is granted or not. The threat to disrupt Muslim holidays follows a wave of extreme anti-Muslim violence across India during a number of Hindu festivals, which saw mobs of armed Hindu extremists attacking Muslim properties and mosques, chanting genocidal slogans, and sparking violence.

In a conspicuous development, over 100 former civil servants in an open letter to Indian prime minister Modi which has also been inked by prominent individuals, including former Lieutenant Governor of Delhi Najeeb Jung, former National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon, ex-foreign secretary Sujatha Singh, and former home secretary G K Pillai, slammed him for his silence in the face of extreme anti-Muslim hatred in India. “We are witnessing a frenzy of hate filled destruction in the country where at the sacrificial altar are not just Muslims and members of the other minority communities but the Constitution itself,” said the letter.

“As former civil servants, it is not normally our want to express ourselves in such extreme terms, but the relentless pace at which the Constitution is being destroyed compels us to speak out and express our anger and anguish,” the letter added. “Your silence, in the face of this enormous societal threat, is deafening,” the letter said.

In another development, Indian Army has deleted Iftar Photo after Hindu extremist leader called secularism a ‘disease.’ According to reports, the Indian Army’s public relations officer caved in to Hindu extremist attacks on Muslim representation by deleting photos it had posted to its Twitter, which showed an Iftar gathering as well as Indian officers offering prayers alongside Muslim residents.

In response to the tweet, Suresh Chavhanke, a vitriolic Hindu supremacist and Sudarshan News editor-in-chief, criticized secularism as being a disease. “Has this sickness now spread to the Indian Army too? Sad,” he tweeted.

Following Chavhanke’s harassment, the army’s PRO deleted the photos, demonstrating how even official government entities have caved to the hateful ideology of Hindu supremacists. Yet in another development Arfa Khanum Sherwani, senior editor of Indian media outlet ‘The Wire,’ called on India’s secular forces and the progressive Hindu community to take a strong stance against anti-Muslim hatred. “It is the duty of the Hindu community now to condemn those who are committing atrocities against the minorities in the name of Hinduism,” Sherwani said.

“Muslims alone cannot fight the communal forces… Hindus must distance themselves from the narrative of hatred being peddled by the communal forces in the name of Hinduism.”Apoorvanand, a political analyst and Hindi professor at the University of Delhi, also slammed the silence of supposedly progressive Hindu Indians. Calling the recent bulldozing of Muslim houses by the BJP “a murder of constitution and law,” Atul Kumar Anjaan, a senior leader of the Congress Party of India, called on secular forces to work “against the evil of majority or minority communalism.”

In the meantime, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) released a statement slamming BJP-ruled Uttarakhand state’s move to implement the Uniform Civil Code (UCC), which mandates the formulation of a law that forces all religious communities to adhere to a common law in private matters such as marriage, divorce, and inheritance.