EDITORIAL: In its latest report, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), an independent bipartisan body, had said religious freedom conditions in India had “significantly worsened” in 2021, noting that the “government continued to systemize its ideological vision of a Hindu state at both the national and state levels through the use of both existing and new laws and structural changes hostile to the country’s religious minorities.
” It had escalated its promotion and enforcement of policies, including those that affect religious minorities, and repressed critical voices, especially of minority communities and individuals reporting on them. USCIRF recommended, for the third year in a row, that India be designated a “country of particular concern.” Despite his pledge at the time of taking office to put human rights at the centre of his foreign policies, President Joe Biden continues to ignore these concerns, putting geo-political interests before human rights.
That has encouraged right-wing Hindu extremist groups to make explicit displays of hate against Muslims at public events in the US as well. Last month, India’s Independence Day parade in two New Jersey towns, Edison and Woodbridge, featured a bulldozer, a symbol of anti-Muslim policies of India’s ruling BJP-RSS combine. A BJP spokesman, Dr Sambit Patra, served as Grand Marshal at the parade. In case anyone missed the point the bulldozer was emblazoned with giant pictures of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has made a career out of Muslim bashing and anti-Pakistan rhetoric, and Muslim hate spewing saffron-robed Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Yogi Adityanath billed as “Daddy Bulldozer” for demolishing many homes and businesses owned by Muslims on trumped-up charges.
It took a while for the local political leadership to understand what the machine represented: hatred and intolerance of India’s Muslim community. A few days ago, a Democratic Party unit in the area passed a resolution calling on senators and congressmen from New Jersey as well as the state Governor Phil Murphy to ask the FBI and CIA to “step up” research on foreign hate groups that enjoy tax-exempt status in the US.
The resolution points out that the US-based right-wing Hindu groups had “direct and indirect ties to Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh [RSS], the right-wing Hindu nationalist paramilitary organisation in India whose ideology is part of Nazism and European fascism”, urging Senators Bob Menendez and Cory Booker to “revise the Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015 to address foreign violent extremists with speaking engagements in the US.”
Sadly, however, Washington is unwilling to do anything about the situation of minorities inside India where Muslims are routinely subjected to hostility and ill-treatment as state policy. Also, under a “Ghar Wapsi [return home]” programme poor Muslims in some poverty-stricken villages are forced to convert to Hinduism. Although Muslims are singled out for persecution in all its forms, Christians are not safe, either.
The USCIRF report mentions that in 2021 the Karnataka government had ordered a survey of churches and priests in the state and authorised police to conduct door-to-door inspections to find Hindus who had converted to Christianity. Yet, when all the officials in Washington have to say about India’s barefaced repression of its minority communities is that ‘US remains concerned’.
The two senators are likely to give the response expected of them, which may stop such blatant display of hatred of Muslims in the US. A similar incident of Hindutva zealots intimidating the Muslim community residing in the British city of Leicester has occurred. The British authorities, too, should take cognizance of this occurrence to nip the evil in the bud before it spirals out of hand.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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