India is on warpath; threatening Pakistan of massive and decisive airstrikes to which Pakistan has warned India in clear-cut terms that this could lead to highly dangerous proportions.
India has recently suffered great humiliation on the Chinese front. It has also been preparing for another Pulwama-like false flag operation. To divert the attention from the rising public outrage over Indian army’s humiliation on Ladakh front, India now intends to target Pakistan. DG ISPR Maj Gen Iftikhar Babar, therefore, warned India of dire consequences if India goes ahead with its hegemon designs.
Mahatma Gandhi’s larger than life politics was based on the concept of nonviolence, but in today’s India, “Violence against Muslims” is a “new normal.” Despite the vast spreading coronavirus, the Hindutva-led mentality has unleashed a reign of terror on Muslims and other minorities. With the Indian Citizenship (Amendment) Act, criminal anti-Muslim discrimination rolled out recently, the RSS-led goons had been out to persecute minorities. But the violence was retriggered when the BJP deliberately started blaming Tablighi Jama’at for spreading coronavirus, which earned criticism not only in India but across the Arab world.
The same mentality against Muslims had led to the creation of Pakistan. The anger of subcontinent’s division and Pakistan’s creation are demonstrated in the communal conception prevailing that Muslims in India are in a natural alliance with Pakistan, and for this reason, the radicalised Hindus are subjecting them to violence and discrimination. This has been doubled ever since the Modi-led BJP has come into power and its militant-terrorist wing RSS, greatly inspired by Hitler-Mussolini. RSS leader Kundan Chandravat boasted of the massacre of 2000 Gujarat Muslims under the then CM Modi.
Now, for the first time, the basis of granting citizenship is religion. The protests broke out after the passage of CAA were peaceful as citizens from all faiths sang songs, poems and cited the constitution aloud that holds for equality and secularism. In response, BJP leaders called them anti-nationals and pro-Pakistanis and called for “shooting the traitors.”
Mahatma Gandhi’s larger than life politics was based on the concept of nonviolence, but in today’s India, “Violence against Muslims” is a “new normal.”
Armed RSS goons attacked the protestors as police silently watched. They raided libraries and hostels and manhandled only Muslim students. In the states governed by BJP, police used unwarranted lethal force which resulted in killing tens of people and injuring hundreds. The riots in Delhi were a state-sponsored pogrom as a BJP politician, Kapil Mishra called for “shoot the protestors.” Organised goons armed with swords, metal pipes, canes and bottles filled with petrol rampaged through streets; killed Muslims; burned their homes, shops, mosques and property. Police assisted the insurgents. In Uttar Pradesh, police raided Muslims and despoiled shops and houses, infusing fright amid the community. Modi amended the Citizenship Act 1955, thus, paving the way for acquiring Indian citizenship for illegal Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, and Christian migrants, who fled persecution in Pakistan, Bangladesh or Afghanistan. Muslims are not eligible for this citizenship. The BJP leadership assured that Hindus and other non-Muslims will be protected in the verification process, however, they conspicuously omitted Muslims out, leaving many in a state of statelessness. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also expressed his concern about the future of religious minorities in India, citing “there is a risk of statelessness.”
After the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, and Indians’ blame on Tablighis, the lives of Muslims are at risk. Modi’s patronage of Hindutva aggravates the umbrage against Muslims. Viral videos of heinous acts are not only inhuman but also a slap on the face of secular India. Muslim men are beaten up and killed for dating Hindu women. Muslim boys are tortured to succumb to recite Hindu chants. Their houses, shops and mosques are burnt for daring to eat beef. Eating cow meat can get a Muslim burnt alive. Muslim girls returning from colleges are showered with filthy water by Hindu boys. All such videos have been circulating the internet; instead of taking action against the extremist violence, the state seems to encourage such acts.
The protests against CAA were ceased in wake of lockdown imposed due to Covid-19. Hindu nationalists blame Muslims for spreading the disease. In a video of 22-year-old Mehboob Ali is seen being assaulted by Hindus who accuse him of coronavirus. Goons deny Muslims access to government installed water pumps depriving them of the basic need of water. A doctor at a hospital in Kanpur suggests Muslims should be injected with COVID-19. This shows that masses are embracing Hindutva ideology; making India a hostile country to live in.
The brutality of state-led hostility against Muslims was intensely revealed when India revoked the special status of Indian Occupied Jammu & Kashmir in August 2019; in an open violation of UN resolutions accepting Kashmir as a disputed territory whose future should be decided through a plebiscite. Not only has India denied the Kashmiris with the basic right of freedom but for the last seven decades, the world has witnessed the grave and intense atrocity against the Muslims in Kashmir with hundred thousands of men, women and children tortured and killed.
Many of the children and young ones made blind with the use of palette guns, hundreds of women raped and tortured by the security forces. The dissolution of the status of Jammu & Kashmir was in the mandate of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) during its election campaign. The heavy curfew in place this time was far more intense than ever before in the region where people have been used to living in curfews and heavy military presence for decades.
With almost a million troops deployed, the government ordered a complete blackout, shutting down all forms of communication including cell phones, landlines, cable TV and the internet. The roads were blocked with concrete barricades every few hundred meters to hamper any signs of movement during the curfew. This lockdown literary turned the occupied valley into prison with communication and interaction with outer world disconnected. After 11 months, as curfew continues in IOK, Indian forces are oppressing people for selling properties to Indian investment tycoons.
The atrocities against Muslims have exceeded all limits and the fascist government has shown its ugly face to the world. These acts of force will have grave repercussions for India. It will eventually have to pay for the barbaric might against the Muslim minority. We don’t need to be Muslims to condemn the violence and atrocity by India; we only need to be humans.
The writer is a Rawalpindi-based freelance columnist and social activist