Dr M Ali Hamza
Despite being the country’s largest religious-minority, India’s Muslim communities have been frequently subjected to violent attacks and assault by right-wing Hindu nationalists. Earlier these attacks were characterized as communal conflict between Hindu and Muslim populations. However, with the rise of Hindu-nationalism, the attacks have become more systematic, taking the shape of state-sanctioned pogroms.Few examples of Muslim atrocities in India are: the riots of Kolkata in 1964 displaced 70, 000 Muslims. Muslims in Kolkata became more isolated and segregated than ever before in the aftermath of this riot. In theNellie massacre of 1983, 1800 Muslims were slaughtered and the incident is described as one of the most severe massacres since World War II with the majority of victims being women and children. Orchestrated by Shiv Sena: a Hindu nationalist group led by Bal Thackeray, caused Bombay riots of 1992. Who can forget the Gujrat violence?In 2002, an incident described as an act of “fascistic state terror”, Hindu extremists under the leadership of monstrous Modi carried out acts of violence against the Muslim minority population and killed more than 2000 Muslims. Latest Delhi riots of 2020, which left 53 Muslims dead and more than 200 seriously injured. The riots weretriggered against a citizenship law; another offering by Hindu fascist Modi. A law that has beenseen by as anti-Muslim and some columnists referred to these riots as a pogrom.
The anti-non-Hindu campaign that is openly directed to Indian Muslims is gaining pace in a different manner. The Modi’s plan is creeping into IOK (Indian Occupied Kashmir). Last year on August 5, when India revoked the semi-autonomous status of the IOK, it also scrapped the local special citizenship law, guaranteed under Article 35 (A) of the Indian constitution. Since then, up to 25,000 Hindus have been granted domicile certificates in Indian-administered Kashmir, raising fears of the beginning of demographic changes in the Muslim-majority Himalayan region. The issuance of domicile solidify Pakistan’s stance that the major intention behind the Indian Government’s illegal and unilateral actions of 5th August 2019 was to change the demographic structure of IOK and turn Kashmiris into a minority in their own land.The political sane minds believe that decision to provide non-Kashmiri residents with a domicile certificate is certainly the beginning of the end. This is the beginning of Kashmir becoming another Palestine. This demographic shift is in fact Muslim cleansing and an open purge. Behind this purge is the Hindutva mindset. It is vital to comprehend the essential philosophy of Hindutva.
According to Merriam-Webster’s Encyclopedia of World Religions, Hindutva is a concept of “Indian cultural, national, and religious identity”. The term combines a geographically based religious, cultural, and nationaldistinctiveness: a true ‘Indian’ is one who participatesin ‘Hindu-ness’.A staunch Bengali Hindu, Chandranath Basu founded the principals of Hindutva. Later the Hindutva campaign was championed by the Hindu nationalist volunteer organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and other organisations, collectively called the Sangh Parivar. The term was popularized by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, also known as Veer Savarkar: an Indian independence activist and politician who propagated the Hindu nationalist philosophy of Hindutva. An ideological brochureby Savarkar;originally published in 1923 under the title Essentials of Hindutva, and reprinted asHindutva: Who Is a Hindu? reprinted in 1928. Savarkar’s brochureforms part of the list of works published during British rule that later influenced post-independence contemporary Hindu nationalism. Hindus, according to Savarkar, are those who consider India to be the land in which their ancestors lived, as well as the land in which their religion originated. He advocated the creation of a Hindu state in that sense.Sarvakar used”Hinduism” as acomprehensive term that includes all religionsoriginated onIndian land and outlines the vision of a “Hindu Rashtra” (Hindu Nation) as “Akhand Bharat” (Undivided India) that ranges across the entire Indian subcontinent. Some Indians;who claim to be secular, insist, however, that Hindutva is primarily a cultural term to refer to the traditional and indigenous heritage of the Indian nation-state, and they compare the relationship between Hindutva and India to that of Zionism and Israel. This views of these seculars carry no weight, because as summarized by Merriam-Webster’s Encyclopedia of World Religions, holds that “even those who are not religiously Hindu but whose religions originated in India like Jains, Buddhists, Sikhs, and others, share in this historical, cultural, and national essence. Those whose religions were imported to India, meaning primarily the country’s Muslim and Christian communities, may fall within the boundaries of Hindutva only if they subsume themselves into the majority culture. It simply means that Muslims should withdraw from their religious belief and binding. Is this explanation by Merriam-Webster’s Encyclopedia of World Religions not referring to Hindutva as a purge?
Mr. Modi has transformed India into Hindutva driven rouge and irresponsible state. His Govt. trampled fundamental norms and rules of international laws to advance Hindutwa ideology. But are the sane minds in India have also turned irresponsive to these inhuman acts? Have Indians’ bigger majority converted into Sangh Parivar, that dreams of Akhand Bahart through a purge? Are common Indians’ not worried about their identity slipping into future as insane and ridiculously nationalist mob? This is a time for sane Indians to shut-up Mr Modi, shut-down Hindutva ideology, shackle-up groups like RSS and shun Muslim persecution and bizarre state sanctioned pogrom, particularly in IOK and generally within the boundaries of India.
