NEW YORK: Under Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s dogmatic rule, the targeting of minorities — particularly Muslims — by right-wing extremist Hindus is now a way of life in many states, as India degenerates into a conflict zone of sectarian violence, as per an article published in a leading American newspaper.
According to Debasish Roy Chowdhury, a Hong Kong-based Indian journalist and author, mentioned in The New York Times that the vigilante mobs, which often gathered provocatively in front of mosques, started to assault Muslims even in the presence of under-equipped police and under-staffed forces who seemed to fail to intervene adding that in the scenario lynchings and open calls for genocide could be observed as a common practice. India now ranks among the 10 countries at the highest risk of mass killings,” the article noted, citing the ‘Early Warning Project’, which assesses such risks around the world.
Referring to the unpleasant and volatile situation in Manipur, Chowdhury said although the state has a long history of ethnic disturbance, the fuse for the current unrest was lit by the extremist politics of Hindu supremacy, religious polarization, xenophobia and championed by the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
India on The Brink
The article, ‘India on the Brink’, further narrated that since Narendra Modi took charge as PM in 2014, his ruling party has torn those asunder with dangerous exclusionary politics aimed to charge up the party’s base and pushing its goal of reshaping India’s secular republic into a majoritarian Hindu state.
Debasish Roy Chowdhury further noted that the distasteful nature of this kind of politics was predicted earlier, however, the situation in Manipur exposed India further, making it clearer that the world’s most populous country is gradually degenerating into a conflict zone of sectarian violence.
The article highlighted the repeating incidents of mob violence in India, risking the guarantee of equal rights further multiplying the risk of minorities.
Manipur Violence
In Manipur, it said, State government-backed Meitei militias have gone on a rampage of raping, pillaging, looting police armoires and torched villages, including over 250 churches. Videos went viral where Meitei men sexually assaulting two Kuki women.
The violent impact of BJP’s polarizing politics was acutely felt in India’s heartland, and in the area worldly known as a tech and finance hub on the outskirts of New Delhi was rocked by violence last week as Hindu extremists staging a religious procession followed by a clash with Muslims, the article noted.
Consequently, Mosques were attacked, cleric of the mosque was killed, businesses were burned and looted, and hundreds of Muslims have fled,” Chowdhury wrote.
The article maintained that “In tandem with the BJP’s demonizing of India’s about 200 million Muslims, all media tools including television, cinema and social media were deployed to radicalize the Hindu majority, pumping out a steady stream of Islamophobia and vile dog whistles.
The article called the Modi-led BJP’s tactics “a signature tactic of modern-day despots”, to strengthen its grip on power by redefining who belongs to the polity and ostracizing others. “In the ultimate subversion of democracy, the government chooses the people, rather than the people choosing the government.”
The article noted that being highly populated India and having an attractive market both geopolitically and economically, Western leaders like President (Joe) Biden, who staged a lavish welcome for Narendra Modi on a state visit to Washington in June, engaged with the prime minister, downplaying his government’s assaults on liberalism.
“But a political strategy of conspicuous humiliation and subjugation of religious and ethnic minorities that comprise around one-fifth of the population is dangerously deluded. India can be either an economic powerhouse or a conflict zone, and not both at the same time. It is increasingly clear which of those two destinies awaits the country”, Chowdhury wrote.
