India’s deep rooted bigotry

Against Muslims

Growing anti-Muslim and anti-Pakistan hatred in India is perplexing – a home to estimated 176 million Muslims. The prejudice and bigotry against the Muslims always existed in India and became one of the prime reasons for a larger movement by the Muslims of India that consequently led to the creation of Pakistan in 1947.

Recent events in India unveiled the deep rooted hatred of Hindu extremists against the Muslims in general and the Pakistanis in particular. The right wing political group, Shiv Sena (Shiv’s Army) with their 63 seats in Vidhan Sabha (Maharashtra Legislative Assembly) and 18 seats in Lok Sabha (Lower House of India’s Bicameral Parliament) is at the forefront of banning Pakistani artists and disgracing Pakistani dignitaries visiting India. A timeline of some of their recent activities is listed below:

• April 2015: Forced to cancel Pakistani singer Atif Aslam’s concert in Pune.
• Oct 2015: Forced organisers to cancel Pakistani ghazal singer Ghulam Ali’s concert in Delhi.
• Oct 2015: Blackened former BJP leader Sudheendra Kulkarni’s face for hosting ex-Foreign Minister Pakistan Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri’s book launch and visit to Mumbai.
• Oct 2015: Before the scheduled meeting of Pakistan Cricket Board chief Shahryar Khan’s with new BCCI President Shashank Manohar, 40 to 50 members of the Shiv Sena stormed the board’s headquarters at Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, shouting slogans against Pakistan.
• Oct 2015: Threatened Pakistani umpire Aleem Dar

• Oct 2015: Shiv Sena threatened Pakistani actors Fawad Khan and Mahira

Founded in 1966 by a Hindu radical, Balasaheb Thackeray (Bal Thackeray), Shiv Sena’s prime motives were to spread hatred against non-Marathi settlers in the state of Maharashtra which later changed into promoting Hindu nationalism and anti-Muslim bigotry. As Atnashev and Kirilenko mentioned in their research paper: “Through its own newspaper, he (Bal Thackeray) repeatedly inspired attacks on Muslims and incited his followers to violence. With the undercover assistance of law enforcement agencies and some politicians, Thackeray has for a long time controlled the local film industry, theatres, businesses, in fact operating a racket and intrusion of the radical Hindu ideology”.

Following the ideology of their founding father, Shiv Sena, has been proactively involved in spreading hatred and violence against Muslims. They are allegedly involved in deadly riots in Bhiwandi in the 70’s and 80’s and also in Bombay riots in 1992-93.

Violence against Muslim minority in India is a widespread issue of Indian society and Shiv Sena is not the only group responsible for it. There is a disturbing history of Hindu-Muslim communal violence and because of insufficient measures taken by the state and the civil society of India to deal with those challenges, Islamophobia and anti-Pakistan sentiments have been consistently growing.

The history of Hindu-Muslim communal violence suggests that anti-Muslim prejudice is deep rooted and disturbingly growing.

In 1992, the world witnessed one of the worst examples of violence against Muslims when extremist Hindus attacked ‘Babri Mosque’ in the city of Ayodhya. The riots claimed over a 1,000 lives, majority of them were Muslims.

The memory of the barbaric incidents of Gujarat in 2002 still frighten the Indian Muslims and indicate the most ruthless form of religious hatred. It is estimated that some 1,000 Muslims were brutally killed in the Gujarat riots along with 20,000 Muslim homes and businesses and 360 places of worships were destroyed. A large number of Indian Muslims hold Narendra Modi, then Chief Minister of Gujarat and present Prime Minister of India, responsible for the Gujarat massacre who failed to perform his duties with due diligence to protect the Muslim community of Gujarat.

In May, 2014, some 41 Muslims were killed in the state of Assam and reportedly the incidents took place as a result of inciting statements against Bangladeshi immigrants by BJP leaders including Mr Modi.

Another interesting and worrying aspect of anti-Muslim hatred in India is its online dimension. Today, a number of young people in India are promoting vile anti-Muslim hatred on social media websites while supporting a newly emerged extremist group called ‘Hindustan Defence League (HDL)’. The organisation seems to be inspired from a UK based anti-Muslim far right group, English Defence League (EDL) who are involved in promoting hatred against in Muslim through social media and by holding demonstrations across UK. HDL is actively promoting anti-Muslim literature on their social media networks which are increasingly adding their supporters and sympathisers. They have over 48K twitter followers at the moment.

It’s alarming to see how a hate promoting organisation like HDL could gain that level of popularity amongst the Indian youth. However, the young people always get inspiration from their elders and in the presence of hate filled political entities like Shiv Sena it becomes very difficult to stop the hatred spreading into the mainstream society.

In a country like India where tens of thousands of people have suffered because of religious clashes, the organisations like Shiv Sena and HDL could further intensify communal violence. It’s high time when the government and the civil society of India take strict notice of such hate promoters who are systemically growing Islamophobia and anti-Pakistan sentiments in India.