Saffronisation of India had brought nothing but religious disharmony, anti-secularist approaches, racism, gender discrimination, extremism and unequal distribution of rights among the people of India. Historically, Saffronisation or Hindutva was a harmless theology of Hindus, meant to be their way of life. But later it became the main basis of segregation of Hindus from all other minorities in India. Hindutva is now claimed to be the ideology of the most supreme nation “Hindus” in India, as this state is a Hindu majority. Since the last century, Hindutva believers have enhanced their pessimist, violent and extremist influence on the national political, economical, social and cultural spheres. “They want a theocratic state,’’ said B.N. Srikrishna, a former judge on India’s Supreme Court. “This is pushing the country to the brink, to the brink of chaos.” “This is how waves of communal violence start in the country,” he added. 1
BJP alliance with RSS is utterly determined with the escalation of the ideology of saffronisation, which is Hindutva, a polarized phenomena of nationalism. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Butcher of Gujarat,2 oftenly launches his campaign in the name of extremism. To exterminate other minorities particularly muslims from India, is the only agenda of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Bharatiya Janata Party ( BJP).They believe in the extremist approaches but on the front line, they have accumulated liberal, powerful and moderate people to surge racist and fascist saffronisation ideology in Hindus, as a national strategy, in a so called secular democratic state. Muslim artists, activists, academicians, journalists, political and social leaders and human rights defenders are at the verge of execution due to these extremist policies. They are falsely accused of spreading anti-national sentiments among muslims of India, thus arrested under Public safety act, a recognized draconian law by Amnesty International India.3 Sceptically, if the future of India continues to be in the hands of extremist governments, then there would be no time left in the destruction of democratic status of the Republic of India.
It is to be noted that as a conventional member of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Narendra Modi is elected and appointed as a prime minister of a secular democratic state, where RSS does not believe in democratic decentralisation of power and empowerment of the masses based on citizenship rights. The democratic and secular Republic of India is about to loosen its righteous status under the rise of Modi’s Hindutva. The idea of saffronisation is now habitually consuming the constitutional and multicultural values of India. The hegemonic pandits and saffrons having extreme violent tendencies, under the ideology of Hindutva, are exploiting the minorities in India in the name of nationalism.4 In this respect, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat stated on October 8, 2019: “Bharat is Hindu Rashtra and all Bharatiyas are Hindus.”5
Due to the Citizenship Amendment Act, the National Register of Citizens (NRC), and the communalised National Population Register, Indian muslims are facing intense chaos because of the intended demographic change in the regions of India. After the application of CSS and the NRC amendments, there were daily mass protests occurring across India, causing hundreds of casualties and injuries of muslims, since December 15, 2019. The new wave of Hindutva had restated the scenario of independence 1947, an event which had caused the most hazardous migration in the subcontinent. Now, in the times of the year 2020, Hindu fundamentalist outfits such as BJP, RSS VHP, Bajrang Dal and Shiv Sena, including other similar parties, have been promoting religious and ethnic chauvinism in India—also by propagating Hindutva Ideology. As Yogi Adityanath Hindu, a priest and BJP Member Parliament (2007 & 2009) said: “If one Hindu is killed, we won’t go to the police, we will kill ten Muslims”. They are instigating hatred for muslims among Hindus in India. They have propelled the muslims to leave their country by burning their properties, including their vehicles and mosques.
The north eastern states, such as Assam, along the Bangladesh border, had to produce their documentary proof that they or their ancestors lived in India since 1971. They are in dreadful condition because around 33 million people of Assam, a mix of muslim, hindus and christian, failed to prove their citizenship test and now fearing statelessness. The way many Indian muslims of other regions also fear about being asked to produce old birth certificates or property deeds necessary to prove citizenship. Freedom of speech and right to protest are one of the basic fundamental rights, declared by United Nations, and also provided by the state constitution, but still after the CAA amendment, when muslim students, journalists and intellectuals rose their voices for their rights, they were thrashed to their last breath by the Indian military troops, on the orders of Narendra Modi. These security forces brutally handled those innocent students by beating them with wooden poles, dragging them away and sending scores to the hospital. This Indian police had been seen launching live ammunitions and tear gas canisters to disperse the protestors of their own state.6 The vacuous saffrons are continuously detaining innocent muslim youth by labelling them as terrorists. The list includes Masrat Zahra-a photojournalist, Umer Khalid- a student leader, student activists-Safoora Zargar and Meeran Haider, the journalists Gowhar Geelani and Peerzada Ashiq and many more. The only crime of these people was to raise their voice against this injustice.
Moreover, Indian government has not even been transparent to their own citizens. In February, 2020, India’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, under the influence of R.S.S. and Bharatiya Janata Party, blocked a few television news stations for 48 hours because they aired the news of the mob attack on Muslims in New Delhi, which also magnified the broader unrest in the country. The freedom of press has been deliberately breached in a so-called Democratic Secular India. This crucial step of Indian government ignited the pessimist analytical approach of the media, according to which, Modi is practicing limited democracy in India. Since 2014, when Modi came into power, he has tried to restrict and control the media. He cultivated the media to portray his personality as a religiously-tolerant national saviour and hide his anti-racist and extremist aura on the front page. In addition to this, Modi’s government had pressured the media owners to fire journalists who had skeptically criticized his policies. Nonetheless, the continous strangling of the press by Indian government led to the discreditation and harassment of these independent journalists. Formerly, these media personnels got rewarded due to their critical approach, but during Modi tenure, these all are the main scapegoats. They are frightened of being labeled as antinational by the government. He also imposed high restrictions on foreign journalists for travelling to the Indian Occupied Kashmir, so they could not reveal Indian government’s heinous acts on Kahmiri muslims.
Mr. Modi is well known for his role as the Muslim massacre in Gujrat 2002. Hindu extremists under the Narendra Modi regime have started preplanned violence against Muslims in Gujarat. In Gujarat Riots 790 Muslims died, 2500 left injured and 223 missing (A micro-sociology of violence Berenschot ward 11th June 2014). He was called “Butcher of Gujarat” in the main newspapers of India.7 This could not be forgotten that Modi, during 2002, when he was chief minister of Gujarat State, deliberately manipulated tv news channels to not to air the religiously driven violent Muslim genocide in Gujarat, by his own government.8 It is now understood that India's ranking on the Reporters Without Borders press freedom index is 140 out of 180.9 Modi wants the world to see through his lens, that’s why he is projecting India as MahaBharat (Great India) and himself as a peaceful, secular and generous leader, regardless of his strategies and acts to exterminate minorities, particularly Muslims, in India.
Politics is indeed an art, but a cruel one. Where the whole world is batteling with COVID-19, Indian government is grabbing Covid-19 as an opportunity to kick out 200 million Muslim population from India. Initially, they amended the New Citizenship Act and now, they have introduced the new Kashmiri Domicile law. It is, nonetheless, an extermination of muslims from India. Thus, BJP made a strategic move by blaming muslim community for deliberately spreading the virus. This anti muslim strategy brought a huge chaos, as this boosted up the hatred sentiments for muslims, all over India. Indian government left no stone unturned to malign the muslim community in all the regions of India. Kashmiri muslims are already in lockdown for more than eight months. The barbaric intentions of Indian ruling government is not limited to radicalize muslim minority only, but they even terrorize the other minorities in India too, such as Dalits were also inculpated of spreading this virus. The question aroused in public that why particularly would muslims do this, so the anti muslims authorities specially RSS, propagated that muslims wanted to destabilize the country and kill Hindus. 10
During this Covid-19 lockdown, Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of the so-called secular state of India, decided to address Hindus only, by urging them to pray according to hindu rituals to get rid of coronavirus. From the very beginning, his national policies are segregating muslims from the entire nation, regardless that muslims are the second largest community in India, covering almost 14.6% of India’s population.11 The repercussions of such policies led towards hindu’s unwelcoming behaviour towards muslims. Vegetable vendors were asked for proof of their religious affiliation. Such policies definitely are evident to suppress muslims’s identity as Indian muslims. In addition to these demonic acts, Hindu extremists blamed muslims for the spread of coronavirus. The muslims have been treated brutally since the politicization of COVID-19 by India.. They have accused certain muslim political party in New Delhi to arrange a congregation, purposely to spread coronavirus among hindus, but they might have taken those congregations on a lighter note which are surely arranged by themselves.
The so called secular Indian government ordered all the hospitals to segregate muslim patients from Hindu patients. The doctors are not paying attention to muslim patients, under the instructions of government. Such policies tended other formal and informal sectors to marginalize them too, thus mostly muslims lost their jobs recently. These incidents led Hindu extremists to circulate the Islamophobic hashtags on social media. Furthermore, they made fake videos to spread the ambiguity about the spread of coronavirus due to muslims. They had labeled it as #CoronaJihad, and falsely linked it to Indian muslims’ hatred towards Hindus and their intention to kill them through spreading this virus. Such conspiracies ignites every national hindu to fight for his nation by killing and targeting these innocent muslims. 12These muslims are rather to be called terrorists by Indian government, no matter what, they have to prove their loyalty towards Indians at each and every moment. 13
This is not the first time that Hindu right wing parties induced communalism in the nation, in the name of Hindutva. Communal riots have been manifested amongst the nation as an Indian tradition. Hindus extremist parties believed in totalitarianism and majoritarianism, which led them to demonstrate supremacy over the other minorities in India. They have propagated the scenario of spread of coronavirus through muslims, to increase Islamophobia and to reduce the sight of the outer world from Indian national political blunders. They have left no stone unturned in maligning muslims on every possible platform, whether national or international. These frustrated maniac Saffrons are threatening genocide and ethnic cleansing against muslims, so they would leave the so called secular state of India. It is, nonetheless, a dehumanization of whole muslim population of India.
Congressman André Carson of Indiana's 7th District condemned the Indian government’s brutal policies in Indian Occupied Kashmir. He urged them to pull out from IOK and provide them with ease during Covid-19 lockdown instead of snatching their basic rights too.14 The Organization of Islamic Cooperation’s Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission (IPHRC) also criticized the Indian government for their harsh policies regarding muslims in India. They urged the Narendra Modi’s government to overlook the rising tendencies of Islamophobic campaigns in India, arranged by RSS, BJP and other Hindu Right wing organizations. These extremists are deliberately defaming Indian muslims by blaming them for the spread of Coronavirus. OIC showed their concern towards these muslims amidst the COVID-19 breakout.15 Arundhiti Roy, a political activist, revealed that Indian government is actually preparing for the genocial approach for gettng rid of muslim minority in India. She explained how Indian government is managing to use covid19, as a weapon to malign muslims in India.16 In addition to that, Saudi scholar Abidi Zahrani also condemned Indian government for spreading hatred against muslims. He emphasized on the immediate transfer of such extremist Indians to India, who are temporarily residing in the Gulf states. Furthermore, he added that they have been treating them free of cost while these Hindutva Terrorists gangs are committing crimes against Muslims citizens.17
Categorically, Pakistan on the other side, condemned these horrible actions and policies of Indian government. About 456 ceasefire violations by Indian army, using heavy artillery, across LOC, have been recorded since February 26, 2020, when covid-19 broke out worldwide.18 Human rights defenders across the world should approach the International Human Rights organizations to intervene in India in such a homicidal crisis. The International Court of Justice must sanction India for the violation of basic human rights under the conventions of International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination19, International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,20 Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman Degrading Treatment or Punishment and International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. 21 Moreover, it is suggested that ICC should investigate these heinous crimes against muslims, occuring in India. Furthermore, the UN and the International community must take steps to prevent India from changing the demography and distinct identity of occupied Jammu and Kashmir. The so-called progressive and liberal India must be exposed on all of the front forums, so the world could know the meaning of democracy and justice.
https://twitter.com/ZahraniAbidi/status/1249421877052878848?ref_src=twsrc
https://www.geo.tv/latest/283787
Reporter, The Newspaper's Staff. “Indian Army Using People of Held Kashmir as Human Shields: ISPR.” DAWN.COM, April 25, 2020.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1552086/indian-army-using-people-of-held-kashmir-ashuman-shields-ispr.
“International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.” OHCHR. Accessed May 4, 2020. https://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CERD.aspx. 20 “International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.” OHCHR. Accessed May 4, 2020. https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/cescr.aspx. 21 “COMMITTEE ON ENFORCED DISAPPEARANCES.” OHCHR. Accessed May 4, 2020.
https://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/CED/Pages/ConventionCED.aspx.
Ms. Ayesha Waheed is a Researcher at Kashmir Institute of International Relations (KIIR).
She can be reached via twitter at @Ayesha58489614 & E-mail at ayeshawaheed996@gmail.com
All views discussed in this research are author’s own and don’t represent the opinions of KIIR.