Stephen Jenkins
Hindustan Times
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Comments by "Stephen Jenkins" (@stephenjenkins7971) on "'Dehumanising': US to probe Sikh turban seizures near Mexico; Action after racial bias claims" video.
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@jaatankachorraa4677 "Muslims in India have been increasingly at risk since the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi was first elected in 2014. Faizan died in a carnage amidst rising communal tensions in the country. On December 12, 2019, the Modi administration achieved passage of the discriminatory Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA). Under the act, for the first time in India, religion is a basis for granting citizenship. The law specifically fast-tracks asylum claims of non-Muslim irregular immigrants from the neighboring Muslim-majority countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. The amended citizenship law, coupled with the government’s push for a nationwide citizenship verification process through a National Population Register (NPR) and a proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC), aimed at identifying “illegal migrants,” has led to fears that millions of Indian Muslims, including many families who have lived in the country for generations, could be stripped of their citizenship rights and disenfranchised.
Throughout the country, Indians of all faiths have protested peacefully against the law, singing songs, reciting poetry, and reading aloud from the constitution, which commits to secularism and equality. The iconic image of these protests was at Shaheen Bagh, a Muslim-majority neighborhood in Delhi. Since it first began on December 15, the protest, which was led by local women, drew civil society support from across the country. It also provoked the ire of the ruling BJP, with some of its leaders deriding the protesters or more dangerously calling them anti-national and pro-Pakistan. Some have described the protesters as “Pakistani hooligans,” others led a chant to “shoot the traitors,” inciting violence. On February 1, 2020, a man fired two shots in the air near the protest site. On March 24, authorities asked the protesters to disperse following the outbreak of Coronavirus and calls for a lockdown to contain its spread.
Since the Modi administration first took office, BJP leaders have repeatedly made Hindu nationalist and anti-Muslim remarks in their speeches and interviews. These have, at times, encouraged and even incited violent attacks by party supporters who believe they have political protection and approval. They have beaten Muslim men for dating Hindu women. Mobs affiliated to the BJP have, since 2015, killed and injured scores of members of religious minorities amid rumors that they traded or killed cows for beef. In February 2019, BJP supporters threatened and beat several Kashmiri Muslim students and traders, apparently to avenge a militant attack on a security forces convoy.
Government policy has also reflected bias against Muslims. Since October 2018, Indian authorities have deported over a dozen Rohingya Muslims to Myanmar despite the risks to their lives and security. After winning a second term in May 2019, the government revoked the constitutional autonomy of India’s only Muslim-majority state, Jammu and Kashmir, and, anticipating protests, deployed additional troops, detained thousands, and cut off phone and internet connections. The police have failed to intervene when BJP supporters engage in speech inciting violence or mob attacks but are quick to arrest critics of the government."
*That was from HRW. Here's another a year after the above*;
"Authorities in India have adopted laws and policies that systematically discriminate against Muslims and stigmatize critics of the government, Human Rights Watch said today. Prejudices embedded in the government of the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have infiltrated independent institutions, such as the police and the courts, empowering nationalist groups to threaten, harass, and attack religious minorities with impunity.
February 23, 2021 marks the one-year anniversary of the communal violence in Delhi that killed 53 people, 40 of them Muslim. Instead of conducting a credible and impartial investigation, including into allegations that BJP leaders incited violence and police officials were complicit in attacks, the authorities have targeted activists and protest organizers. The authorities have lately responded to another mass protest, this time by farmers, by vilifying minority Sikh protesters and opening investigations into their alleged affiliation with separatist groups.
“The BJP’s embrace of the Hindu majority at the expense of minorities has seeped into government institutions, undermining equal protection of the law without discrimination,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The government has not only failed to protect Muslims and other minorities from attacks but is providing political patronage and cover for bigotry.”"
India isn't as bad as literal dictatorships, but as a minority in the US, India is considered a joke in terms of actual protections of minorities. Better than the likes of China of course, but that's not a high bar.
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