Syeda Mazhar
India recently made arrests of at least five after spate of attack on the Africans.” “Hindus attack Muslims in India, 15 killed.” “Catholic nun in her 70s was gang-raped.”
In India, where the Hindu nationalism is on a rapid rise, it has always mattered who says something. What is said depends not on the intellectual content but which side it has blown from. Credit will always be given to your words if you believe in Krishna and had idol worshippers as a family. More, it is in your best interests to not delude yourself into believing that you are an Indian if you are not a Hindu. If you are a Muslim, you can only legally live on sufferance because being a patriotic Indian one does not have to be a tax-paying, law-abiding individual or a philanthropic.
As time passes, India is emerging as a dangerous place to live in for the minorities. Natives as well as immigrants are facing prosecution and discrimination on daily basis. Three young men beat Masonda Ketada Oliver, aged 29, to death late night on May 20th after a verbal altercation over the hiring of an auto rickshaw near a village in Vasant Kunj area of south Delhi.
This was, of course, only the most recent attack. Students at the Delhi University were attacked by a mob, a Tanzanian woman was beaten up by a mob in Bengaluru for being African, three young Africans were attacked by a large Indian mob at Rajiv Chowk Metro station in Delhi… and the list goes on.
The series of racially motivated attacks based on the colour of their skin has caused the students and the African governments to express deep concern. Strict action being sought against such incidents yet the Indian government nor have the Police been able to exhibit their expertise in the matter.
“I call it a racist issue, which is deliberate… When you walk on the roads, they call you names… We are seriously unsafe in India,” claimed an African student union member. Brother, this situation has potential of impregnating itself and manifesting into a bigger problem. This is the sole reason Pakistan was created; the sheer inability of the populace to tolerate anyone slightly different. Of course, except the “superior” white ones.
It has been nearly a week of firefighting by the Indian government as it struggles to contain the potential damage to Indian-African relations following the killing of a Congolese student and spate of attacks on persons from other African countries. Everything seems to be wrong about India’s reaction to the racist attacks on the African students. The spate of rising attacks on African nationals has caused an outrage among the African community.
“It doesn’t matter whether the issue is racial or not. This is a dramatic nation with a police system to look into law and order. Then how can the locals take law in their own hands instead of informing the police about whatever the matter was,” said Abdou Brahim, President of Association of African Students in India.
Gandhi said, “India is never a racist country…” and today’s world crowns India to be statistically the most racially intolerant country in the world. Since Modi became the Prime Minister, the RSS chauvinists, who dream of a Hindu-dominant India, adore him as their champion. There has been an increase in the radical racist attacks without any concrete consequences. The minorities, not only the Muslims, rather everyone who does not belong to the Hindu community. This India is precisely what India’s Muslims feared the most.
The minorities have noted every apparent straw in the wind. In addition, there have been many of the late. In March alone: Subramanian Swamy, a senior BJP leader from southern Tamil Nadu, declared in his speech that mosques, unlike temples, are not holy places and thus can be demolished. Two days later, the BJP chief minister of the northern state of Haryana announced that the teaching of the Bhagavad Gita, the Hindu holy text, would become mandatory throughout the state. A number of churches were vandalized. A 71-year-old nun in the eastern state of West Bengal was gang raped. In addition, the beef ban movements is spreading to new states. A typical Hindu dominant India, yet the news only talks about the efforts made by Modi to open up India’s economy and attract foreign investment.
Modi’s deafening silence about such intolerance indicates that either he cannot control the extremist racist elements working inside India or that he does not want to. He has not addressed the Muslims about the anti-beef movement nor has he consoled the Christians about the massive disrespect showed to their religion. The lack of consequences for the intolerant groups only encourages them more to carry on their doings.
India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s intentions with regard to its approach towards the minority communities, especially with the Muslim community, does not seem to be honest. India as survived, and thrived, as a multi-confessional, multicultural nation because of a shared faith in secular principles enshrined in the country’s constitution. However, India’s minorities who have worn that secular identity as a suit of armor in Hindu India, now feel more vulnerable than they ever have in many years.
