LONDON: A coalition of progressive Indian organisations has called on the international community to pay heed towards Narendra Modi’s India and stop the Modi government from turning it completely into a Hindu supremacist state.
Members of various Indian organisations gathered outside the Indian High Commission in London to participate in India’s Republic Day candlelight protest to highlight the cases of mob lynchings, discriminations, violence, and threats to the Indian constitution by the Modi government.
The protestors remembered the victims of Hindu supremacist forces in mob lynchings, murders and assassinations, with protesters holding photographs of Junaid Khan, Pehlu Khan, Pastor Sultan Masih, Zafar Hussein, Otara Bibi, Afrazul Khan, Gauri Lankesh, Justice Loya, and others.
The protest outside the Indian High Commission comes less than a week after Dalit groups had marched in a large number through central London against abductions and arrests of Dalit activists in India.The protestors had said that Indian government has nowhere to hide because the world is watching its crimes against its own people. They demanded that the killers, attackers, and propagators of hate be brought to justice, the Constitution be protected and upheld, and that the many political prisoners like severely disabled Professor G.N.Saibaba, Dalit leader Chandrashekhar Azad Ravan and the young Kashmiri photojournalist Kamran Yousuf be immediately released and the fake charges against them are dropped.
On behalf of the South Asia Solidarity Group Nirmala Rajasingham said: “We stand with the many, many Indians who are rising in grief and rage against the horrific violence choreographed by the Hindu supremacist Modi regime and its openly fascist parent organisation the RSS. Here in the UK too these Hindu organisations are spreading their casteist venom and virulent Islamophobia. We will continue to confront them as we pledge to resist India’s descent into a Republic of Fear.”
SOAS India Society’s Rutuja Deshmukh also spoke against the lynchings of Muslims and other injustices in Inda.
“From the lynchings of Muslims in the name of the cow to the attack on a school bus over a film, and Justice Loya’ s mysterious death, there are more than enough reasons to conclude that the Indian state is turning into a fascist regime sooner than anyone imagined. It is our duty as responsible citizens to resist this advent of fascism,” said Deshmukh.
Dr Ambedkar Memorial Committee of Great Britain also lent support to the vigil. Its representative Satpal Muman said: “We are deeply concerned about the horrific attacks on Dalits which have escalated vastly under the Modi regime, about the hatred and violence against minorities and on all those who simply tell the truth. We cannot stand by while the democratic fabric of India is being threatened by the rise of Hindu supremacy
Also present at the vigil was Imran Dawood who had witnessed the murder of his family members who were visiting Gujarat on holiday from the UK, during the Gujarat massacres of 2002, while Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat.- MD
