How Zionism and Hindu Nationalism ‘Work TOGETHER’

 

In this episode of ‘Mehdi Unfiltered,’ Mehdi Hasan speaks to award-winning Indian author Arundhati Roy. In the wake of her global success, Roy says that India tried to trot her out as a symbol of Hindu nationalism. Instead, Roy became one of her country’s most prominent dissidents. “For me… there's never been a moment where I felt, ‘Oh, I should do this,’ or ‘I should keep quiet’, or ‘I should suck up to so and so,’” she says.

Mehdi and Roy discuss what it’s like for her to be a target for Hindu nationalists, India and Kashmir, the parallels between Hindutva and Zionism, Israel’s brutal genocide in Gaza, Donald Trump and the rise of global fascism, and also Roy’s powerful new memoir, 'Mother Mary Comes to Me.'

The Tragedy of Babri Masjid and Some Truth About Hindustan | Shaykh Dr. Yasir Qadhi

 

The Impact of Hindutva Extremism in America and the Globe - Dr. YQ & Pieter Friedrich

 

Why coastal Karnataka is southern India’s ‘Hindutva laboratory’

 

Mohammad Ismail was 21 in 2005 when he worked as a salesman at a saree store in the coastal city of Mangalore in the southern Indian state of Karnataka.

One afternoon in May that year, Ismail was on way to Mysore, a heritage city some six hours away, in a bus when he along with several other Muslims were pulled out and brutally attacked by a mob of Hindu vigilantes. Ismail suffered serious injuries and remained bedridden for months.

The reason? The group he was travelling with included Hindu girls.

“The culture at the time was such that we could not even be found near Hindu girls,” Ismail told Al Jazeera 17 years after the incident.

“Mobs from Hindu right-wing organisations would beat up and lynch any Muslim boy over the pretext of seducing Hindu girls or transporting cows for slaughter, and there would be little action against them.”

‘Karnataka model’
In the nearly 320km-long (199 miles) coastal belt of Karnataka, such attacks are no aberration. They have a steady history of more than 30 years, giving the region the notorious distinction of being southern India’s “Hindutva laboratory”.

Hindutva refers to a 100-year-old Hindu supremacist movement that aims to turn a constitutionally secular India into an exclusive Hindu state. The movement is led by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological fountainhead of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and dozens of other Hindu right-wing groups across the country.

India protest
A woman holds a placard during a protest against the killing of a Muslim man in Karnataka’s Belagavi district [File: Aijaz Rahi/AP]
“Everyone talks about the ‘Uttar Pradesh model’ when it comes to Hindutva, but it is actually the ‘Karnataka model’ which has now spread to the rest of the country,” Ismail said.

Over the last few years, Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state governed by the BJP, has made headlines for its anti-Muslim policies, including extra-judicial encounters, demolishing homes and businesses, and arresting people for exercising their freedom of speech.

Before Uttar Pradesh, it was the “Gujarat model” that was widely seen as having first spread the Hindutva movement across India with its large-scale violence and apartheid-style segregation of Muslims.

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Gujarat is also Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state, which he governed for more than a decade before becoming a parliamentarian in 2014.

In 2002, Modi’s government was accused of a state-sponsored pogrom of Muslims following the burning of a passenger train, in which 67 people, most of them Hindu pilgrims, were killed. While officials said more than 1,000 Muslims were killed in the massacre that followed, activists claim the toll was twice as high.

However, the “Karnataka model” has garnered relatively less attention. Yet, since the 1990s, this highly developed and urban region has not just participated in but also led the Hindutva project nationally.

In the last two weeks alone, there have been at least three religiously motivated murders in coastal Karnataka, including two Muslim men and a member of the BJP’s youth wing.

Responding to the Hindu man’s murder, the BJP chief minister of the state said he would implement a “Yogi model” in the state, referring to his counterpart in Uttar Pradesh, Yogi Adityanath, a saffron-robed monk known for his anti-Muslim policies in India’s most populous state.

Another Karnataka minister was even more direct. He said the southern state would “go five steps ahead of Uttar Pradesh” and was ready to even carry out extrajudicial killings of the accused.

Earlier this year, the state made global headlines over a controversial ban on hijabs in schools and colleges.

The state has also banned cow slaughter and introduced an anti-conversion law that makes interfaith marriages a matter of legal scrutiny. Many BJP politicians have called for a boycott of Muslim businesses.

For close observers of Karnataka’s politics, these events are no coincidence.

“None of these issues erupted sporadically … The Sangh Parivar has worked on all of these issues meticulously over decades in this region,” Rajaram Tolpadi, retired professor of political science at Mangalore University, told Al Jazeera.

Sangh Parivar refers to India’s many Hindutva organisations controlled by the RSS.

While the Hindi-speaking northern Indian states are considered the natural support base of the BJP, electoral success in southern India had evaded the party until 2008 when it came to power in Karnataka.

Even now, Karnataka is the only southern state where the BJP is in power – a political success that came after decades of communal polarisation and Hindu consolidation.

It was in Karnataka’s Udupi town in 1985 that a “Dharm Sansad” (religious parliament) had called for the opening of the disputed Babri mosque – a 16th-century Mughal-era structure that Hindu right-wing groups claim was built on the exact site where Hindu god Ram was born.

The mosque was demolished by a Hindu mob seven years later, leading to religious violence across India in which at least 2,000 people, most of them Muslims, were killed.

In 2019, India’s Supreme Court handed over the site to a trust controlled by the federal government to build a Ram temple at the site. Muslims were given land to build a mosque 25km (15 miles) away.

In August 2020, Modi himself presided over a religious ceremony to launch the construction of the temple.

Karnataka does not fit the stereotype of backwardness, unemployment and illiteracy often associated with a “bigoted” society. The state has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country, a higher-than-national average literacy rate, and boasts of Bengaluru, the Silicon Valley of Asia, as its capital.

Since the 1980s, Bengaluru’s thriving IT industry has attracted talent from across the country. Global software giants and almost half of Indian unicorns have offices there. With the first pubs in India, high-rise corporate offices and gated apartments for the city’s upper middle-class, Bengaluru is as cosmopolitan as it gets.

Even coastal Karnataka, the hotbed of Hindutva, is not particularly backwards, either. On the face of it, the region is urban, multicultural, multilingual and wealthy.

The region’s main city of Mangalore is a national education hub with some of the leading engineering and medical institutions located there.


Even during the monsoons, the city is bustling with students huddled in buses, autorickshaws, bus stands and coffee shops. Billboards advertising universities and colleges with photographs of their top-ranking students dot the busy roads.

Malls and restaurants serving Mangalorean, north Indian, Keralite, Goan and Arabic cuisines stand in seeming harmony with centuries-old temples scattered around the city.

“There is overt modernisation but underneath, coastal Karnataka is a deeply parochial society. People here are educated and settled in places like the United States and Dubai, but their worldview remains unchanged – the cosmopolitanism they bring back is limited to money,” Tolpadi told Al Jazeera.

One of the earliest signs of a more aggressive Hindutva was seen in this region in 2009 when a group of young women in a pub in Mangalore was beaten up for violating “Indian values” by dozens of activists belonging to a far-right Hindu group, called the Sri Ram Sene.

“Not just moral policing, hatred for Muslims is public culture here – one which they have successfully exported throughout the state and the country,” Tolpadi said.

The local media, for example, refers to Muslims and Christians as “anya Bharatiya” (the other Indians) or “anya komu” (the other religion).

“Some time back, a Hindu girl and a Muslim boy were attacked and handed over to the police in a case of moral policing by a Hindu group. The next day, the local media said a boy from the ‘other community’ was caught with a girl,” Naveen Soorinje, journalist and author of a book in Kannada language on communalism in Karnataka, told Al Jazeera.


“They do not even mention ‘Muslim’ because it is assumed that both the reporter and the reader is Hindu, and the ‘other community’ is Muslim.”


The Muslims of coastal Karnataka, locally known as the Byari community – a word that translates to trade or business in the local Tulu dialect – are known to have lived in this region for more than a thousand years.

Muslims constitute nearly 14 percent of India’s 1.35 billion population. In coastal Karnataka, however, they form about 24 percent of the population.

The community benefitted from the opening up of the Gulf economies to foreign workforces in the 1970s. They own businesses such as malls, hospitals, construction and educational institutions in the region.

Across the region, hijab-wearing girls and women, who recently found themselves at the receiving end of global attention, are seen driving big cars, walking on the roads alone, going to colleges, or hanging out with friends.

“Other communities also went to the Gulf, but Muslims from Kerala and coastal Karnataka went in large numbers,” Mohammad Kunhi, Karnataka state secretary of the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, a pan-Indian Muslim socioreligious organisation, told Al Jazeera.

“This brought a lot of prosperity and visibility for the Muslim community – flashy cars, new clothes, new technology, more money – which, in turn, created a sense of economic jealousy.”


Mangalore-based activist Vidya Dinaker says the Muslims of coastal Karnataka are not the quintessential oppressed community.

“They are visible, they go to restaurants and malls, they are educated, they drive good cars, they have voices in the otherwise highly communal local media …They are not powerless, so there is a pushback and therefore, there is a good fight.”

The Hindu right-wing forces here manufacture the fear of the Muslim “outsider” alleging they plan to take over Hindu land, businesses, and even their women through marriages and conversion.

The prosperity of the Byari community also caused rivalry with other trading communities, mainly the Konkanis and the Gowd Saraswat Brahmins, the two dominant Hindu castes in the region.

“Whenever there is a riot and Muslim shops are attacked, it is these people who benefit,” said Soorinje. “So, the funding and ideological leadership for Hindutva has come from them.”

Meanwhile, a parallel project to “unify” Hindus divided by castes also continued in Karnataka. Experts say the RSS since the 1940s has been infiltrating schools, colleges, media and local neighbourhoods with one clear message: “Hindu Navella Ondu”, or ‘Hindus are one’ in Kannada.

Two political developments in the 1970s helped the RSS. First, a popular movement against the imposition of the state of emergency by the Congress government in 1975 was spearheaded in the region by the RSS, which used the anger against the then-ruling party to push the Hindutva agenda.

Second, the land reforms enacted by the Congress further antagonised the dominant Hindu caste groups whose lands were taken and redistributed to people from the less privileged castes. Moreover, sustained social engineering even brought the lower castes closer to the RSS than the Congress.

“The Billavas are numerically the dominant caste in this region who have been economically, socially and educationally backward,” Phani Raj, Udupi-based professor and activist, told Al Jazeera.

“But the RSS worked on their social inclusion and they have become the stormtroopers of Hindutva who create terror in the society. For a community with little identity, being called a Hindu and given space and responsibility by the upper castes has meant largely unquestioned devotion to the Hindutva project.”

Today, it is no coincidence that a large section of local Hindu right-wing leadership is occupied by men from the Billava community. At the office of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), a far-right Hindu organisation, young boys sit idly on a breezy morning.

Most of them have not studied beyond high school and have no secure source of employment. They are drivers, medical representatives, contractual staff working in local banks, and security guards. For them, being a part of the Hindutva project is a form of identity assertion – one that hinges on Muslim hate.


A young medical representative who did not want to be identified said his job does not require him to be working all day.

“I have a lot of free time and I devote that to Hindutva … Those with 9-5 jobs cannot do what we do because the idea is to be present immediately whenever there is a case of cow slaughter or ‘love jihad’,” he told Al Jazeera.

“If we do not do this job for Hindutva, who will?”

Link

Is BJP to blame for reports of India's rising Islamophobia?

 

 Left homeless for protesting against hate speech in India.
That's what dozens of people whose houses have been demolished say is happening to them.
Most are Muslims.

But the demolitions took place as emotions were running high across India.
In the past week, people rallied in several cities, protesting against offensive comments that two members of the governing BJP made about the Prophet Muhammad.
Anti-Muslim violence has been growing since 2014 - the year Narendra Modi became prime minister.
What does growing religious intolerance mean for the future of India?

 

The Making of Lynchistan: Inside India's Deadly 'Gau Raksha' Network

 

How to Stop an Indian Muslim Holocaust

The Indian government is complicit.

How dangerous is it to be Muslim in India?

‘Targeted harassment’: Muslim girls in India denounce hijab ban

 

For four days a group of 28 Muslim girls stood in protest in front of the Junior Pre-University college in the Karnataka state after they were denied entry for wearing hijab – an issue that has snowballed to other colleges in the southern state.

On Monday morning Farheen (name changed) and her friends were allowed to enter the premises of the college located in the coastal town of Kundapur in Udupi district, but they were in for a shock after college authorities did not allow them to sit in their respective classrooms with other students.

On the same day, the college officials posted a notice outside the gate declaring prohibition of hijab in classrooms as part of the college uniform code.

“Our teachers told us they will not allow our entry in classrooms or teach us without government orders”, Farheen, a commerce student, told Al Jazeera.

It left Farheen and her friends “hurt and humiliated”.

An official from the education department visited the girls while they were seated in a separate classroom. “Give up on your hijab. If you hold on to this, you will lose out on your education’, he told us,” Farheen recounted.

“How is it fair that other students are being taught and we are told to sit separately and self-study just for wearing a headscarf,” said Farheen’s friend, who also wanted to remain anonymous.

“We used to sit in class all these years with hijab. Now suddenly, they are treating us like criminals and keeping us in a separate classroom. We are hurt.”

The decision of the Kundapur college to segregate Muslim girls, however, has angered students and activists who called it a form of “religious apartheid” and “untouchability”, a reference to the banned practice of discrimination against members of lower castes in the Hindu socio-religious hierarchy.

The Campus Front of India (CFI), an organisation of Muslim students active in southern Indian states said in a statement on Sunday that a ban on hijab is “an organised nationwide conspiracy [that] is systematically executed by the right-wing Hindutva [Hindu-ness] groups to dehumanise Muslim women”.

Visuals of students being shut outside the gate by several colleges in the state have caused mounting outrage among the Muslim minority and triggered protests since last week, with rights groups alleging that the move violates the rights of Muslim students to practice their religion and access education.

The tensions escalated after students and activists allegedly backed by Hindu nationalist groups started to wear saffron colour scarves, calling for hijab ban in educational institutions in the state – where Muslims form 12 percent of the population.

On  Tuesday, students and Hindu right-wing activists were seen marching into campuses wearing scarves and turbansin many colleges across the state andin some cases, clashing with police.

A viral video showing a student in hijab being heckled by a group of Hindu men in Mandya district has caused an online outrage, with many hailing the girl for her bravery in standing up to the “mob”.

Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) announced a three-day closure of educational institutes across the state and appealed for calm.

“I appeal to all students, teachers and management of schools and colleges, as well as people of Karnataka, to maintain peace and harmony,” Bomai said in a tweet.

Last week, his government issued a directive that all educational institutions should follow dress codes set by management.

Siddaramaiah, former chief minister and main opposition leader in the state, blamed the government for “trying to create communal disharmony throughout the state in the name of hijab”.

The government was “denying education to Muslim girls”, he said.

On Wednesday, the state high court which is hearing a petition by the Muslim girls to allow the use of hijabs in educational institutions has referred the case to a bigger panel of judges.

The lawyers appearing for the girls on Tuesday argued before the court that the practice of hijab is protected under the right of freedom of religion guaranteed in the Indian constitution and that the state has no power to ban it.

Kaneez Fathima, a member of the state legislative assembly from the opposition Congress party, who led a demonstration in Kalburgi city in support of girls said that she wears a hijab and sees it as an essential part of a Muslim woman’s life.

“We have been wearing hijab for years without any problem but now, the issue has been suddenly taken up by the BJP and Hindutva groups to rake up communal tensions”, she told Al Jazeera, referring to the Hindu far-right groups.

The controversy over hijab first started a month back when a group of six Muslim students at a government-run women’s college in Udupi district was denied entry into their classrooms because the administration alleged they were defying the rules by wearing the hijab.

The girls, however, defiantly resisted the pressure even as they were made to sit outside the classrooms on stairs.

The controversy has reignited the debate about the rights of India’s minorities under the Hindu nationalist government. Activists have said attacks against Muslims and their religious symbols have increased under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The hijab ban came as the religious minorities, mainly Muslims and Christians, faced attacks from the right-wing Hindu groups in the state – home to the Indian IT hub of Bengaluru. The state’s Hindu-nationalist BJP government has passed laws against cow slaughter and anti-conversion believed to target minorities.

However, the governing BJP defended the hijab ban, arguing that it violates rules on uniform.

“Educational institutions are not the place to practice one’s religion. The girls must focus on education and come to college to study not to assert identity,” Ganesh Karnik, the party spokesperson, told Al Jazeera.

He said that it was a small group of students stirring up the issue as the government on Monday ordered an investigation into the role of “vested interests” supporting students demanding entry of hijab-wearing girls.

But the girls said they cannot be forced to give up their hijab.

“We can’t just remove it. This is targeted harassment by the authorities,” Al-Rifaa, a student from another college in Kundapur, told Al Jazeera.

“For the last 30 years, the college had no issue with hijab. Why is it suddenly a problem, what has triggered this?,” Rifaa asked.

Link

Hindutva Chauvinism Needs to be Censured

 

Chauvinism remains the greatest threat to pluralism and often triggers genocide. When a chauvinist group is in power, it poses a mortal threat to others not just within its own confined spaces but also outside. In our time, Modi and the Sangh Parivar have become a threat to all the non-Hindus everywhere. It is no accident that Muslim and Christian minorities in India are the worst sufferers in the hands of Hindutvadi fascists, while the BJP government and its party leaders incite extermination campaigns.

Genocide is a process and not an end result. It goes through several stages. As I have noted elsewhere nearly a decade ago, “Genocide requires preparation and planning. It begins in the minds of men and needs mass mobilization to commit the horror against the targeted group. The perpetrators or the executioners must not only feel secure but also must be self-motivated and zealous to commit their horrendous crimes. Oftentimes, the task of preparing the mind is left to ideologues and chauvinist intellectuals who sell the poison tablet of intolerance against the targeted group. Without political leadership the overwhelming majority of the perpetrators would not lift a finger in harm. However, once set in motion, typically with a few encouraging and enabling words, they, both – the eliminationist regimes’ shock troops and their societies’ ordinary members – give themselves, body and soul, to death. They do so easily, effortlessly.”

And this is what we are witnessing today in places like India and Myanmar.

Last month, a Dharma Sansad (Hindu convention) was attended by members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party. The 3-day summit, perhaps more properly should be called a hate-fest, was held from December 17 to 19, 2021 in northern India's Haridwar city where multiple speakers, all dressed in saffron garb, the traditional dress for the Hindu priests, made calls for genocide of minorities, especially the country's 200 million Muslims. A part of the event was livestreamed on social media. The videos of some of the speeches have also gone viral.

Hindutva leader Yati Narsinghanand, the notorious priest of Dasna Devi temple in Ghaziabad who was recently anointed 'Mahamandaleshwar' of the Juna Akhara,  told the gathering as the crowd cheered, "Economic boycott won't work. Hindu groups need to update themselves [with better weapons]. Swords look good on stage only. This battle against Muslims will be won by those with better weapons."

Another speaker Sadhvi Annapurna, general secretary of the Hindu Mahasabha [Hindu Grand Assembly], called for the mass murder of Muslims, according to the English news website The Wire. "Nothing is possible without weapons. If you want to eliminate their population then kill them. Be ready to kill and be ready to go to jail. Even if 100 of us are ready to kill 20 lakhs (i.e., 2 million) of them [Muslims], then we will be victorious, and go to jail," Annapurna said.

Dharamdas Maharaj from Bihar said: "If I was present in the parliament when PM Manmohan Singh said that minorities have first right over national resources, I would've followed Nathuram Godse (who killed MK Gandhi), I'd have shot him six times in the chest with a revolver."

Anand Swaroop Maharaj,  who heads the Sambhavi Dhaam, asked Hindus to boycott Muslim vendors. He said that the decision of the Dharm Sansad was the "word of God" and that the government would have to listen to it.  He said: "If the governments do not listen to our demand (of establishment of a Hindu Rashtra through violence against minorities), we will wage a war far scarier than the 1857 revolt."

Sagar Sindhuraj Maharaj emphasized, “I keep repeating again and again that instead of buying Rs 5000 mobile buy Rs 1 lakh (or 100,000) rupee weapon. You should at least have sticks and swords.”

Another Hindu seer, Prabodhanand Giri, who runs an organization called Hindu Raksha Sena in Haridwar, invoked the crackdown against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar as a model for what can be done to drive Muslims away, a monstrous event that has been covered in the media.  He associates himself with the Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, whose picture is featured on his Facebook page. Speaking to the NDTV News the following day, he said that he stood by what he said, and asserted that he was not afraid of the police.

It is reported that around the same time as the Haridwar Summit, a gathering of Hindu Yuva Vahini, an organization founded by Yogi Adityanath, met in Delhi to take an oath. Raising their hands, the hundreds of members chanted, "We make a resolution until our last breath: We will make India a Hindu nation, and keep it a Hindu-only nation. We will fight and die if required, we will kill as well." Importantly, the oath was administered by none other than Suresh Chavhanke, the editor-in-chief of the right-wing news channel, Sudarshan News, who was involved in hate speech over TV controversy last year. He then tweeted a video of the oath to his half a million followers. One of the bail conditions generally is that one should not repeat the offence.

There is little doubt that the fascist ideology of Hindutva has hijacked Hinduism.

As we all know, the genocide against the Jews and Roma gypsies did not start with the gas-chambers; it started with hate speech against those targeted minorities. For decades, the Hindutvadi fascists have prepared their base too well to perpetrate violence and savagery of all kinds against the loathed minority Muslims. Consequently, not a single day goes in today’s India without a Muslim being lynched somewhere in this country. They are reminded that there is no place for them in India, and that if they wanted to live they should settle in the neighboring Muslim countries. 

Link

‘Shown their place’: Muslim livelihoods under attack in India

New Delhi, India – Not everyone in India is excited about the upcoming festive season in October and November.

For Afzal, a mutton seller in Greater Noida – a suburb in Uttar Pradesh state neighbouring capital New Delhi – who did not wish to give his real name for fear of reprisal, it would mean a loss of business for nearly 10 days.


“We have nowhere to complain. The police and the municipality officials side with such groups,” adds Afzal, with some trepidation.

Afzal has been fortunate: though he has been targeted, he has not faced any physical violence. Many others have not been so lucky.

On September 23, two Muslim men in Mathura, a temple town in Uttar Pradesh, were badly beaten up for carrying meat. Earlier this month, the government decided to make a large part of the city alcohol- and meat-free.

About a month ago, in Indore city of Madhya Pradesh state, also governed by the BJP, a Muslim bangle-seller, Tasleem Ali, was beaten up because he was selling his wares in a “Hindu locality” allegedly under an assumed Hindu name.

Within a week or so, in Ujjain city in the same state, a Muslim scrap dealer was forced to shout “Jai Shri Ram” (Victory be to Lord Ram), a war cry used by Hindu supremacist groups.

Similar incidents were reported in Uttar Pradesh as well in the same month.

The owner of a horse carriage in Lucknow was forced to chant “Death to Pakistan” on the basis of a fake claim that he had hoisted a Pakistani flag on his carriage.

Then again, in Mathura, a Muslim eatery owner was forced to change its name from “Shrinath Dosa” to “American Dosa Corner” because right-wing groups objected to him using the name of a Hindu god.

All these incidents were recorded in a series of disturbing videos that went viral. The common thread in the videos is that they showcase Muslim vendors and small traders being assaulted because of their religious identity.

Also, the assaulters in all such cases are alleged members of Hindu right-wing groups, who feel emboldened under Modi’s government and exercise significant impunity.

Such incidents are being seen as part of a larger attack on the livelihoods of Muslims, many of whom are self-employed or are engaged in low-paying jobs.

Nearly 46 percent of Muslims are self-employed in urban India, the largest as compared with any other community, according to data from the government’s National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO), 2013.

The report adds that Muslims are the poorest among all religious groups in India and are concentrated in low-paying jobs in the informal sector.

Jeremy Seabrook and Imran Ahmed Siddiqui, in their book People Without History: India’s Muslim Ghettos, have documented a gradual “de-skilling of Muslim workforce” due to globalisation, which has forced them into low-paying jobs.

If these frequent incidents of attacks on Muslim livelihoods are seen “in consonance with some policy measures which the BJP government has taken in different states in the last few years, then it is a worrying trend indeed,” Abdul Waheed, professor of sociology at the Aligarh Muslim University in Uttar Pradesh, told Al Jazeera.

In 2017, when the BJP government came to power in the northern state, one of its first moves was to shut down slaughterhouses and meat shops. The ostensible reason was that such places were not following legal regulations.

However, till date, no related regulation has been enacted. “The absence of any regulation in this regard makes it clear that the intention behind such a move was to destabilise Muslim businesses,” Manoj Singh, journalist and researcher in Uttar Pradesh’s Gorakhpur city, who has been tracking the rise of the BJP in the state, told Al Jazeera.

In March this year, the city council in Gurugram in Haryana state – also governed by the BJP – decided to close all meat shops and ban all restaurants from serving non-vegetarian food on Tuesdays to respect “Hindu sentiments”.

Such measures are likely to affect Muslims adversely. “This is a clear attack on Muslim livelihoods since, traditionally, it is primarily Muslims who are engaged in the meat and poultry business in India,” says Waheed.

Singh argues that such incidents belie the Uttar Pradesh government’s claim that it is interested in the development of all. “We do not see members of such vigilante groups arrested which only means that they have the tacit support of the government.”
Shalabh Mani Tripathy, BJP’s spokesman and media adviser to Uttar Pradesh chief minister, counters such claims.

“The state government is popular even among Muslims because of its various schemes. A narrative is being built by vested interests that the government is anti-Muslim which is not true,” Tripathy told Al Jazeera.

“Some of these videos and incidents have turned out to be fake. Others are being probed; therefore, it will be premature to comment on them. Let me assure you that no one is above the law in the state.”

Economic marginalisation
It is well-documented that Muslim properties have been targeted during various communal riots in India. But focused attacks on small traders and hawkers seem to be a new trend.

As the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in India last year, Muslim fruit-sellers were targeted and scapegoated for allegedly spreading the virus. Posters were put up in several villages announcing that Muslim vendors were not welcome in those areas.
The National Hawker Federation, an association of street vendors across 28 states in India, issued a statement in April 2020, condemning the profiling and harassment of Muslim vendors.

“These attacks are sure to make the economic situation of Muslim hawkers more precarious,” Waheed told Al Jazeera.

“It is an effort to create terror and insecurity in the minds of Muslims and restrict their free movement. Now an average Muslim trader will have to think twice before venturing into a Hindu locality. Such restrictions will only mean that their businesses will suffer.”

It appears that such attacks are happening due to an ideological motivation to hit Muslims economically by driving them out of their professions, so that they are forced to convert eventually.

In January 2021, at a Hindu panchayat (mass gathering) in Uttar Pradesh’s Meerut, anti-Muslim preacher Swami Anand Swaroop said the Hindus “should decide that they will not buy anything from Muslims”.

“If you destroy them socially, politically and economically, they will begin converting to Hinduism from Islam,” he told a crowd of hundreds.

Journalist Singh links the current spate of attacks against Muslims to the upcoming state assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, in which the BJP is seeking to retain power.

“The BJP government has been speaking against Muslims since it came to power, but just speaking against them is not enough to win the hearts of their Hindu supporters in the politically charged state,” he said.

“The Muslim community has to be brought to its knees by economically marginalising them even further. This is being done in order to send a signal to the Hindu electorate that Muslims are being shown their place.” 

Link

Is India’s Hindu majority radicalized against Muslims?

 

“Hum unka murder bhi na karen “Can’t we even murder them (Muslims)?” These were the words of Suraj Pal Amu, president of an Indian far-right outfit Karni Sena, while addressing an audience of 50,000 at a Mahapanchayat (great council) in the north-Indian state of Haryana on May 30. The council was held in support of the accused arrested for lynching a Muslim man in Mewat, Haryana.

On May 16, a 25-year-old Muslim youth Asif Khan from Mewat’s Khalilpur Kheda village was lynched allegedly by a mob. Asif was returning home after buying medicines.

“Unhone bola ‘Mulleh, tum logo mein se ek ko bhi nahi chhodenge,’ aur ye bhi bola ‘tum sab se hum Jai Shri Ram bulvayenge’ (They said they will not leave any of us alive and also said they will make us chant Jai Sri Ram),” the Quint quoted Asif’s cousin Rashid, an eyewitness, as saying.

When the police arrested the accused in the ‘lynching case’, people from a certain section of the Hindu society opposed their arrest. This is not the first time when some sections of the Hindu majority community in India supported people accused of committing crimes against Muslims, India’s largest religious minority.

This incident, and similar incidents like this, illustrate that India is following the path of Nazi Germany where the majority of Germans were radicalized to the extent that they blindly supported the holocaust against the Jews. In Nazi Germany, Jews were dehumanized by Hitler’s propaganda machinery. They were called ‘cockroaches.’ Using such kind of genocidal terminology is the first step towards genocide. Holocaust didn’t start with gas chambers, it started with hate speeches.

When a section of the society is dehumanized, the other groups of the society become apathetic towards them. The perfect example of this was how German society supported Nazis and their actions, which killed millions of Jews.

I can see the same pattern being replicated in India. Muslims in India are being dehumanized and the majority of Hindu society has become mute spectators. The right-wing Hindu politicians and a large section of Indian Media continuously target Muslims. This leads to the dehumanizing of Muslims in the social sphere and they are, in turn, treated as the second class citizens of India.

The pattern of this dehumanization can be seen in various ways.

Since ultra-Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi came to power in 2014, several Muslims were lynched by Hindu extremist mobs in different incidents across the country. Following these incidents of violence against the Muslims, those Hindu extremists who were involved in these heinous crimes received support from certain section of the majority community, and in turn, exposing the deep-seated bigotry of the majority society.

Just a week after Modi took oath as Prime Minister of India in 2014, a Muslim techie named Mohsin Shaikh was lynched in Pune, Maharashtra by members of a far-right Hindu outfit called Hindu Rashtra Sena. The accused Dhananjay Desai was released on bail and received a heroic welcome from his supporters.

In 2017, a Muslim daily wage worker named Afrazul was brutally beaten up and burnt alive on live camera in Rajsamand, Rajasthan. A Hindu man Shambhu Lal Regar, who committed this heinous crime, was hailed as a hero. His supporters attacked a local court in Rajasthan and hoisted a saffron flag on top of it. Within three days, his supporters had collected Rs 2,75,000 ($3,767). Moreover, on the occasion of a Hindu festival, people made a tableau of Regar and used it in a parade.

In another incident, Alimuddin Ansari was lynched in Jharkhand on June 29, 2017. His killers got bail from the court and Modi’s ministerial colleague, Jayant Sinha garlanded them. In a BBC interview, Sinha even admitted that BJP leaders had provided legal expenses to the accused in the case.

In 2018, an 8-year-old nomadic Muslim girl was raped and brutally killed inside a temple in Kathua, Jammu and Kashmir. The culprits kept her in captivity for several days, sedated her and raped her multiple times and later killed her.

When police arrested some accused in the case, a Hindu Right Wing organization called Hindu Ekta Manch took out a march in support of the accused. The rally was attended by BJP ministers.

BJP leaders not only support these criminals but also deliver anti-Muslim hate speeches to fuel Islamophobia in the country.

For example, in 2016, Anant Kumar Hegde, a BJP leader had said “Islam should be wiped out from this world.”

In the Mahapanchayat (great council) held in Haryana on May 30 to support the alleged killers of a Muslim man Asif Khan, approximately 50,000 people attended the event and several local BJP leaders had also joined it. The council cannot be seen in isolation, as this was not the only event that took place in Mewat in support of the murder accused. Many such small panchayats were held in different villages of Mewat before this Mahapanchayat.

These incidents are enough to expose the deep-seated anti-Muslim hatred prevailing in the majority community of India. The radicalization of the Hindu majority has happened to such an extent that they are openly taking out rallies in support of the people accused of violence against Muslims, and which include rapists and murderers as well.

This radicalized lot is openly calling for the killing of Muslims because they are confident that the government will not take any action against them. These radicalized speakers are aware that the more hatred they will spew against Muslims, the more their popularity will grow among their supporters.

Hindu Nationalists in India understand the anti-Muslim psyche of the society. It is one of the main reason that they do not shy away from spewing hatred against Muslims. In India, many far-right Hindu leaders proudly accept their involvement in anti-Muslim criminal activities. Their hatred against Muslims makes them more popular in society.

Bhavesh Patel, a convict in Ajmer Dargah Blast 2007, was released on bail in 2018. When he reached his hometown Bharuch, he was a given heroic welcome by a large crowd that included office bearers of BJP and other far-right Hindu outfits.

Pragya Thakur is accused in the Malegaon Bomb blast of 2008. After being released from jail on bail, she contested parliamentary elections on a BJP ticket in 2019 and emerged as a winner by getting 8,66,482 votes. Thakur has confessed on camera that she was involved in Babri mosque demolition in 1992. Yet, this has not mattered for a society where hatred for Muslims is a populist tactic to win elections and wield power.

A year ago, when India was witnessing historical mass protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), a few BJP leaders including Kapil Mishra, and their supporters marched on the streets against Muslim protesters and shouted slogans like “Shoot the traitors”.

It is a fact that hate speeches in India always incite people to commit crimes against targeted groups, especially the Muslim minority community. In India, where the polarization of the political sphere has led to a divisive body politic, the otherization of Muslims is key to stay in power.

In another incident last year, a Hindu man Kapil Gujjar fired at Muslims who were protesting against CAA at Shaheen Bagh Delhi. Later on, Kapil was released on bail and joined BJP. Following the outrage, the BJP, however, expelled him.

Few weeks after the shooting incident, anti-Muslim riots took place in North East Delhi in February 2020, in which scores of Muslims were killed and dozens of properties belonging to Muslims were burnt down and many were arrested. However, the leaders who shouted hate-filled slogans and delivered incendiary speeches were never arrested. On the contrary, they became more popular among the masses.

In April 2021, a Hindu priest Narsinghanand organized a press conference where he abused the Prophet of Islam (PBUH). A case was registered against him but he was never arrested. Following the press conference, he became the apple of the eye for Hindu Nationalists. The BJP leader Kapil Mishra raised 4.8 million INR through crowdfunding for Narsinghanand.

Suraj Pal Amu who recently addressed a Mahapanchayat in support of murder accused, has been appointed as spokesperson of BJP. No action has been taken against him yet.

If murder and terror accused are being treated as heroes in a society, then that society can be anything but civilized. Right-wing leaders in India want to spread hated against Muslims because it helps them to gain popularity, and society by and large wants to elect hatemongers because they want to teach a lesson to Muslims.

In the present political landscape of India, the onus of reforming the Hindu society is on the shoulders of well-meaning Hindus who want to defeat this fascism. India needs a social reformer from the majority Hindu community who can deradicalize the Hindu society.

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Love Jihad in India’s Uttar Pradesh

Muslim Family Brutally Attacked By Hindutva Mob

 

Reports have surfaced that a Muslim family was brutally beaten up by a group of men after they barged into their home in Yamna Vihar locality in New Delhi on Friday night. According to an Urdu news portal Roznama Khabrein, 11 family members including children and women were injured in the attack by the gang led by certain Vipin. A delegation of Jamait Ulama-e-Hind met the victims and expressed their solidarity and support with the family of Yamin Khan.

 The report said that the family told the Jamiat delegation that they were attacked for their Muslim identity. Yamuna Vihar was one of the worst hit localities in the riots that shook the national capital last year leaving 53 dead, majority of them Muslims. The family said that even though the iron gate of the lane was shut, Vipin beat up the guard who attempted to resist their forced entry. He and his men then entered into Yamin Khan’s house, beat up family members and misbehaved with women folks.

 After the family dialed the police helpline the goons ran away. Jamiat delegation led by Maulana Hakimuddin Qasmi took up the matter with top police officials of the area including DCP. The police told the delegation that a case has been filed and gang leader Vipin has been nabbed. The police assured them that all the accused will face the law. 

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India: How a Muslim doctor was incarcerated for raising his voice

Dr Kafeel Khan told Al Jazeera he was physically tortured while in captivity, which included him being stripped of his clothes and beaten and deprived of food for days.

"It was very hard for the whole family. My 65-year-old mother was forced to visit the courts during the peak of the coronavirus pandemic," he said.

Dr Khan was arrested in January for a speech made a month earlier that authorities in Uttar Pradesh (UP), governed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), deemed incendiary. He was later charged under the National Security Act (NSA), which stipulates that a person can be held without charge for a year.

His speech focused on major issues facing the country of 1.4 billion people such as malnutrition, lack of health facilities and unemployment crisis.

They really wanted to break me this time.

But Khan's criticism of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which bans Muslims from neighbouring South Asian countries from gaining Indian nationality, seemed to have earned him the government's ire.

The passing of the law in December sparked nationwide protests led mostly by Muslims - India’s largest minority, numbering nearly 200 million.

Yogi Adityanath, who is UP's chief minister and known for his anti-Muslim statements, ordered a crackdown against anti-CAA protests in the northern state. More than two dozens Muslims were killed in police action that was condemned by Amnesty International India.

"Who will speak up in this time of atrocities, if we are also quiet, who will raise their voice?" Khan had said during the speech in front of students of Aligarh Muslim University, located around 125km from the capital, New Delhi.

Critics and family members say the 38-year-old paediatrician was targeted because he chose to speak up against the law, which the United Nations dubbed "fundamentally discriminatory".

The UP police department in its complaint accused Dr Khan of "sowing seeds of discord towards other religious communities".
But the Allahabad High Court on Tuesday disagreed with the police, saying "a complete reading of the speech also nowhere threatens peace and tranquility of the city of Aligarh [located in UP]".

Dr Khan is rising as a prominent Muslim face in India, which the government doesn't want ... they don't want an educated Muslim person raising his voice, about their rights or equality.

"The address gives a call for national integrity and unity among the citizens. The speech also deprecates any kind of violence," the 42-page judgement read as it ordered the immediate release of Khan.

Dr Khan said that after he was slapped with the NSA, his family became "untouchable" as people avoided contact with them in their home city of Gorakhpur in UP. "Lawyers would not take my case," he said.

His activism has also brought troubles to his family. His brother Adeel Khan said his business has been targeted since Kafeel Khan was arrested in 2017. Another brother survived a gun attack.

The 38-year-old doctor's release on Tuesday ends his third stint in prison [Courtesy family of Dr Kafeel Khan]
Harjit Singh Bhatti, a doctor based in New Delhi, has been one of Khan's most vocal supporters. He said that Khan has been presumably targeted because of his religion.

"Dr Khan is rising as a prominent Muslim face in India, which the government doesn't want ... they don't want an educated Muslim person raising his voice, about their rights or equality," Bhatti told Al Jazeera.

Dr Khan has spent nearly 500 days in prison in the last three years, as his case has become a symbol of state repression on dissent.

And he is not the only one. Several activists behind the peaceful anti-CAA protests are still behind bars for opposing the government's alleged anti-minority policies.

The address gives a call for national integrity and unity among the citizens.

Rights groups have condemned their continued incarceration as the coronavirus virus pandemic poses a threat to their life in India's crowded prisons. On Monday, India overtook Brazil to become the second-worst country hit by COVID-19 with over 4.2 million cases.

The 38-year-old doctor's release on Tuesday ends his third stint in prison.

His ordeal with the BJP-led UP government began in September 2017, when he was arrested in the wake of the deaths of 70 children due to lack of oxygen supply at Baba Raghav Das (BRD) Medical College hospital in Gorakhpur, Khan's hometown.

Then a junior doctor in the paediatrics department, Dr Khan was hailed as a hero for securing a supply of oxygen tanks for the hospital ward from his personal money.

However, according to Dr Khan, the incident did not go down well, with Adityanath chastising Khan for his efforts upon meeting him days after the incident.

Khan was arrested with eight others for the deaths of the minors, and jailed for seven months.

He was arrested again a year later for 45 days, after authorities claimed he had barged into a hospital in the Bahraich district in UP, leading to an alleged ruckus.

The doctor claims he went to the hospital to enquire about the deaths of children at the hospital from encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain. Thousands of children have died in Uttar Pradesh and in neighbouring Bihar state due to episodic outbreaks of encephalitis since the 1970s.

In 2018, an investigating team looking into the BRD hospital tragedy exonerated the paediatrician of any criminal wrongdoing. Khan has sought an apology from the Adityanath-led government and the reinstatement of his job.

But instead, the government ordered another inquiry into the children's death case.

Dr Bhatti, who is also the President of Progressive Medicos and Scientists Forum, said Khan has been made a "scapegoat".

"Khan has been continuously made a scapegoat for the BRD tragedy, despite being a junior doctor at the hospital," Bhatti told Al Jazeera.

Bhatti has been an outspoken critic of the Modi government's coronavirus pandemic policy, as the country has emerged as the epicentre of the virus in Asia.

Khan, who has moved to western Rajasthan state since his release, says he feared for his life inside the jail. "For the first four to five days of my incarceration, I did not receive any food. I wore the same clothes ... I was not able to take a bath or brush my teeth."

"To go to the toilet there was a queue of 30 minutes," he said, adding that he had to share the barrack with some 150 people while it actually had the capacity to hold 40.

"They really wanted to break me this time," he told Al Jazeera.

The paediatrician said at times he would bite on his sleeves to distract himself from the excruciating hunger he experienced. "I was in so much pain I could have eaten grass," he said.

He said that jail authorities asked him to stop talking about the BRD hospital tragedy, and also demanded that he stop criticising CAA and a proposed citizenship register, which critics fear will likely be used to disenfranchise Muslims.

Despite the immense hardships, Khan revealed that his fellow prisoners, who were aware of his heroics during the BRD episode, would help him with food and other requests during his incarceration.

Khan has temporarily moved to Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan state, where he has been reunited with his family, including his two children, wife and brother.

He said his most pressing concern is to demand the UP government revoke his suspension from his previous post at the BRD hospital so that he could resume his work.

"For the past three years," he said, "I have written 25 letters to the UP government to either revoke my suspension or terminate me, so that I can go work somewhere else."

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From India, Islamophobia Goes Global

In the West, the BJP’s brand of Islamophobia has found an eager partner among the far-right, as recent developments in famously multicultural Canada demonstrateIn the West, the BJP’s brand of Islamophobia has found an eager partner among the far-right, as recent developments in famously multicultural Canada demonstrate. In April, city councils across Canada voted to allow the Islamic call to prayer, the azan, to be broadcasted for a few minutes a day during the holy month of Ramadan. The government hoped to foster a sense of inclusion as mosques and other places of worship were closed for the COVID-19 lockdown. The decision elicited a major backlash, including mass petitions and online hate, with the far-right suggesting “Islamism” had infiltrated Canadian society and politics.

Some members of Canada’s Indian diaspora echoed such sentiments, tweeting comments about how the prayer call broadcasts are part of an Islamist “strategical campaign through out the world” or that “blaring loudspeakers” can never be “peaceful.” Several of the tweeters have quietly lost their jobs since then, amid pressure from anti-hate groups.

But few cases have garnered much attention. The exception is that of Ravi Hooda, who sat on a regional school board in the Toronto area and tweeted that allowing the prayer calls to be broadcast opens the door for “Separate lanes for camel & goat riders” or laws “requiring all women to cover themselves from head to toe in tents.” When Hooda’s tweet was called out by the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, a Twitter war ensued. Dozens of pro-Indian accounts, often with usernames containing an eight-digit string of numbers—a common indicator of a bot account—came to Hooda’s defense. A local controversy instantly took on an international character.

Hooda, for his part, is a volunteer for the local branch of the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh, which represents the overseas interests of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the right-wing Hindu nationalist organization that promotes the Hindutva (literally, “Hindu-ness”) ideology that India is a purely Hindu nation at its core. Modi himself is a lifelong RSS member, and a majority of his ministers have a background in the organization. The Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh opened its first chapter in 1947, in Kenya, and today has more than 500 branches in 39 countries. The group’s chapters are called shakhas (branches) and, in addition to offering community services, help organize the diaspora through lectures, camps, and other organizational sessions that are aligned with the RSS’s ideological outlook.

The spread of right-wing Hindu nationalism in Canada has allegedly dovetailed with efforts by Indian intelligence agencies to “covertly influence” Canadian politicians to support Indian government positions through disinformation and money, according to documents obtained by Global News. There’s no proof of how successful this lobbying has been, but it’s clear that New Delhi is stretching its global reach at the same time that the BJP’s rhetoric and actions have politicized a new generation of Indian expats.

A glimpse of this global reach was provided by the EU DisinfoLab last fall in a report detailing a network of over 260 pro-India “fake local media outlets” spanning 65 countries, including throughout the West. The media organizations bear the names of local towns and cities, but none of them has any real connection with the localities they purport to represent, and all feature pro-India and anti-Pakistan content. Every news site was registered by the Srivastava Group, an Indian corporation that last year took right-wing European politicians on a trip to Kashmir, where they met with Modi.

Such reach can also be seen in the efforts of Indian expats and Indian Americans in the United States who organized last fall’s “Howdy, Modi!” event in Houston attended by 50,000 people, including U.S. President Donald Trump and other Republican and Democratic politicians. Indian American volunteers did the heavy lifting and funded the event, which turned a meeting between heads of state into a public spectacle. The event was meant to cement Trump-Modi relations as well as to rally the U.S.-based diaspora around the BJP, thus bolstering the prime minister’s popularity back home.

An organized, RSS-minded, pro-BJP diaspora in the West and beyond would obviously be a great asset for Modi’s government.An organized, RSS-minded, pro-BJP diaspora in the West and beyond would obviously be a great asset for Modi’s government. Elected officials would think twice before criticizing India, already a rising and influential power, for fear of angering their constituents. There are already hints that such calculations are being made by leaders. After an anti-Muslim pogrom broke out in Delhi in February, resulting in more than 50 deaths—the worst sectarian violence India has seen in years—Canada kept almost silent. While speaking to his Indian counterpart after the riots, the Canadian foreign minister offered a note of vague concern, roundly criticized in Canadian media. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made no statement, and the four Indian Canadian members of Trudeau’s Liberal caucus showed a similar reluctance to comment, drawing criticism from community organizations.

Similarly, foreign governments remained largely silent last summer when Modi stripped Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir of its special status and placed it under a brutal military lockdown. This had observers wondering whether “Hindutva-inspired lobbies in the West,” as the researcher Fareeha Shamim labeled them, succeeded in their goals of building global influence from the ground up. Liberal politicians now hold an uncomfortable position, reluctant to criticize Modi lest they be attacked by his supporters in the diaspora.

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‘Tear Them Apart’: How Hindutva WhatsApp Group Demanded Murder, Rape of Muslims in Delhi Riots

At 11:44 pm on February 26, a message sent on a WhatsApp group boasted of the murders of two men. It read: “Tumhare Bhai ne abhi 9 bje k krib b.vihar m 2 mulla mare hai (Your buddy has just killed two mullahs [derogatory word used for Muslims] in Bhagrirathi Vihar at around 9 pm).”

On the morning of February 27, the lifeless bodies of two brothers – Mohammad Aamir and Hashim Ali, aged 30 and 16 – were found in a drain in Bhagirathi Vihar, covered with gory wounds.

The night before, Asghari, their mother, had received a phone call from Aamir. “Paanch minute mein ghar pahunch jayengey (We will be home in five minutes),” he had told her. But he never came home. Neither did his brother. There were communal riots in Delhi at the time. Aamir and Hashim were two among the more than 50 victims of the violence.

Aamir’s eight months pregnant wife and two daughters are now alone. She is still observing her iddat (Islamic period of waiting after being widowed or divorced) and prays all day, every day for justice for Aamir.

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British Muslims held for two months in India claim religious persecution

Eight British Muslims detained in India for more than two months face criminal charges after getting caught up in a court case in which thousands of foreign Muslims are accused of violating the coronavirus lockdown.

The men allege they are victims of religious persecution by the Indian government, which is led by the rightwing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), known for its anti-Muslim agenda. According to a petition filed to Delhi high court on 20 May, their treatment is “tantamount to illegal detention”.

More than 2,500 foreign Muslims, from 35 different countries, are being charged in the case. Last week, the Indian government agreed to release and deport detained foreign Muslims but only if they accepted guilt for visa violations and “wilfully” disobeying lockdown orders.

“We haven’t done anything wrong. We don’t deserve to be treated like this,” said Shamsul, 39, an optometrist from Lancashire who had travelled to Delhi in March to attend an Islamic gathering.

Speaking by phone from the Delhi centre where he is being held, Shamsul added: “When you are locked away like an animal inside a room and you get treated like a piece of dirt, it mentally just breaks you completely.”

The UK Foreign Office has been accused by the men and their families of abandoning its own citizens to prejudice at the hands of the Indian government and of “caring more about diplomatic relations than the appalling human rights violations”.

In a statement, the FCO said: “We are supporting a group of British people detained in India. We are in close contact with prison officials and the Indian authorities to secure consular access for those who remain in detention.”

Most of the detained British citizens had travelled to India to visit the headquarters of a Muslim organisation, Tablighi Jamaat, located in the Delhi neighbourhood of Nizamuddin. They attended a gathering between 10 and 15 March, alongside thousands of Indians and other foreigners.

The day after the gathering ended a notice was issued limiting events in Delhi to 50 people to restrict the spread of Covid-19. Just over a week later, all international flights were grounded and a strict nationwide lockdown was imposed with four hours’ notice. More than a thousand visitors, both Indian and foreign, found themselves stranded in Tablighi Jamaat’s headquarters.

Documents show that Tablighi Jamaat had been given permission to hold the event. Other religious gatherings were still taking place around the country at the same time, including a Hindu religious ceremony in Madhya Pradesh on 20 March attended by 800 people, from where multiple coronavirus cases later emerged.

However, Tablighi Jamaat became embroiled in controversy after it emerged that dozens of attendees at the gathering had contracted coronavirus and then travelled back to towns and villages across India, or stayed in the Nizamuddin headquarters without following physical distancing.

Across India, a public campaign of hate began to build. Driven in part by anti-Muslim sentiment, Tablighi Jamaat was singled out and accused by Delhi police, BJP politicians and the media of not only conspiring to violate lockdown but also encouraging its Muslim congregation to fight “corona jihad” and purposefully spread the virus, something Tablighi Jamaat vigorously denies. Tablighi Jamaat’s leaders were arrested and face charges of culpable homicide and manslaughter for their alleged role in spreading coronavirus.

On 31 March, about 950 foreigners – including at least four British citizens – who were stuck in the Nizamuddin building were rounded up by police. They were told they were being taken into standard coronavirus quarantine.

Shamsul was among those detained. A lifelong follower of Tablighi Jamaat, he was making his first trip to India.

“After lockdown was announced in India I tried to get home but there weren’t any flights and the embassy was no help,” said Shamsul. “So I just stayed in Nizamuddin and when the police took us into quarantine I wasn’t worried. We all presumed it was normal procedure. We didn’t know we would never be allowed to leave.”

According to Shamsul, for the first 50 days the men were locked in their small rooms, shared between three people, for 24 hours a day. He said water regularly cut out for two days at a time, they were given no soap or toilet paper and were fed the same meal of rice and lentils every day, twice a day. He said their passports were taken from them, and then their mobile phones, under the guise of sanitation. When the phones were returned a week later, photos and messages had reportedly been deleted and sim cards were missing.

According to Shamsul’s accounts, and the court petition, the detainees were tested twice for coronavirus, and after the second test were all proved to be negative, but still were not released.

The detainees have since been shifted to more relaxed quarantine centres but remain locked up, and say they still do not have their passports.

At the same time in late March, at least four other British citizens who had been sheltering in mosques and buildings due to lockdown restrictions in other areas of India were arrested. Some had attended the Tablighi Jamaat gathering but had travelled out of Delhi before lockdown. Others were tourists.

Four remain detained, including Mohsin, a British citizen who is being held in a jail in Ranchi, Jharkhand, and another man, Thalha Siddique, from Bradford, who had not attended the Delhi Tabhlighi Jamaat gathering and is being incarcerated in Bhopal jail.

In a recent update given to his family by an FCO caseworker, who was denied permission to see Siddique in person, it was confirmed Siddique had twice tested negative for coronavirus. Siddique asked for the message to be passed to his family in the UK that “he loves them and misses them a lot”.

The men were held for over 50 days with no charges. It was only after a court petition was filed on 20 May, challenging the government for keeping 1,000 foreigners in “illegal detention”, that charge sheets were filed. In court, Delhi police denied the foreigners were even in custody. The case has since been expanded to blanket-charge more than 2,500 foreign Muslims.

“It’s targeting one religious group,” said Ashima Mandla, a lawyer representing the accused foreigners collectively. “Why were they held for two months with no charge, even after they tested negative for coronavirus? It is quite clear that was illegal detention and a clear violation of the constitution and the fabric of liberty.”

The next court date is 25 June. The accused have been charged with disobeying lockdown orders and violating their tourist visas by carrying out religious missionary work, even though no missionary preaching occurred at the Tablighi Jamaat gathering. However, a few days ago, the government added “indulging in Tablighi activities” as a specific tourist visa violation.

The Foreign Office has been accused of negligence by those detained and their families, who say they have had barely any contact from the British embassy except assertions that it cannot interfere in Indian legal matters. They say that letters sent to the office of the foreign secretary and minister for Asia have been ignored.

The wife of another British citizen from London who attended the Tablighi Jamaat event and is being detained in Delhi spoke of her anger and frustration.

“How is it that British citizens have been locked up for two months and the government say there is nothing they can do?” she said. “I find it so upsetting that the Indian government is using this pandemic to target and exploit Muslim people.”

“I can hardly bear it,” she added. “My daughter keeps asking ‘when will dad be coming home’?”

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India's lockdown: Narratives of inequality and Islamophobia

How Would Indians Feel if I Say Hindus Should Not be Allowed in UAE, Asks Princess Hend Al Qassimi

Over the last few weeks Princess Hend Al Qassimi, who belongs to the royal family of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), has been flagging hateful and Islamophobic comments on her social media timeline. Many of these were by Indian citizens working in the UAE.

Responding to the worrisome trend, Ambassador Pavan Kapoor told Indian citizens that “discrimination is against our moral fabric and rule of law” and Indians in the Emirates must remember this.

News 18 spoke exclusively to Princess Hend (which means India) and she sounded both anguished and angry over the remarks she has been reading from some individuals. She said Emirati-India relationship is over centuries-old “but this is new, we have never experienced hatred from the Indians."

"I have never heard an Indian attack an Arab or a Muslim before but now I have reported just one person but you can see my timeline is full of people insulting the Arabs, Muslims. This is so un-Indian.”

Princess Hend though realizes that the comments of a few individuals were not representative of the vast majority of Indians working and residing in the UAE but she did subtly put a message across when she said, “Is India trying to force us to pick and choose, who to allow in the Emirates – only the Muslim and the Christian? This isn’t how we were raised. To us, they are all Indians we don’t put them in any category - like we will work with them only because they are Indian Muslim.”

There are around three and a half million Indians in the UAE which is approximately 30 per cent of the population according to the embassy website. This makes Indians the largest ethnic community there.

“How would the Indians feel if I say publicly that that Indian Hindus should not be allowed in Emirates? Close to 14 billion dollars are being remitted back from the Emirates to India every year – in the past year. Imagine if that were to be cut off? The Indians work very hard in this country and I don’t think they deserve people who misrepresent them like that,” Princess Hend added.

She said she is not a political person and hence has not contacted the Indian government over her concerns. But she revealed that she has been in touch with the former Indian ambassador to UAE Navdeep Suri who expressed concern and told her that her message has gone out “loud and clear”. She said hate speech is illegal in her country and she will continue to raise her voice to put a stop to hate, because “she is just a friend of India.”

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