ALL the claims made by Prime minister Narendra Modi on the absence of discrimination based on caste, creed, religion, age or geographic location in India, during his rare interaction with the media in the US were immediately proven wrong. A spate of attacks on religious minorities centring around Eid and the overt or covert protection to the perpetrators of such attacks by the State, sharply bring to focus the huge gap between the claims and deeds of the BJP government.

Barely 24 hours since the PM’s claims, on June 24, a major of Indian Army led his men into a mosque in Zadoora village in Pulwama district, Kashmir and forced the people to chant, ‘Jai Shri Ram’. Allegedly, they had also vandalised Jamia Masjid, the largest mosque in this south Kashmir village, trampling on the right to religious freedom. A detachment of a secular institution like the Army acting in such a partisan manner, violating the Constitution, speaks volumes about the corrosion of State institutions under the current ruling dispensation.

While Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman was busy defending Modi from the former US President Obama’s criticism and putting up a case for the government’s policies of tolerance, a youth was lynched (June 25) 150 kms away from Mumbai on the ostensible reason that he was carrying beef. This is second such incident taking place in the same area – between Mumbai and Nashik – in a short span of 15-days. In both these incidents, it was Pasmanda Muslims who were attacked, exposing the duplicity of RSS-BJP, which are trying hard to project themselves as champions of the Pasmandas’ interests. The victims are daily labourers ferrying meat and vegetables and come from a poor background. They were attacked by a group of 10-15 self-proclaimed ‘gau-rakshaks’, who move under the banner, Rashtriya Bajrang Dal.

In yet another example of the impact of the Sangh Parivar’s ideology on the government machinery and the deepening religious bias, the Maharashtra Police have booked a case on the victims under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, while the fact is that they were not carrying animals. Under the Shinde-Fadnavis government, the vigilantes have been further emboldened. The result is, from carrying out attacks, gau rakshaks have now graduated to murders – a first in Maharashtra.

Ironically, two days after the second incident, the Speaker of the Maharashtra legislative assembly issued a directive to the police (which he has no authority to do) asking them not to harass cow vigilantes under ‘false charges’. This in itself shows how involved they are in throwing their weight behind ‘gau rakshaks’ and using even constitutional positions to ensure their protection.

The alacrity with which such lynchings are taking place across the country is worrisome. Few days after the incident in Maharashtra, there was another attack carried out on the eve of Eid in Bihar’s Saran district. Here a 55-year-old disabled Muslim driver who was carrying animal bones to a nearby factory was lynched to death. These bones are meant to be used in the manufacture of medicines in a factory, which is running there for the last 50-years.

In Uttarakhand, after the targeting of Muslim shopkeepers in Purola, forcing them to close their shops and leave town, the remaining Muslims are still being hounded. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad directed Muslims not to gather and offer namaaz during Eid ‘even inside the private confines of their homes’, terming it ‘provocative’. As a result, Muslims were forced to go nearly 40 kms away from Purola and Barkot towns, into the forest, to offer their prayers on the festival day.

In Mundra, Gujarat, on the day of Eid, the principal of a private school was suspended after a video of students wearing skull caps while staging a play on Eid-al-Adha was widely shared on social media. The district education officer forced the school administration to act against the principal. Justifying this act, the District Primary Education Officer said it was a ‘heen krutya (lowly act)’ to “ask Hindu students to wear skullcaps worn by Muslims”. This is one more example to show how deep religious hatred has permeated into the society. Importantly, it also shows how government officials are ideologically-corrupted in BJP ruled states.

Spreading religious hatred is now no more confined to the fringes. When people like Himanta Biswas Sharma, the chief minister of Assam say they would ‘prioritise taking care’ of the ‘many Hussain Obamas in India’, the distinction between ‘fringe’ and ‘centre’ ceases to exist. He makes it amply clear that Muslims are no more considered equals, but are only second-class citizens.

All the above discussed incidents happened around the celebration of Eid and they are not coincidental. Whether it is Hindu festivals or Muslim festivals, the attacks carried out by the Hindutva forces are intended to deliver a chilling message to the minorities – ‘you have got no rights and to survive, you have to act according to our dictates. Nothing is going to protect you’.

It is a deliberate ploy of the RSS-BJP to communally polarise the society and reap political dividends. As the elections approach, such activities gather more pace. Using State power, they are spreading their ideological influence among various sections of bureaucracy and officials and making them pliant to their cause. The prime minister’s utterances on democracy and tolerance to cater to international audience, cannot mask these attacks on minorities.

The defence of democracy and secularism requires that every attack on the minorities must be opposed and resisted. The Left and democratic forces must incessantly work for a popular mobilisation against the violent cruelties of the fascistic Hindutva forces.

(July 5, 2023)