Indian Secularism: Reality vs Global Persona
People belonging to non-Hindu minority religions are facing a new wave of
hostility at the hands of Hindus backed by BJP-led fanaticism. A similar, but
with a different modus operandi, kind of plot has been hatched for the people of
Kashmir, involving young women who are being forced to marry RSS goons for
conceiving children who will be considered born Hindus. Elsewhere in other
states, Muslims, Christians and low castes are threatened to either convert to
Hinduism or else leave India for good. This is how the Modi government is
following “Hindustan is for Hindus; all others have no room to enjoy citizenship
in India.
Several Indian states have passed anti-conversion laws aimed at restricting the
right to propagate religion, which is guaranteed by Article 25 of the Indian
constitution. This has been of late a big question mark for the saner elements
amongst the ruling Hindu comity but now it is thing of the past. India’s
so-called diversity and traditional ethos of tolerance exists no more; this has
been marred by hostility and hate along caste and religious lines.
It is no more a secular country;Hindutva’s penetration into Nazist mentality
that is hell bent upon forced conversionsis very much the new reality. Reality
is that the NarendraModi government isnot only harboring a grudge against
anti-conversion laws introduced by various states, but also working on
implementing the agenda of either expelling those who defy the orders or
obediently accept Hinduism as their new religion.
Ever since the Bhartiya Janata Party has taken over power in India in 2014,
religious intolerance and anti-Christian violence by Hindu-RSS terrorists has
surged across the width and breadth of this country.Religious persecution,
especially of Muslim and Christian communities, now caricatures the changed
Indian constitution. All minorities have a miserable life, their plight at the
hands of goons who have gone berserk with swords and daggers in their hands is
at its all-time peak. The preachers, including the in-charge of Delhi preaching
center, have been challenged under the anti-terrorism and anti-money laundering
laws. This is a fact, which has not only perturbed the minorities at home but
also the world community and the intelligentsia. They are demanding their
respective governments to exert pressure on Modi government to eschew the path
of violence against the minorities and let them live peacefully.
The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has
recently called for putting India on the religious freedom blacklist. “India
should be considered amongst the world’s worst violators”, the CIRF observes.
The situation of religious minorities in India has seen a steady decline during
much of independent India’s history as well as the onslaught of a hateful and
divisive ideology that has sought to impose political and cultural hegemony by
Hindu majority. They are being harassed and forcefully converted to being
Hindus; their young females are being kidnapped and put in the unwedded solitary
confinements so that they conceive Hindu babies, says the report.
Christian missionaries, priests and bishops are being harassed; they are either
expelled and deported or even being killed. The BJP government recently ordered
‘deportation of three American missionarieswho belonged tothe Church of Christ
in North Carolina on the first available flight to the US.In a similar incident,
a Christian missionary was burnt alive to death right in front of his two minor
kids in the Indian state of Orissa by a serial killer named Dara Singh.
What to talk of the Muslim minority community, which is the major target of
victimization and violence at the hands of RSS goons, who are avenging the
centuries long Muslim rule over Hindustan. A Muslim girl named Gul Naz was
kidnapped, manhandled and repeatedly raped by Satish Kumar and his friends. When
they found that the girl was no more in her senses, the perpetratorsset her on
fire by and by pouring kerosene oil. Her charred and mutilated body was later
found in front of the house of the victim family, whichis now demanding justice
from the Indian police and courts of law, but no one is listening to them even
after many weeks have passed.In the past, such kind of heinous crime and gory
incidents have been resented by the saner elements, liberal Hindus and educated
lot, including intelligentsia and educationists. The Bollywood actors had been
voicing their outrage over the discriminatory treatment meted out to the
minority communities, their young girls and children, but now they too have gone
silent, probably out of shame or fear of the RSS goons.
The silence of liberals and political leaders on Gul Naz’s tragic molestation
and torching to death is deafeningly deplorable. The Muslim minority community
in India has either been left on the mercy of perpetrators or its own to bear
the losses, abductions of females and young boys and wait for another similar
kind of incident happening in front of their elders. The fear and dread is so
prevalent that even the girl Gul Naz, on the bed in hospital had recognized and
named the perpetrators in her testimony before succumbing to burn injuries, no
action has so farbeen taken by the police, local administration, political
leadership or the court of law. So much sovery little coverage was given to such
a horrendous act, which has put a shameful curtain on the barbaric act by Satish
Kumar and his accomplices.
Needless to say, the Muslim and Christian minority communities are the most
vulnerable targetsof the Hindutva extremists in today’s India. Both the
communities are being offered only two options with them:become Hindu or leave
Hindustan.The RSS and its backed Hindu goons are distributing pamphlets or
dropping leaflets at homes or train stations throughout the country, warning the
Christians as well as Muslims to leave India or convert to Hinduism, or they
will be killed by year 2021.Already in 2016, a global index of human rights and
social and religious freedoms by PEW Research Center has placed India among the
worst 10 of the world’s 198 countries when judged for “social hostilities”.