The India Muslim Cable
Issue-13 | March 04, 2022
UP’s Hindu extremist ruler’s election speeches filled with religious polarisation, Muslims in UP wants the ‘reign of terror' to end, Experts say process of Muslim genocide in India already started, Kerala Muslim news channel will stay off the air, Young Kashmiri editor re-arrested, Kashmir’s tribal children unlikely to return to school, Assam police book young Muslims under ‘sedition’ law, Muslim students in Karnataka miss exams, Arrest of 100 Muslims after Hindu extremists’ attempt to barge into Muslim shrine, Anniversary of a horrifying Muslim massacre in Gujarat.
- A Weekly Read on Issues, Struggles & Positive Trends. From Empower India Foundation.
Assam police book young Muslims under ‘sedition’ law, after complaints from Hindu extremist groups
Assam police booked at least 27 young Muslims under ‘sedition’ charge or UAPA, India’s anti-terror law, during the last three years. Many accused were illiterate; others spoke no English and barely knew how to use social media. They were booked under sedition mostly after complaints by Hindu extremists. In six cases of sedition registered by the Assam police recently, young Muslim men and one woman were arrested for social-media posts that they said they had no role in publishing or distributing.
UP’s Hindu extremist ruler Adityanath’s election speeches are filled with anti-Muslim rhetoric, religious polarisation and Hindutva supremacy
As the state of Uttar Pradesh is undergoing a crucial assembly season, the ruling Hindu extremists in the state are desperately trying to retain power. Their leader in the state, chief minister Yogi Adityanath, made anti-Muslim, communal remarks more than 100 times during his election speeches, according to a report in ‘The Wire’. The news website consolidated 34 publicly available speeches over three months since the first week of November, and analysed the patterns of religiously polarised remarks in them. Across these speeches, there were 100 instances where the journalists found patterns of straightforward hate speech, anti-Muslim dogwhistling, an emphasis on anti-Muslim policy and legislation, targeting of the opposition as a proxy for Muslims, and a chilling focus on Hindu supremacist rhetoric.
In Uttar Pradesh, Muslims wants 'Yogi's reign of terror' to end
Uttar Pradesh’s Prayagraj (which was called as ‘Allahabad’ before Hindu nationalists changed its name) has a sizeable Muslim community. For them, the right to live with respect and dignity is the primary issue in the ongoing assembly elections, and members of the community in unison say they want “Yogi’s reign of terror” to end. “Safety and a respectable life are the biggest issues,” said one local Muslim, responding to a question what matters most for the community. “To be able to go out freely with our family, and for our women to wear niqab and not hear insulting and provocative remarks.” The district has two Muslim-dominated urban assembly seats—Allahabad West and Allahabad South.
Process of Muslim genocide already underway in India, say experts at global summit
Civil society leaders, journalists, officials from international organisations and experts working on hate speech and genocide came together for a global summit, and discussed threats of genocide in India. At the three-day summit that held virtually, speakers concluded that since genocide is a process and not a one-time event, it can be stated that the genocide against Muslims in India has already started. The conference was titled as ‘India on the Brink: Preventing Genocide’. “We have had direct calls [for genocide] in India recently,” said Greg Gordon, a former attorney with the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. “Conditional calls – ‘If they do this, we will do that’ – are also incitements.” Maung Zarni, a researcher at the Genocide Documentation Center in Cambodia, said, “I believe that India is not only on the brink but is already in the process of an unfolding genocide. …The killers portray vulnerable populations as a security threat to their religion. When this dehumanisation begins, the country is already deep in the genocidal process even though the killings may not have started.”
J&K's tribal children unlikely to return to school, after multiple lockdowns and digital divide
As several nations locked down at the onset of the pandemic, children across the world shifted to online learning. However, for the underprivileged children of Kashmir’s Gujjar-Bakerwal community, online education remained an elusive dream. Both smartphones and the internet were inaccessible. This digital divide, coupled with the loss of jobs during the lockdown, forced many tribal families in the region to send their children out to work. Manzoor, a minor boy from the region, was one such a student. He was enrolled in a local middle school, but his family couldn’t afford to buy a smartphone and in any case, internet connectivity in his village is poor. “Survival was the biggest challenge for us during the lockdown. What is a poor man supposed to chase, education or two meals a day?” asked the boy.
Young Kashmiri editor Fahad Shah re-arrested, soon after he was granted bail
Authorities in Jammu and Kashmir re-arrested Kashmiri journalist Fahad Shah after a court in Srinagar granted him interim bail in another case. Shah has been in detention for more than three weeks. Fahad Shah, 33, was arrested by J&K police in a case registered in January 2021 against The Kashmir Walla, a news outlet for which Shah is the editor. Shah also regularly writes on Kashmir for international publications including Foreign Affairs, TIME, and Foreign Policy. “The Kashmir Walla team continues to stand strongly behind Shah and his family in this time of distress and we reiterate our appeal to Manoj Sinha-led Jammu and Kashmir administration for the immediate release of Shah, said The Kashmir Walla in a statement. Earlier, more than 50 press freedom organisations, human rights groups and publications wrote an open letter requesting “urgent intervention to secure the immediate release of Fahad Shah”.
Young Hindu extremist from Karnataka calls for genocide of ‘those who want hijab’
A teenage member of a Hindu extremist group in Karnataka made a call for Muslim genocide, after similar calls were made in Uttarakhand during a Hindu religious gathering recently. In a video that surfaced on social media, 19-year-old Pooja, a member of the Bajrang Dal, a Hindu extremist group known for its attacks on Muslims and other religious minorities, was heard openly making calls for genocide against Muslims at an event, which was organised to protest the death of a Bajrang Dal man and was attended by more than 500 people. Later, the police registered a case against her. “If you ask for water, Indians will give you juice. If you ask for milk, we’ll give you buttermilk. But, if you want the hijab all over India, we will chop you (Muslims) all with Shivaji’s sword,” Pooja said, as her listeners cheered. “If you (the government) cannot do it, give us 24 hours. Let the government give us just one hour and not just these six girls in hijab, we’ll cut 60,000 in hijabs into pieces,” Pooja said, referring to the six female Muslim students from Udupi district who first raised their voice against hijab ban at their government college. Their protest eventually spread to other educational institutions in the state where hijab was not allowed.
Muslim students in Karnataka miss exams after college managements refuse them entry for wearing hijab
Three second year Pre-University college students of a government college in Karnataka’s Udupi were denied permission to attend their practical examinations for wearing hijab. Around 20 other students were also denied entry at a private college in Shivamogga. The students who were not allowed to appear for the exams included one Almas A.H., a petitioner at Karnataka High Court seeking permission to wear hijab inside the classrooms. Almas said the principal threatened the Muslim students, who came to the college after completing their assignments to attend the exams, to file a police complaint against them if they did not leave the college “in five minutes”. The Karnataka High Court had completed the hearing and reserved the judgment in a batch of petitions filed by Almas and others who challenged the ban on hijab at educational institutions.
Young Muslim activists harassed by pro-Hindutva channel journalist
A reporter working for a news channel, which is known for its Hindu extremist views, heckled and threatened a group of Muslim student activists in Karnataka after a press conference that the latter held in the state capital Bengaluru. A journalist with the ‘Republic TV’ harassed the Muslim female activists who convened a press meet on the ongoing hijab ban issue in the state. “Took part in a press meeting regarding the #Karnataka #hijabban, at Bangalore Press Club, with a delegation from Fraternity Movement. We were harassed by the reporters from #RepublicTV,” tweeted Ladeeda Farzana, a young Muslim activist, with a video footage of the incident.
Popular Muslim news channel in Kerala will stay off the air after negative court verdict
A popular, Muslims-run news channel from Kerala, ‘MediaOne’, will continue to be restricted from airing its programmes after the channel’s appeal against an earlier verdict was dismissed by the Kerala High Court. The Kerala HC dismissed the appeal moved by the channel against the last month’s single judge order that upheld the recent ban imposed on it by the Narendra Modi government on “national security grounds”. The channel, which has been off the air since February, has soon filed an appeal at the Supreme Court against the HC verdict. Neither the Modi government nor the High Court made it public why the channel is not allowed to function.
Hindu extremist lawmaker banned from campaigning for UP elections after anti-Muslim hate speech
The Election Commission of India barred a Hindu extremist lawmaker from Uttar Pradesh from campaigning for one day. Raghvendra Pratap Singh, who is also a BJP candidate for the ongoing assembly elections, was barred after he made a divisive, anti-Muslim speech. He was found to have violated the code of conduct to be followed by the candidates. Mr. Singh had earlier said the Hindus who did not vote for him had Muslim blood in their veins. The Election Commission order stated that Mr. Singh’s speech on February 19 during a public gathering in his constituency was “utterly irresponsible, provocative and threatening in nature and … had undertone and propensity to disturb religious harmony of society”. A police case was also registered against Mr. Singh for his statement.
Indian Muslims, others remember the horror of violent majoritarianism as they observe 20 years of Muslim genocide in Gujarat
Muslim groups, human right defenders, independent media organisations and several others remembered the horror of anti-Muslim violence unleashed in Narenendra Modi’s Gujarat in 2002. The Muslim genocide saw more than 2,000 Muslims being killed and several Muslim women raped. “The killings were exceptional not just for their numbers but for their ferocious brutality and for their ruthless targeting of women and children. Mass rape, sexual humiliation of women in public, and the battering and burning alive of girls, boys, women and men, marked those grim and overcast days. Tens of thousands of homes and small business establishments – petty shops, wooden carts, auto-rickshaws, taxi jeeps, eateries and garages – were set aflame, and cattle and lifetime savings looted. Hundreds of religious shrines were desecrated and destroyed in this carnage,” wrote activist-academic Harsh Mander. “Gujarat then was what India was to become,” wrote another Modi critic Apoorvanand, who teaches at Delhi University. “After the 2014 election results, a Gujarati friend remarked, “You thought only we Gujaratis were so intellectually impoverished that we chose him as the leader. See, you have come down to our level. He is now your prime minister””.
Hindu extremists’ attempt to barge into a Muslim shrine premises create tensions in Karnataka, more than 100 Muslims arrested
A tense situation emerged in Karnataka’s Aland city after a rally by Hindu extremist groups, led by a member of Narendra Modi ministry Bhagwanth Khuba and BJP MLA Subhash Guttedar, was taken out to “offer prayers” to a Hindu idol within the premises of a famous Muslim shrine. The rally was taken out violating the prohibitory order that was in effect in the region. Arguments broke out between the police and the Hindu groups when the latter shouted slogans and demanded entry into the premises of Aland Dargah, a 14th-century Muslim shrine. When the Hindu extremists’ rally was passing through the shrine, Muslims too gathered to deal with any hostile situation. Later, the police arrested 167 people in connection with the development. Shockingly, all the arrested persons were Muslims. Activists alleged that police barged into Muslim houses and created panic among the community members.
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