India claims to be the biggest democracy, a secular and pluralistic society, which aspires to be a global player on the strength of its huge population and market. However, underneath this glittering and shining Indian image is a cancer of extremism in the form of Hindu supremacy, which does not leave a breathing space for its persecuted minorities. As things stand, Modi-led Indian Hindu chauvinist government desires to build a gigantic structure of Indian neo liberal capitalist democracy upon the graveyard of minorities.
Not surprisingly, in present day India, a Muslim boy is beaten only for drinking water in a temple, a Muslim family is killed brutally for slaughtering a cow and a Dalit couple is burnt alive without provoking action from the Hinduvta inspired state against the perpetrators of these heinous crimes. In this backdrop, Kashmiris standing up to Indian aggression, ostracised protesters registering their protests against the infamous India Citizenship Act and the Sikh farmers demanding a repeal of newly passed exploitative farm laws can hardly expect justice from a state, which shows its scorn against the hapless minorities in almost every policy.
Narendra Modi has, since his rise to power, put up an aggressive rhetoric to bolster his image as a tough politician, a defender of national security and a trusted ally of entrenched businesses who does not shy away from using hard handed tactics to achieve his economic objectives. To make matters worse for those who try to see Modi government’s discriminatory and aggressive policies as they are, state-owned media organisations sell Modi’s image as a humble and self-made man in comparison to the privileged Gandhi family.
Jingoist and hatred spewing journalists of the Anrab Gouswami’s kind portray Modi in a better light only to hide his government’s persecution and extermination of minorities. BJP’s anti-people (people other than the Hindu majority) and its acolytes in the media industry continue with their policy of persecution of religious minorities and peddling lies because with an added flavour of anti-Pakistan rhetoric, it has twice turned out as a winning strategy in polls.
Since the BJP has been in power, the episodes of violence against the many minorities of the country have increased exponentially, especially against Muslims (which represent the 14.2 per cent on a population of 1.3 billion), Dalits (formerly known as “untouchables”, the lowest section of India’s rigid social stratification), and Adivasi (indigenous) communities. They seem to represent the “other” compared to the uniform idea of “Hinduness” (the doctrine that sees Hinduism as the only religion of the subcontinent) advocated by Hinduvta.
Reports reveal that as many as 2,920 communal or caste-based incidents were reported in India between 2013 and 2017, in which 389 people were killed and 8,890 injured, according to the Home Ministry’s data, whose figures are often lower than those collected by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).
All the above-mentioned atrocities committed under Modi’s watch beg a description of who Modi really is. He has been an active member of RSS (a militant Hindu organisation which promotes Hindus to the exclusion of all other religious groups in India) since a very young age and was the chief minister of Gujarat, when religious riots resulting in the assassination of more than one thousand Muslims, took place.
Unfortunately, India has become a land of Hindus, where minorities seems to have been completely cornered and ghettoised. Intellectuals around the globe would be guilty of letting Indian minorities suffer in the BJP’s created hell, if they continue to buy Indian nationalist media’s narrative of a rising and shining India. It is, therefore, a high time to show the world the hell Modi- led BJP has transformed India into.
