India
has been a vocal promoter of secularism but, unfortunately, the plight of
minorities there tells a different tale. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, one of the
strongest advocates of Hindu Muslim unity, once said, “I firmly hold that
communal frenzy will disappear when India assumes the responsibility of her own
destiny.” Regrettably, Azad’s hope was not only dashed on the altar of Hindu
fanaticism but the predicament of minorities in India has worsened.
In
2005, the then Prime Minister (PM), Manmohan Singh, appointed the Rajinder
Sachar Committee to prepare a report on the social, economic and educational
conditions of minorities in India. Headed by the former Chief Justice (CJ) of
the Delhi High Court (DHC), Rajinder Sachar, and six other members, the
committee prepared a 403-page report and presented it in the lower house (Lok
Sabha) of Indian parliament on November 30, 2006. The committee concluded that,
“the status of Indian Muslims is below the conditions of scheduled castes while
the overall percentage of Muslims in the bureaucracy and armed forces in India
is just 2.5 percent whereas Muslims constitute above 14 percent of the Indian
population.” To ensure equity and equality of opportunities to Indian Muslims
in the residential, work and educational sectors, the committee proposed
multiple measures to be adopted, with suitable mechanisms. Alas, the Sachar
Committee’s findings and recommendations were buried in red tape.
The
advent of the BJP government in mid-2014 has caused further concern since the
BJP’s election manifesto was directed towards extremist Hindus, dropping the
idea of secularism. Theoretically, the Indian Constitution safeguards the
rights of minorities but the Hindu majority, led by the BJP, is oblivious to
the rights of the minorities and has indulged in excesses against Muslims,
Sikhs, Christians and Dalits with impunity. In recent weeks, a number of
religious ceremonies have been organised in different parts of India by Hindu
hardliner groups close to Mr Modi’s governing BJP and there have been
allegations that they involved force, fraud or inducement. Extremist Hindu
groups like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Bajrang Dal, Vishwa Hindu
Parishad (VHP) and others say that Indian Muslims and Christians were all
Hindus who have converted to other faiths over the last few centuries. These
groups regularly hold ceremonies that they call “ghar vapasi” (returning home)
to allow Christians and Muslims to return to their ‘original’ religion.
The
Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission Testimony by Human Rights Watch presented
before the US Senate Committee the atrocious attitude of the Hindu majority and
has highlighted the plight of minorities in India. It concluded that in the
run-up to the 2014 elections in India, tensions have escalated between Hindu
and Muslim communities, leading to a 30 percent increase in incidents of
communal violence as compared to 2012. The central government’s ministry of
home affairs reported 823 incidents of communal violence in 2013, in which 133
people died and over 2,000 were injured. Although the report was presented
before the Indian general elections of 2014, it not only fell on deaf ears but,
ironically, the US government, which had previously denied a visa to Mr Modi on
the basis of his involvement in the Gujarat pogrom, is now bending over
backwards to woo him after his election as the Indian PM because they find
India a lucrative market for their goods and services.
Some
fanatic Hindus does not support a distinct culture for Indian minorities. They
are led by the Skardu-born Professor Balraj Madhok, the one time president of
the Bharatiya Jan Sangh, who unified Hindus to stand against the Pakistani
forces and local separatists in 1948. He has been propagating that Indian
minorities must adopt Hindu names.
There
has been a deliberate Endeavour to ‘Hinduise’ the syllabus of schools and other
educational institutions by inserting references to Hindu gods and goddesses in
the textbooks. Simultaneously, history books prescribed by the Indian Education
Board contain lessons depicting false stories of Muslim atrocities on Hindu women,
kidnapping and forced conversion to Islam.
One
would like to have faith in the Indian judicial system being impartial and fair
but the truth is to the contrary. In the alleged attack on the Indian
parliament building in December 2001, one of the accused, Afzal Guru, was
falsely implicated and hanged although the evidence against him was flimsy.
Perversely, despite eyewitness testimony implicating the highest elected
political officials, justice continues to evade the victims in the Gujarat
massacre of 2002 where over 70 accused persons of the Gujarat pogrom, including
then Chief Minister (CM) Narendra Modi, were acquitted by the court.
If
India wants to be recognized as a champion of democracy and supporter of
secularism, it will have to improve its track record of treatment of its
minorities. Instead of persecuting or harassing them, it must treat them with
dignity and grant them the human rights assured to them by the Indian
Constitution.
