NEW DELHI: Since India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power last year, the country’s Muslims have expressed growing concerns about a spate of inflammatory statements made by Hindu nationalist leaders and activists.
Most recently, the death of a 50-year-old farmer by a group of about 200 people over rumours that he was eating beef has brought policies under Modi’s India into the spotlight again.
Some of the recent flash points:
The beef ban in Maharashtra and the mob lynching of a Muslim man over meat:
Journalist Shekhar Gupta called Akhlaq’s killing “a chilling turning point in our politics” and a rise in “Hindu supremacist mob mentality” that Modi’s party “won’t unequivocally condemn or disown.”
Months before the infamous mob killing, the BJP government in Maharashtra banned the sale of beef because the cow is worshipped as a holy animal by many Hindus. Muslims dominate the meat industry in many parts of the country. “This is a political decision,” said Mohammad Aqil Qureshi, president of the Buffalo Traders Welfare Association in New Delhi. “They want to gratify the Hindus and harass the Muslims.” There have been calls for a national beef ban as well.
The hanging of Yakub Memon:
In July, India hanged Yakub Memon, a Muslim accountant convicted of helping plan bombings in 1993 in Mumbai that killed 257 people. Many critics, including the Muslim lawmaker Asaduddin Owaisi, opposed the execution saying that there were other non-Muslim convicts waiting in the death row that were given clemency. More than 15,000 Muslims joined Memon’s funeral procession in Mumbai.
A call to increase birth rates to ‘protect Hindu religion’:
Sakshi Maharaj, a lawmaker from the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), said that Hindu women must have at least four children each to keep up with the growth in the population of Muslims in India. “The concept of four wives and 40 children will not work in India and the time has come when a Hindu woman must produce at least four children in order to protect Hindu religion,” Maharaj said.
The drive to convert Muslims, Christians to Hinduism:
The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (or the World Hindu Council, which is associated with Modi’s party) launched a programme called “Gharwapsi” (or Homecoming) to urge India’s Muslims and Christians to convert to Hinduism, which they said was the religion of their ancestors.
Celebrating Godse, the man who killed Mahatma Gandhi:
In December 2014, Maharaj again fuelled anger when he called the assassin of India’s revered freedom leader Mahatma Gandhi a “patriot.” Gandhi was killed by Nathuram Godse, a firebrand Hindu activist who accused Gandhi of being very tolerant of Muslims and of “appeasing” them. Godse is widely known for his extreme anti-Muslim views.
