There is a silent but systematic slaughter against Muslims in progress in India. It’s not too late to call it out.
NEW DELHI — On June 23, three days before India celebrated Eid, 15-year-old Junaid Khan was stabbed to death by a group of men aboard a train. He was going home to Khandawli, a village in the north Indian state of Haryana, after shopping for new clothes in New Delhi, accompanied by his brother and a couple of friends. The mob mocked their skullcaps and taunted them for eating beef, before stabbing them.
Eid was sombre in Khandawli on Monday, as it was across the country. In a national first, scores of Muslims across the country offered their Eid prayers while wearing a black band, a symbol of protest against the killing of the teen as well as growing atrocities against Muslims in the country, which have been increasing since Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office three years ago. In September 2015, a Muslim man, Mohammad Akhlaq, was lynched in Dadri near the Indian capital, over rumours that he had killed a local cow and stored its meat in his refrigerator. The month after that, 16-year-old Zahid Rasool Bhattdied when vigilante groups attacked his truck with a bomb in Udhampur. In March 2017, suspected cattle traders Muhammed Majloom and Azad Khan were hanged in Latehar. In May, traders were thrashed in Malegaon, Maharashtra for allegedly storing beef. In Jharkhand in May, 19-year-old Mohammed Shalik was tied to a pole and beaten to death, reportedly over a romantic relationship with a Hindu girl. In May, two more Muslim men, Abu Hanifa and Riazuddin Ali, were killed for allegedly stealing cattle in Assam. More recently, on June 7, a Muslim man was attacked in Dhanbad, Jharkhand, on suspicion of transporting beef to an Iftar gathering. Two more cases of lynching over cow slaughter rumours were reported earlier this week in eastern India.
The story must be told.
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On Sunday, before his first visit with President Trump, Modi addressed India through his radio program Mann Ki Baat (Heart-to-heart-talk). And while his monologue touched upon various topics, including yoga, toilets, sports, a meeting with the Queen, books as gifts and the … er … weather, Junaid Khan’s murder didn’t find a nano-second of air time.
Modi did not mention the more than a dozen cases of lynchings, mostly against Muslims, recorded in India since September last year, especially in states ruled by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Modi also did not address the violence of the cow-vigilante groups, who often owe allegiance to the BJP or its ideological parent the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
And while the list grows longer every day, the violence against Muslims and cow-vigilante groups have not elicited a single tweet of condemnation from India’s social media savvy prime minister, who is quick to condemn atrocities all over the world. Modi’s silence, in fact, is beginning to feel like a redux of the Gujarat riots in 2002 which killed more than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims. For years he stayed silent, and when he spoke finally, he had compared the riots to a puppy being run over.
The Hindu Hitler
Yogi Adityanath
The Hindu Hitlerprepares to meet party leaders.
Photograph: Manish Swarup/AP
Amnesty International released a statement Wednesday evening, calling the situation “deeply worrying” and accused Modi and other BJP leaders of not condemning the attacks and in fact to have “even justified the attacks at times.” Aakar Patel, executive director of Amnesty International India, said in a statement, “The Indian Prime Minister, senior BJP leaders and Chief Ministers must break their silence and unequivocally condemn the attacks.”
A soon-to-be-published report by the Mumbai-based Centre for Study of Society and Secularism and the U.K.-based Minority Rights Group International notes there has been a notable increase in hostility towards India’s religious minorities since the BJP government, led by Modi, came to power in May 2014 and began to actively promote Hindu nationalism.
According to the report, the volatile state of Uttar Pradesh in north India, site of the disputed Ayodhya Ram temple and where India witnessed one of its worst communal riots in 1992, saw a spike in communal violence since the BJP came to power in the state this year. The appointment of Yogi Adityanath, a Hindu hard-liner known for his controversial anti-Muslim views, as the chief minister of the state dismayed many at the time.
Modi’s silence over these attacks, the report says, has emboldened extremist right-wing groups. Recently, in another first, no BJP ministers attended the traditional Iftar gathering that the president of India hosts every year.
There is a silent but systematic slaughter against Muslims in progress in India. It’s not too late to call it out.
The Saffron brigade has got a bit of a shocker as the daughter of a prominent Hindutva group leader allegedly fled with a Muslim youth to get married. Miffed with an increasing number of similar cases in the district, Hindutva leaders have submitted a complaint to the country’s defence minister to act sternly against ‘love jihad’. The couple has reportedly registered their marriage in Mumbai. However, the 23-year-old girl is now back home in Mangaluru.
In an interesting turn of events, the man, MohammedEqbal Chowdary, a resident of Mankurd in Mumbai, has filed a complaint with the Mumbai Commissioner of Police that a gang, suspected to be men from the saffron brigade in Mangaluru, kidnapped his wife from Inorbit Mall in Mumbai one evening. However, the local media stated that the girl, in an affidavit which has been forwarded to the Maharashtra police, has mentioned that she has come back on her own accord.
It is apparent that in the current timeline, ‘love jihad’ has become the greatest sociocultural tool available for Hindutva to spread its message of divisiveness and oppression across Indian society.
Though the girl, a law student, fled five months ago, the incident has come to light only now. The Hindutva leader originally hails from Kasaragod. He has been residing with his family in the city for several years. His daughter had been studying at a private college. She came in contact with Chowdary, a technician, a few years ago through Facebook. The friendship then turned into love. Five months ago, she fled to Mumbai in order to start a new life with Chowdary.
The saffron outfit members have submitted a memorandum to defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman against such cases during her recent visit to the coastal city. The incident comes to the fore on the back of a similar case wherein a 25-year-old Hindu woman fled with a Muslim youth, just a little over a day before she was supposed to enter wedlock with a man from the same community as hers.
Saffron outfits have been fuming with such cases labelling all of them as cases of ‘love jihad’. The instances of interfaith marriage coming under attack by relatives often with the support of Hindutva groups are on the rise in India. The most prominent recently is the case of the 25-year-old college student, Hadiya.
The Hindutva ideology pushes for a docile wife subservient to a patriarchal system. Career-oriented women are discouraged and deemed to be the opposite of good mothers and wives.
In 2016, Hadiya – who was born as Akhila – converted to Islam and left her home. She married Shafin Jahan and, despite her constant reassurances that both her conversion and her marriage were the result of her free will, her father filed a complaint claiming that she was a victim of ‘love jihad’ – that she was converted so she could fight for Daesh in Syria.
The marriage was annulled by the High Court in May this year and it resulted in her being confined in her parents’ house for months on end. Shafin Jahan moved the Supreme Court against the judgment. “I want my freedom,” she told judges in the Supreme Court, adding that she had spent the last 11 months in “unlawful custody”.
But their marriage still hangs in the balance for the top court merely asked her to complete her education first. In a sense, the Hadiya case paved way for the narrative of ‘love jihad’ in the state to penetrate further.
‘Love jihad’ has become an integral part of the Hindutva lexicon. It refers to the marriages between Muslim men and Hindu women. Its appeal to communal sensibilities by demonizing the matrimonial relations of Muslim men and Hindu women and thus synchronizes with the communal slogan of “Hindu Khatre Mein hay” (Hindus are in danger). Hindutva fundamentalists use the threat of ‘love jihad’ as one of the many perceived perils to the Indian Hindu community.
The incident comes to the fore on the back of a similar case wherein a 25-year-old Hindu woman fled with a Muslim youth.
‘Love jihad’ appeals to both communal hatreds as well as the patriarchy inbuilt in several Indian cultures. ‘Love jihad’ posits Hindu men as the protectors of Hindu women. Not only are they protecting the survival of their faith but also safeguarding their honour and family by stopping Muslims from marrying Hindus.
Hindutva proclaims that a good Hindu woman is one who is subservient to her male counterpart. The Hindutva ideology pushes for a docile wife subservient to a patriarchal system. Career-oriented women are discouraged and deemed to be the opposite of good mothers and wives. This is apparent from the statement of the RSS chief that the duty of the woman is to look after her husband, failing which he can disown her and refuse to take care of her.
It is apparent that in the current timeline, ‘love jihad’ has become the greatest sociocultural tool available for Hindutva to spread its message of divisiveness and oppression across Indian society.
Pakistan Air Force ordered to shoot down US drones
Pakistan’s Air Force (PAF) commander has reportedly ordered to take down drones violating the country’s sovereignty, including that of the US.
Air Chief Marshal Sohail Aman also recalled a historic breach of trust incident over a batch of US-made F-16’s which Pakistan paid for, but never received. The jabs against America, a key ally, came Thursday in a speech Aman delivered at a ceremony of aviation students gathered in Islamabad. The top military official praised Pakistan’s air prowess, saying their forces are prepared to defend the sovereignty of the country.
“We committed a mistake in Osama bin Laden’s case but now the country’s sovereignty will be protected at all costs,” he told an audience at the AirTech 17 expo at the Air University. Aman was referring to the CIA-led US commando raid in May 2011, which involved a cross-border flight of Black Hawk helicopters from Jalalabad, Afghanistan to Abbottabad, Pakistan. The Pakistanis were not informed about the planned assassination beforehand, which sparked outrage in the country.
“We will not allow anyone to violate our airspace,” Aman said as cited by The Times of India, adding, that he has ordered the PAF “to shoot down drones, including those of the US, if they enter our airspace, violating the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
The US flies drone missions over Pakistan and conducts airstrikes on suspected militants in the turbulent tribal area on the border with Afghanistan. The practice has prompted outrage amongst Pakistanis because of the high death toll it effects on civilians.
“In the past, the drones have been attacking targets in Pakistan. Earlier it was perhaps with the detested approval of the government of Pakistan. But in the last couple of years, the government of Pakistan has not provided any such approval,” Talat Masood, a retired three-star general in the Pakistani army told RT.
Masood explained that Pakistan is forced to protect its sovereignty in order to avert an Arab Spring scenario witnessed throughout the years across the wider Middle East.
“In fact, at the moment there are some scribes in the New York press or in the Washington press who are predicting that if Pakistan does not draw the line of the United States of America, a Syria-like situation maybe created over here. This has raised the hackles in Pakistan, because Pakistan cannot allow its territory to be used by others to engineer in the name of democracy, any farcical moves which can destabilize the country,” he said.
Aman praised Pakistan’s aviation engineers and scientists, saying their expertise and brilliance means the country need not depend on foreign suppliers for military aircraft. He recalled the issue of the cancelled delivery of US-made F-16 fighter jets, for which Pakistan already paid a multi-million dollar down payment.
The episode illustrates the bumpy history of relations between Islamabad and Washington. In the ‘80s, the US needed Pakistani assistance to undermine Soviet troops in Afghanistan, pouring billions of dollars in cash and military aid into an “anti-Soviet jihad.”
This, however, conflicted with US non-proliferation goals, since Pakistan was actively working on producing a nuclear weapon to counter arch-rival India’s newly acquired nuclear capability. US law prohibits providing any aid to a potential nuclear proliferator, so in order to keep Pakistan on its good side, a stop-gap solution was introduced – the 1985 Pressler Amendment.
Named after US Senator Larry Pressler, the legislation enabled a US president to certify to Congress that Pakistan was not developing nuclear weapons, and thus qualified for aid. The administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush did so for five years, despite intelligence to the contrary.
But in 1990, USSR troops were no longer in Afghanistan, and Pakistan’s value diminished in Washington. The non-proliferation sanctions then kicked into force, putting a stop to the ongoing deal to deliver 28 F-16’s to the PAF. Pakistan was not only denied the planes, for which it paid Lockheed Martin over $650 million, but also audaciously slapped with a $50,000 per month storage fee. Ironically, the annual payments to the US defense contractor for the withheld jets continued until 1993, as Pentagon officials were telling the Pakistanis that the warplanes would eventually be delivered.
The F-16’s eventually went to New Zealand while Pakistan and the US settled the dispute under Bill Clinton’s presidency, albeit via a partial compensation. In Pakistan, the story is perceived by many as a national humiliation, and an example as to why the Americans cannot be trusted. Denied the American fighter jets, Islamabad relied on China to develop a replacement, the CAC/PAC JF-17 Thunder, which has been produced in both countries since the mid-2000s.
Chief Marshal Aman praised the JF-17 corroboration as testament to Pakistan’s technological capabilities, saying the aircraft is superior to the F-16 “in all regards”. He added that the PAF will soon produce a 5th generation warplane under Project Azm, and announced developments in a national space program and potential joint space exploration with China.
The anti-American tinted speech by Pakistan’s senior military commander comes amid a period of tense relations between Islamabad and Washington. President Donald Trump harshly criticized Pakistan in August as he was announcing his administration’s new strategy for Afghanistan. The accusations fueled Pakistani sentiment that Washington cannot be relied upon.
Kazakhstan is stripping USAID workers of their diplomatic immunity. China has passed a law strictly regulating foreign NGOs. Russia has just officially declared the National Endowment for Democracy to be an undesirable NGO. India has placed the Ford Foundation on a security watchlist. What on earth is going on? Why is country after country restricting, limiting or kicking out these US-based aid agencies and tearing up decades-old cooperation treaties? Could it be that these NGOs are not what they appear to be on the surface? Of course, it could, and in this week’s subscriber newsletter James outlines precisely how these organizations have been used as a Trojan horse to undermine governments around the globe for over half a century.
