Indian Muslims and Christians Face Discrimination and Persecution

By Sajjad Shaukat

Indian Constitution declares India to be a secular and democratic state, which safeguards the rights of religious minorities, but, its subsequent regimes continued undemocratic practices by targeting Muslims and Christians, including Sikhs and even lower-caste Dalits. 

Particularly, under the fanatic government of the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi-the leader of the biased ruling party BJP, discrimination against the Muslim and Christian communities have been accelerated by the extremist Hindus, which also includes recent violence on Christians in the state of Manipur.

Since the biased PM Modi came to power he started implementing ideology of Hindutva (Hindu Nationalism). Under his regime, various developments like unprecedented rise of Hindu extremism, persecution of religious minorities such as Muslims and Christians etc., assaults on their places of worships and property—forced conversion of other religious minorities into Hindus, creation of war-like situation with Pakistan etc. have clearly proved that encouraged by the Hindu fundamentalist outfits such as BJP, RSS VHP, Bajrang Dal and Shiv Sena have been promoting religious and ethnic chauvinism in India by propagating ideology of Hindutva.

It is intimated that the OHCHR (Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights) Complaints Procedure Branch has issued an official communication to New Delhi, and expressed concerned on information regarding the obstruction and discrimination against Muslim-Christian owned minorities’ businesses.

It pointed out that in March-April 2022; multiple calls by Hindu organizations were made to boycott Muslim and some Christian owned businesses in the states of Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh. These calls for the economic boycott of Muslim minority have been supported by state representatives and respective state governments. This elaborated that the Muslim vendors were not allowed to run their shops and stalls on several temple premises in Karnataka.

In this regard, protests by members of the Muslim minority in response to the decision of the Karnataka High Court to uphold a governmental ban on Muslim girls, wearing the hijab in educational institutions is notable.

However, the boycott practice first started in Marikamba temple in Shivamogga and was later followed by other temples in Dakshina Kannada, Hassan, Tumukur, Chikkamagalur and other districts, while on April 20, 2022, the organizers of the festival at the Mahalingeshwara temple in Dakshina Kannada did not allow Muslims to place any kind of stall.

Similarly, no Muslim was allowed to bid for stalls at the Hose Marigudi shrine in Udupi, which ended on March 23, 2022, or at the Kate Marikamba temple festival in Shimoga, which began March 22, 2022 and continued for five days.

The issue was raised in the Karnataka State Assembly on March 23, 2022 by Congress Member of the Legislative Assembly UT Khader.

State government made a statement in defence of the ban by citing Rule 31, sub rule 12, of the Karnataka Religious Institutions and Charitable Endowment Act (HCRE) 2002, which prohibit the leasing of land or buildings near temples to non-Hindus. Karnataka law minister JC Madhuswamy also verified the HCRE Act—informed the state assembly that non Hindus are not allowed to do business in and around the premises of Hindu temples.

There have also been calls for the banning of the sale of meat and halal products (Slaughter meat of an animal) during Hindu festivals, followed by such bans issued by some local authorities. Mayor of the district of Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh issued an order to ban the sale of raw meat during Navaratri, effective from April 2, 2022 to April 10, 2022. As raw sale meat businesses are largely Muslim owned, this is seen to constitute another obstruction of the economic boycott of Muslim owned businesses.

The issue was shared with Indian Ministry of External Affairs on November 15, 2022 for their official reply, while New Delhi failed to reply even after the lapse of 60 days.

It is mentionable that some other discriminatory policies and moves against the Muslims such as the Indian Citizenship Amendment Act 2019 (CAA), passed by the Indian Parliament coupled with the National Register of Citizens (NRC)—mainly against the Muslim immigrants especially from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan—In December 15, 2019, despite daily mass protests, across every state against the CAA and the NRC, which resulted into killing of more than 200 persons-mostly Muslims by the police and prejudiced Hindus, Modi-led regime has not withdrawn the CAA/NRC—assaults on Muslims, their shops, burning of their houses and recently a mosque etc. might be cited as instance.

In fact, since 1989, various forms of state terrorism have been part of a deliberate campaign by the Indian army and paramilitary forces against the Muslim Kashmiris. This has been manifested in brutal tactics like crackdowns, curfews, illegal detentions, massacre, targeted killings, sieges, burning the houses, torture, disappearances, rape, breaking the legs, molestation of Muslim women and killing of persons through fake encounters.

On August 5, 2019, Modi-led regime revoked articles 35A and 370 of the Constitution, which gave a special status to the disputed territory of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK). Indian government bifurcated Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories—Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh to be ruled by the federal government. On the same day, strict military lockdown was imposed in the IIOJK which continues unabated.

Under a well-planned hidden agenda, Modi government has intensified, bringing ethno- demographic changes in the IIOJK. In this context, Indian various moves such as introduction of new laws, amendment of the laws to facilitate non-Kashmiris and outsiders in order to usurp the rights of the Muslim Kashmiris—issuance of domicile certificates to more than 800000 non-Kashmiris, registration of almost 2.5 million new non-local voters in the IIOJK—failure of fake drama to host G-20 summit on May 22-24, this year in the IIOJK might be cited as example.

Despite the deployment of more than 900,000 military troops in the IIOJK, who have martyred tens of thousands of the Kashmiris, including women and children through brutal tactics-fake encounters, while closure of mosques, shortage of foods, medicines for the patients have further increased the plight of the Kashmiris. The Kashmiris have accelerated the war of liberation for their legitimate rights as recognized by the related UNO resolutions.

Meanwhile, since May 3, this year, violence has gripped the northeast Indian state of Manipur, following a protest by the largely Christian minority tribes.

In this respect, Vishnu said: “For two, three days, it was just anarchy…And especially the Christians were targeted. Almost all the churches have been burned down and reduced to ashes…The fundamental reason for the escalation of violence was that the tribals, who are predominantly Christian, are being evicted [by the local government] from the forest land where they’ve resided for hundreds of years… and would make it harder for the Christian community to get jobs and other benefits.”

He added: “The Christian community was making a peaceful protest, but it was met with a violent response from the majority community of Hindus from the Meitei community; Christian demonstrators and onlookers complain that the police failed to intervene and protect them during the worst of the attack. Among the destroyed buildings are churches, Christian homes and a theological seminary. While the violence hasn’t exclusively targeted Christians, they are bearing the worst of the persecution.”

And video showing the horrifying attack on two Christian women in Manipur has gone viral. In this connection, Christian leaders remarked that the incident happening more than two months ago, not enough has been done to bring the perpetrators to account.

Report indicated that hundreds of Christians’ buildings, homes, shops and religious sites set ablaze and charred vehicles strewn across roads, leaving at least more than 2000 dead and injured thousands of persons. More than 50,000 people are currently displaced as well, and fled the region with many now living in relief camps in the state and some other regions. As the fighting continues, these numbers may also be rising.

A Manipuri father stated: “We have no security or even the assurance of it that we would not be targeted again. We cannot live our lives in fear every single day…Even if the Manipur government assures us at a later stage of things getting normalized; the government agencies will still stay mute spectators if we are attacked again. We are on our own.”

Kamzamang explained: “The conflict is two sides of the same coin…religious motivation on one side and political motivation on the other, both intersecting at this point [where it has resulted in large scale violence].”

To him and other Kuki leaders, the Hindu Meitei mobs’ religious motivation became evident when their violence also included burning down Meitei churches and attacking Meitei Christians.

Walter Fernandez, who leads the North Eastern Social Research Centre in neighboring state of Assam, believes that the attacks were preplanned.

In recent years, tensions over land have been exacerbated by the political influence of the Hindu nationalist organizations RSS and the BJP which have sought to promote their ideology in northeast India and have used the Meitei community to advance their political agenda in the state by attacking Christians in the Manipur.

It is noteworthy that European Parliament on July 13, 2023 adopted a resolution on Manipur, which called on Indian authorities to take “all necessary” measures to stop the violence in Manipur and protect religious minorities, especially Christians.”

New Delhi reacted that it was “unacceptable” and reflection of a “colonial mindset”. It shows that violence and discrimination against the Christian community will continue.

On the other side, India’s parliament on July 26, this year authorised a no-confidence vote against Narendra Modi’s government by an alliance of opposition parties, to force the prime minister to address in detail concerns about ethnic clashes in a northeastern state.

It is worth-mentioning that the Bajrang Dal is the militant youth wing of the VHP. According to the BBC, “India’s state-run TV channel Doordarshan recently had an unusual programme-it telecast live the annual speech of Mohan Bhagwat, the head of the right-wing Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (National Volunteers’ Organisation). It’s a group many believe to be a shadowy and violent Hindu organisation with umbilical ties to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)…Critics, however, say the organisation continues to be a sectarian, militant group, which believes in the “supremacy of Hindus” and “preaches hate” against Muslim and Christian minorities.”

Nonetheless, numerous incidents of intimidation, harassment, assaults and violence as well custodial deaths by the Hindu zealots in connection with the religious minorities, particularly Muslims and Christians have come to the limelight of various human rights groups and international media.

Sajjad Shaukat writes on international affairs and is author of the book: US vs Islamic Militants, Invisible Balance of Power: Dangerous Shift in International Relations

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