Hayat Bangash.
Partition of British India took place in 1947 on the basis of a two-nation theory. On one side, Hindu majority areas formed what we today call India. On the other, areas of Muslim majority formed part of Pakistan except for the disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir.
Pakistan emerged on the world map as a newborn Muslim state, whereas Indian leadership claimed a secular India in the remaining parts of erstwhile British India. People in the areas of mixed population were given a choice to either stay back or migrate to India or Pakistan. In the areas of their considerably large population, Muslims showed confidence in a promised secular India and decided to remain Indians.
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, commonly known as RSS, was established in 1925 by a Hindu extremist Keshav Baliram Hedgewar with its headquarters in the Indian city of Nagpur, Maharashtra. The organization works for Hindu supremacy and the ideology of Hindutva, consisting of about over 4 million paramilitary volunteers today.
RSS was banned by the British rulers of India due to its extremist views. After the independence of India, it was once again banned by the Indian government when Mahatma Gandhi, the founding father of India, was assassinated by an extremist Hindu from RSS, Nathuram Vinayak Godse, on 30 Jan 1948 in New Delhi.
The organization kept functioning till it got banned twice again during the National Emergency of 1975-77 by Prime Minister Indra Gandhi and in 1992 when a violent RSS rally resorted to the demolition of Babri Masjid, a sixteenth-century mosque in Ayodhya, Utter Pradesh.
Till today, RSS is working for the supremacy of Hindu nationalism and challenges other religious minorities to either become Hindu or quit India. Its goons are often involved in mob lynchings of the minority Muslims on the pretext of slaughtering cows, considered sacrilege in the Hindu religion.
Narendra Modi, the incumbent Prime Minister of India, was introduced to RSS at the age of eight and became a prominent member and a full-time worker by 1971. Though he went into hiding when RSS was banned during the National Emergency. RSS later introduced him into its political wing, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 1985. He held several positions in the party until becoming its General Secretary in 2001 and getting elected as Chief Minister of the Indian state of Gujarat.
Gujarat Massacre of 2002
The 2002 Gujarat Riots or ‘The Gujarat Pogrom’ were a three day long inter-communal violence in Gujarat. Following the initial incident, violence broke out in the city of Ahmedabad and lasted for three months. A further outbreak of violence against the minority Muslim population lasted for a year.
The state government of Gujarat under its Chief Minister Modi was accused of initiating violence against the Muslim population by providing lists of Muslim owned properties to the rioters who were active under the protection of state police. The Concerned Citizens Tribunal Report released in 2002 estimated as many as 1,926 people killed and 2,500 injured. Other sources estimated death tolls in excess of 2,000. Many brutal killings and rapes were reported and widespread looting and destruction of property took place as a result of these riots.
Abrogation of Article 370
Article 370 of the Indian constitution gave special status to the disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) that currently India administrates. This Article, along with Article 35 A, defined the residents of the state of Jammu and Kashmir under a separate set of citizenship laws. It governed the ownership of property and fundamental rights unlike those for residents of other Indian states. Due to the provision of these articles, citizens of other states of India could not purchase land and properties in J&K.
Soon after securing his second term in office, Prime Minister Modi decided to abrogate Article 370 and 35A. His action shows a lack of vision and reflects that he was ignorant of the aftereffects of his unconstitutional and undemocratic effects of the abrogation of the said Articles.
To curb the expected harsh reaction from the citizens of J&K, Modi imposed a curfew, cutting all communications including internet facilities in the state. There are reports of daily killings of Kashmiri youth, brutalities and rape of women by Indian soldiers and ban on the religious activities in the State since 5 August 2019.
J&K has now become one of the most dangerous places of the world and a flashpoint between the two arch-rival nuclear neighbors, India and Pakistan. The world needs to realize that there is a deep gulf in Jammu and Kashmir valley.
Citizenship Amendment Act and National Register of Citizens
As if the abrogation of Article 370 was less in igniting the fire, Modi, widely known as the ‘Butcher of Gujarat‘ further went ahead in his animosity towards the Muslims of India and passed the Citizens Amendment Act (CAA) and introduced National Register of Citizens (NRC).
Where CAA is a nationwide arrangement to exclude Muslim immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan seeking the citizenship of India, the NRC is specific to the state of Assam and denies citizenship to the existing Muslim citizens living there.
The Deadly Protests across India
The fire lit by Modi against the Muslims has spread out from J&K to West Bengal and from Assam to New Delhi and Kerala. The protesters are not the Muslims of India alone but all citizens who think that the new laws are against the ethos of the constitution which provides protection under a secular India.
Others are those who believe that today it is Muslims, tomorrow it will be Christians, Sikhs, and other minorities and the different castes of Hindus – the Vaishyas, Shudras, Adivasi, and Dalits – because Hinduism is based in a caste system and the highest out of them the Brahmins consider others as lesser humans.
There are reports that the protesters will be countered through extremist RSS goons who are seen preparing and marching in the city of Hyderabad. The Butcher of Gujarat has now become the Hitler of India and is bent upon the genocide of Indian Muslims.
The Muslims of India are looking at the civilized world to save them from a Hitler, reborn in India this time and involved in a holocaust of Muslims.
