India’s Supreme Court has said it will investigate after complaints that Hindu nationalist leaders called on followers to take up arms against the country’s Muslim minority.
The notice of investigation was issued last week in the northern state of Uttarakhand, where a Hindu nationalist conference in the city of Haridwar was attended by hundreds of right-wing activists.
We must prepare to kill or be killed, said one of the speakers, Swami Prabodhananda Giri, at the three-day conference, held on December 17-19.
Anti-Muslim sentiment is rising in Hindu-majority India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a Hindu nationalist. But recent calls to violence are surprising at their climax, experts say, which are more than hate speech to promote ethnic cleansing.
A petition filed in the court said the speeches in Haridwar and at a similar event in Delhi territory, which includes the nation’s capital, amounted to an open call for murder in an entire community.
The speeches pose a serious threat not only to the unity and integrity of our country but also endanger the lives of millions of Muslim citizens, it said, adding that the organizers have announced additional events.
No arrests have been made in either Haridwar or Delhi, and the Modi government has not commented. The official silence, critics say, could be interpreted by Hindu nationalists as a tacit endorsement.
To give speeches against us and to say that you want to drive out an entire population based on their religion, I don’t understand how they can ignore it, said Maulana Mahmood Madani, president of Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, who describes itself as the largest in India. Muslim organizations.
Since Modi consolidated power in his re-election in 2014, Muslims in India who make up approximately 14 per cent of the population, have faced increased government violence, discrimination and persecution. Attacks from Hindu nationalists ranged from the destruction of property and the disruption of religious services to deadly mobs.
People associated with the Modis Bharatiya Janata Party were at the same events. The event in Delhi was organized on December 19 by Hindu Yuva Vahini, a right-wing youth group founded by Yogi Adityanath, a BJP member and close ally of Uttar Pradesh state prime minister Modi. In Haridwar, those in attendance included Ashwini Upadhyay, a former Delhi BJP spokesperson and current party member.
In a video shared on Twitter, Upadhyay said he was at the event for half an hour on the last day and spoke for 10 minutes. Adityanath could not be reached for comment.
The fact that the prime minister hasn’t spoken out against it, it’s a way of denial, a way of licensing to continue this kind of religious extremism, said Gregory H. Stanton, president of Genocide Watch, a nonprofit group that based in the US.
BJP leader Shant Prakash Jatav told NBC News that the ruling party will ensure respect for people of all religions.
If and when someone speaks against a religion, there is proper law and order against it, and legal action will be taken, he said.
Rakendra Singh, a policeman in Haridwar, said on January 6 that two people who spoke at the event there, Annapurna Maa and Jitendra Narayan Singh Tyagi, were called to give statements on suspicion of inciting unrest. Maa and Tyagi, a new convert to Hinduism formerly known as Wasim Rizvi, did not respond to requests for comment.
Delhi police did not respond to a request for comment.
The term Hindutva, which traditionally refers only to Hindu identity or living according to Hindu values, has also been associated with an extreme form of Hindu nationalism.
It says India should not be a secular country as required by its Constitution and other Muslim religions, Christians are foreigners and should be expelled, Stanton said.
That attitude was shown at two events last month. In Haridwar, Giri, president of the right-wing group Hindu Raksha Sena (Hindu Defense Army), spoke in favor of atrocities in neighboring Myanmar, where government persecution of Rohingya Muslims is described by the United Nations as a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.
Like Myanmar, the police in this country, the army, politicians and every Hindu must join hands, take up their weapons and carry out this cleanliness drive, he said.
Speaking in Delhi, Suresh Chavhanke, editor of right-wing outlet Sudarshan News, swore to the attendees that until our last breath, to make India a Hindu country, keep it a Hindu-only country, we will fight and die, and if necessary we will also kill.
He later shared a video of the oath on Twitter, where he has nearly half a million followers.
Speeches at Hindu nationalist events have been heavily criticized, including by members of the opposition Indian National Congress.
Hindutva have always spread hatred and violence, Rahul Gandhi, leader of the Congress party, said on Twitter.
Giri, who made comments about Myanmar, ordered a request for comment from Swami Anand Swaroop, founder of the Hindu nationalist group Kali Sena and an organizer of the Haridwar event. In a telephone interview, Swaroop defended the event, saying its aim was to save Hindus from Islam.
We have no problem with Muslims. We have a problem with Islamic jihadis killing us, he said.
Stanton said Swaroops’ comment contradicts what was actually said at the meeting.
In a speech at the event referring to Muslims, Maa, one of the activists summoned to Haridwar, said, if at least 100 of us become soldiers and we kill 20 lakh of these people, then we are victorious and ready. let’s go to jail. Twenty lakh, an Indian unit of measurement equal to 100,000, is 2 million people.
If that wasn’t a motivation to genocide, then I don’t know what it was, Stanton said.
This story first appeared on tittlepress.com