IPT 1.1 | september 2022 | Section 3
Accompanying serious abuses is the toxic atmosphere against Muslims and other minorities created by senior BJP leaders as well as other public figures, increasingly amounting to incitement to violence. The following incidents from the period under review are noteworthy.
- Gyan Dev Ahuja, BJP member and past state legislator from Rajasthan state, was recorded on 20 August 2022, publicly urging his audience ‘to kill anyone involved in cow slaughter’, adding that ‘we have so far killed five people’, alluding to lynchings and murders of Muslim men on allegations on cow slaughter in the area. Ahuja was BJP Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) from Alwar district from 2013-2018, a period that saw several lynching of Muslim men, and Ahuja publicly defending those.
- A Panchayat (Village Council) in Manesar district of BJP ruled Haryana state, organised by Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Sant Samaj and attended by among others, Bajrang Dal, on 4 July 2022, called for economic boycott of Muslim shopkeepers and vendors and for village level committees to be formed to enforce this boycott, and to “pick up weapons against them”. The calls were made in the presence of local police and officials.
- T Raja Singh, a BJP MLA from Telangana state made derogatory remarks against Prophet Mohammad in a video uploaded on YouTube on 6 September 2022. Singh, a former member of the violent Hindu group, Bajrang Dal, now a two time BJP MLA, has had a long record of anti-Muslim rhetoric and incitement, with some 50 serious offences recorded against him by police. Yet he has not faced any justice.
Incidents of Hindu religious processions used to target minorities through inciting speech and violence also continue to be reported.
- On 10 September, in Madhya Pradesh’s Raisen district, a Lord Ganesh idol immersion procession turned violent with the procession stopping in a Muslim locality while playing anti-Muslim songs on speakers. A video showing vehicles owned by Muslims coming under attack were also recorded. Rather than act against those inciting violence, Police are reported to have begun crmninal proceedings against Muslims from the locality.
- In another incident on 10 September, a Mahavir Akhara procession in Bihar’s Siwan district turned violent when saffron clad males that were part of the procession, reportedly armed with clubs began hurling communal slurs when passing by a mosque. Videos recorded from the clash show Muslim houses being vandalised and shops being set on fire.
A prominent Hindu religious leader, Anand Swarup, head of the powerful Shankaracharya Parishad, who has been reported having made, along with other leaders genocidal speeches against Muslims at a religious conclave in December 2021, was on 13 August 2022 reported leading another religious gathering convened to draft the constitution of the ‘Hindu Rashtra’ (Hindu nation) that Hindu nationalists seek to turn India into. Media reported that the draft constitution calls for taking away voting rights from Muslims and Christians and working towards forcible merger of lands outside India to create Akhand Bharat (‘unbroken India’). Anand Swarup has been reported making anti-Muslims speeches in the past too.