In the last few years, Islamophobia and attacks on Muslims in India have increased under various pretexts, and Hindu extremist groups have tried to present an inappropriate image of Muslims in the country.
According to Pak Sahafat news agency, in 2020, Islamophobia spread to different parts of India. Rising anti-Islamic propaganda, hatred against Muslims, violations of Muslim rights and accusations of spreading the Corona virus in India, and police crackdowns on students and activists protesting peacefully against controversial civil law reform are all examples of Islamophobia in India.
Blaming Muslims for Corona Expansion in India
For example, the US-based analytical site Eurasia Review wrote that in March 2020, the Islamic group Jamaat Tablighi held a program in the Nizamuddin neighborhood of New Delhi. At least 7,600 Muslims from India and 1,300 from countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia participated in the religious program.
The religious program came at a time when the outbreak of the coronavirus in India was in its infancy and quarantine had just begun. But the plan has led many Hindu extremist groups opposed to the country’s Muslims to blame the entire Indian Muslim community for the spread of the corona.
But amid the outbreak of the coronavirus, fake news and information spread even faster than the virus to India’s 1.3 billion people. Most of the fake news was related to the spread of the Corona virus against Muslims in India.
The most important fake news headlines in India, which were aimed at criticizing Muslims are: “Muslim man contaminates fruits with corona virus with saliva”, “Muslims block Hindu access to food aid”, “Muslim worker in restaurant contaminates customers’ food with corona”, “Foreign Muslims are hiding in mosques in Patna,” “Muslims are sneezing en masse to spread the corona virus,” and “Muslims with corona have beaten a Hindu monk.”
The purpose of these headlines was to increase hatred and violence in India amid the Corona outbreak. The news caused public concern against Indian Muslims. Various images of the attack on Muslims were then posted on Indian social media.
In one of the images released last year, a group of 22 extremist Hindus attacked a mosque in Karnataka state, beating three Muslims and accusing them of spreading the corona virus.
The Guardian reported in another report that Islamic charities that had been helping the poor during India’s nationwide quarantine had also come under attack over the past year. In the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, Muslim truck drivers were attacked by extremist Hindus. In 2020, a video was released of a police officer attacking a Muslim man and shouting that it was because of Muslims that the corona had spread in India.
Extremist Hindus beat Muslims across the country on the pretext that they were ignoring quarantine rules.
Last year, the Indian government asked its citizens to turn off their house lights and turn on their candles or mobile phone lights for 9 minutes in a symbolic action to fight the corona on April 5.
In February 2020, New Delhi witnessed anti-Muslim riots that killed 54 people. The cause of the unrest was the adoption of a new citizenship law in February.
Demolition of mosques and Muslim businesses in India
In November of this year, in a new wave of anti-Muslim violence in India, at least six mosques and more than a dozen Muslim homes and shops in the northeastern state of Tripura were ruled by a government affiliated with the ruling Bahartia Janta Party (BJP) managed, set on fire.
The attacks were carried out by extremist groups Hinutova and Bajrang Dal throughout Tripura province in retaliation for religious violence in Bangladesh.
Photos and videos that were widely shared on social media showed extremist Hindus chanting anti-Muslim slogans while wearing saffron clothes and holding swords. According to the Hindu Point newspaper in India, the mosques of Krishnagar, the therapist, Panisagar and Chandrapur were destroyed by a group of extremist Hindus last month.
Participants in a rally organized by Vishwa Hindu Parishad smashed windows and CCTV cameras at the Krishnagar Mosque. A mosque in Panisagar in North Tripura was also set on fire by a Hindu extremist group.
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In Kilashahr, a place near the city of Agartala, the capital of Tripura, a group surrounding a mosque chanted Hindu religious slogans and hoisted a saffron flag (a symbol of courage and Hinduatwa).
At the same place, Hindu groups placed a saffron flag in front of the house of Abdul Manan, a prominent Muslim businessman in the area.
Calling for the massacre of Muslims is the culmination of hatred against this minority in India
But in the past two weeks, images have surfaced on Indian social media showing the height of hatred against Muslims in the country by Hindu extremist groups.
According to Qatar’s Al-Jazeera network, Indian police announced on Friday that an investigation has been launched into the spread of hate speech against Muslims during a program last week involving a group of Hindu leaders in the northern city of Heridwar, in the northern state of Uttarakhand.
Participants in the program called for mass killings and the use of weapons against Muslims.
According to a video posted online, one of the speakers on the show told the crowd that people should not worry about being imprisoned for killing Muslims.
At least one member of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was present at the event. The party has been accused of inciting anti-Muslim sentiment and other minorities in India since taking power in 2014.
Asaduddin Owaisi, a member of the Indian Parliament, tweeted that the provocative remarks in the video were “a clear example of incitement to genocide.”
Parboudhandiri, a Hindu extremist leader whose pictures have been published in the past with leaders of the Baiji Party, said on the program: Like Myanmar, the police, politicians, the army and every Hindu in India must take up arms and carry out this purge. There is no other option left.
He is referring to the purge of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar by the military, which has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced more than two million.
Indian society has been in turmoil since December 2019 following the passage of a new citizenship law by the government. Under the law, non-Muslim citizens are given priority for Indian citizenship. Muslims believe the move by the Indian government was an attempt to turn the country into a Hindu nation.
Changing laws in some Indian states to restrict minorities
In recent years, with the rise of Islamophobia and the growing Muslim population in India, Indian states have passed laws outlawing interfaith marriage and criminalizing conversion to marriage.
Dozens of young Muslim men in Uttar Pradesh, the country’s most populous Muslim country and led by the state’s extremist Hindu leader Yogi Adityanat, are in prison for marrying Hindu women.
In the Indian media and political slogans, a person accused of converting a Hindu to religion through marriage is always portrayed as a Muslim and referred to as a “love jihad.”
What is the prediction of religious tensions in India?
The Indian Express of India wrote on Monday following the release of the latest images of the wave of Islamophobia in the country: We are likely to see more killings in the name of religion and more extremists in India. Extremists in India have felt they can operate freely. This is not good for India, especially when its politicians have paved the way for Hindu extremism. Christians in India have not been spared. Targeted violence by political groups is a serious and urgent concern in India.