Tag: intolerance

‘More that unites us’: Bridging the border between Indians, Pakistanis, Hindus and Muslims

Posted on by cswpress in Asia, India, Pakistan

This month marked 77 years since one of the world’s most violent religious conflicts: the partition of India and Pakistan, which claimed more than a million Hindu and Muslim lives and displaced over 15 million people. A people that once lived together were now forced to choose sides. Families were torn apart.  The bloodshed didn’t end there and neither did the hatred, as the countries fought several more wars in the years to come. 

On either side of the border, my generation grew up hearing the worst of each other. Most of the narratives we read in newspapers or watched in the cinema portrayed the other in bad light. The enmity and hatred was and continues to be so deep rooted that it affects religious groups in both nations. 

I cannot count the number of times I have heard an Indian Muslim being called a Pakistani in a derogatory tone. Ever since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) first came to power in 2014, these slurs have only become more frequent and toxic.

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Reflections on my beloved India in an election year

Posted on by cswpress in Asia, India

India is currently holding general elections in seven phases which are due to run from 19 April to 1 June 2024. CSW’s India Researcher, whose name has been withheld for security reasons, lives in Tamil Nadu state in the south of the country. Here she offers some reflections on what is at stake for the future of the nation.

A day before my state Tamil Nadu went to elections, I was browsing social media when I noticed an image posted by an old friend of mine who studied with me in a Christian school. The image was of a women dressed in a white sari who represented an Indian Hindu. Around her were four other men – a Christian, a communist, a Muslim and a member of the Dravidian political party – all with weapons in their hand trying to stab a visibly scared Hindu woman. The caption said ‘vote wisely’ – an apparent warning message to all the Hindus in his friend list that they are in danger and they need to vote for the party that claims to protect them.

I was quite surprised. Yes, I know thousands of radical Hindus in India genuinely believe that their religion is under threat. But to see someone who I knew, who had his whole education in a Christian school and still remained a Hindu, actually succumb to the false narrative that Hinduism is under threat – that was surprising. In the last few years, I have sadly come across many other Hindu friends and acquaintances who have come to believe that.

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Scratching the wounds of the past: India’s disputes over mosques and temples are only increasing religious tensions

Posted on by cswpress in Asia, India

For decades, the city of Varanasi in Utter Pradesh was known for its syncretic culture, with Hindus and Muslims worshipping side by side in their respective places of worship. All that changed in May this year.

On 12 May, a district court in Varanasi ordered a videographic survey of the city’s Gyanvapi mosque which is located just metres away from the Kashi Vishwanath Hindu temple. The order followed a petition filed by a group of five Hindu women last year who sought permission to worship within the outer walls of the mosque.

In spite of the objections raised by the committee that manages the mosque, and in rejection of a stay order issued by the Allahabad High Court, the survey was completed on 16 May. The lawyer representing the Hindu petitioners subsequently claimed that a shivling (phallic symbol of the Hindu deity Shiva) was found in the compound of the mosque, which the Hindus argue should grant them a right to worship in the premises whilst barring Muslims from entering the area.

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The failure of the Karnataka authorities to stand against religious intolerance has yielded sad yet expected results

Posted on by cswpress in Asia, India

Incidents of communal violence have risen sharply in Karnataka state in recent months, and anti-Muslim sentiments are on the rise.

First there was the hijab controversy that began on 28 December 2021 when the authorities of an educational institution in Udipi, Karnataka banned six Muslim girls from entering with their hijabs (headscarves) on. Several other colleges followed suit with bans that were upheld by the Karnataka High Court on 15 March 2022.

State-sanctioned intolerance    

Ministers in the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), meanwhile have not shied away from expressing their radical agenda. In February 2022 the senior BJP leader in Karnataka, K S Eshwarappa, said that a day would come when the ‘saffron’ flag (a symbol of Hindu nationalism) would become the national flag.

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‘Kashmir Files’ – A film used to fuel religious intolerance in India

Posted on by cswpress in Asia, India

The Indian film Kashmir Files has been mired in controversy since its release on 11 March. The 270-minute-long film, directed by Vivek Agnihotri, an open supporter of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), focuses on the brutal killings of estimates of between 30 and 80 Kashmiri Pandits or Kashmiri Hindus from 1988-1990 and their exodus from Indian Administered Kashmir.

The film revolves around a young student who finally discovers that his parents were killed by Muslim militants and not by accident, as his grandfather had told him. The student is caught between two conflicting narratives, that of his grandfather who is seeking justice for the exodus, and that of his mentor – a Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) professor who tells him no such appeasement is necessary.

The historical events on which the film is based occurred in the 1990s, amidst a rising insurgency in Kashmir, when the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), a militant separatist organisation comprising Muslims, targeted the state’s minority Hindus – Kashmiri Pandits – forcing an estimated 75% of the Hindu population to leave the state and seek refuge in other parts of India. Governments in power since then, including the BJP, have done little for their resettlement.

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