Press Release
Government must take strong to end Violence, Coercion and orchestrated
campaign of Hate and Violence targetting Religious Minorities, polarising
communities
Zero Tolerance, not moratorium, needed to end communal violence
NEW DELHI, 27 September 2014
Civil
society activists and representatives of religious minorities have called upon
the Central and State Governments to take urgent action to end the orchestrated
and motivated campaign of hate and violence
which targets and coerces minorities, and impacts on communal harmony in
towns and villages in many parts of the country.
The
hundreds of incidents of “Shuddhikaran” and “Ghar Wapsi” against Muslims and
Christians specially in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, and the
mobilisation against the so-called “love jihad” has terrorised youth in these
regions. The blatant support from
central and local political leaders to these anti social groups has
triggered violence in many places. The
media has recorded over 600 incidents of violence against minorities since the
results of the General elections were declared on 16th May
2014. State governments had been tardy in taking action against the guilty.
This impunity had further encouraged the
unlawful elements.
A
public protest against Attacks on Minorities, was held at Jantar Mantar today
to focus attention on the rapidly
deteriorating situations. Speakers
impressed upon the Prime Minister
and Union and State Governments and the Union Government to take action under
the law of the land against those
creating disharmony and polarising the people.
A
Report on Attacks on Minorities was released at the public meeting
endorsed by over 30 civil right
and constitutional right groups and minority right to raise the issue
of defence of minority rights, the right to live with dignity as
equal citizens of India. The country, several speakers said, needed a Zero
Tolerate against Communal and Targetted Violence, and not jsut a moratorium for
some years.
Speakers
noted that the situation had become so critical that even a person of the
eminence of jurist Mr. Fali Nariman went on record to voice his concern,
“We
have been hearing on television and reading in newspapers almost on
a daily basis a tirade by one or more individuals or groups against one or
another section of citizens who belong to a religious minority and the
criticism has been that the majority government at the Centre has done nothing
to stop this tirade,” …
"And
how does one protect the interest of minorities who (or a section of which) are
on a daily basis lampooned and ridiculed or spoken against in derogatory
language?" Mr. Fali Nariman
said at function organised by the
National Commission for Minorities at which the Union Minister for Minority
Welfare, Dr. Najma Heptullah, was present.
We had hoped that the
acrid rhetoric of the election campaign would end with the declaration of the
results, and the formation of a new government at the centre. The first 100
days of the new regime have, however, seen
the rising pitch of a crescendo of hate speech against Muslims and Christians.
Their identity derided, their patriotism scoffed at, their citizenship
questioned, their faith mocked. The environment has degenerated into one of
coercion, divisiveness, and suspicion. This has percolated to the small towns
and villages of rural India, severing bonds forged in a dialogue of life over
the centuries, shattering the harmony build around the messages of peace and
brotherhood given us by the Sufis and the men and women who led the Freedom
Struggle under Mahatma Gandhi. The
attacks have assumed alarming proportions. Over 600 incidents of targeting
religious minorities have taken place from May to September 2014 in several
parts of the country, but especially which have seen, or will soon see,
by-elections or elections to the Legislative Assemblies.
The
hate campaign, the violence, the open threats have stunned not just the
religious minorities, but civil society, jurists and academics. Many of them
articulated their concern not just at the violence but at the silence of the Government.
Many of the incidents of
violence were directed against individuals and places of worship of the Muslim
community, especially in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. These incidents of
violence include at least 36 recorded incidents against the tiny Christian
community in various parts of the country. The Christian community, its
pastors, congregations and churches, were targets of mob violence and State
impunity in dozens of cases in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
Target dates, one of them coinciding with Christmas 2014, have been set to
“cleanse” various areas of Muslim and Christian presence. The state apparatus
and specially the police often became a party arresting not the aggressors but
the victims to satisfy the demands of the mob. There have attempts at religious
profiling of Christian academic institutions, and their students in the
national capital.
There
has been a well planned shift the locus of violence and mobilisations from the
urban centres to small towns and rural areas; another course is to keep the
“dead-count” low and use variants of everyday, “routine” violence to spread
tensions and create panic. Yet another scheme is to convert India-Pakistan
relations into a subset of the Hindu-Muslim relations within India. The most
prominent method deployed in recent weeks has been the issue of “Love Jihad”.
While the Southern University System of Louisiana in the United States
has decided to offer Prime Minister Narendra Modi an honorary doctorate for his
work in inclusive growth and in recognition of Mr. Narendra Modi's contribution
towards social transformation, especially for empowering
women and minorities in Gujarat, the facts on the ground are very
different.
The people and
organisations gathered at the Public meeting demand:
1. Zero
Tolerance against Communal and Targetted Violence, including Hate crimes,
profiling and attacks on Freedom of Faith as enshrined in the Constitution of
India.
2. Govt of India and State governments
should swiftly take action against those who create tension among minorities
through their utterances, by immediately
arresting them and filing cases against them.
3. The
Union Home Ministry and State Home Ministries should issue a directive to all
Police Posts across the country to treat all citizens equally and not come
under pressure from certain groups and harass minorities.
4. Govt
should set up a mechanism to provide conducive environment to all citizens of
our country and to ensure defence
of minority rights, the right to live with dignity as equal citizens of
India.
Those
who spoke included : ALI
ANWAR-JDU, AMARJEET KAUR-CPI, APOORVANAND, ARCHBISHOP ANIL JT COUTO, Archbishop Kuriakose Bharnikulanghara , Bishop Simon
John, COLIN GONSALVES, DR ZAFARUL- ISLAM KHAN, HARSH MANDER, HARVINDER
SINGH SARNA, JOHN DAYAL, KIRAN SHAHEEN, KUNWAR DANISH-JDS, MANISH
TIWARI-CONGRESS, MANISHA SETHI, MAULANA NIAZ FAROOQUI, MOHD NASEEM,
NAVAID HAMID, NOOR MOHD, PAUL DIVAKAR, SEHBA FAROOQUI, SHABNAM
HASHMI, SYEDA HAMEED, ZAKIA SOMAN.
The meeting was organsied
by : ALL
INDIA CHRISTIAN MINORITY FRONT, ALL INDIA DALIT MAHILA ADHIKAR MANCH (AIDMAM),
ALL INDIA DEMOCRATIC WOMEN'S ASSOCIATION (AIDWA), ALL INDIA CATHOLIC UNION, ALL
INDIA MILLI COUNCIL, ALL INDIA MUSLIM MAJLIS-E-MUSHAWARAT, ALLIANCE DEFENDING
FREEDOM, AMAN BIRADARI, ANHAD, BHARTIYA MUSLIM MAHILA ANDOLAN (BMMA), CBCI
OFFICE FOR SC/BC , CHRISTIAN LEGAL ASSOCIATION, FEDERATION OF CATHOLIC
ASSOCIATIONS OF DELHI, HUMAN RIGHTS LAW NETWORK, INDIAN SOCIAL INSTITUTE, JAMIA
TEACHER’S SOLIDARITY ASSOCIATION, JAMIAT ULEMA-E-HIND , JESUITS IN SOCIAL ACTION (JESA), JPD
COMMISSION, CBCI CENTRE, MAZDOOR KISAN SHAKTI SANGATHAN, MOEMIN, MUSLIM WOMEN'S
FORUM, NATIONAL CAMPAIGN ON DALIT HUMAN RIGHTS (NCDHR), NATIONAL FORUM FOR
HOUSING RIGHTS (NFHR), OFFICE FOR JUSTICE, PEACE AND DEVELOPMENT – CBCI,
PEOPLE’S ALLIANCE FOR DEMOCRACY & SECULARISM (PADS), RELIGIOUS LIBERTY
COMMISSION , SOUTH ASIAN MINORITIES LAWYERS ASSOCIATION
(SAMLA), SHAHRI ADHIKAR MANCH: BEGHARON KE SAATH (SAM:BKS), STANDING TOGETHER
TO ENABLE PEACE TRUST, WING INDIA (WOMEN IN GOVERNANCE), WSS
(WOMEN-AGAINST-SEXUAL-VIOLENCE & STATE REPRESSION), YWCA INDIA.
Link to the report
