Anti-minority sentiments rising in India

Islam Mohamed

Violence is spreading across India by extremist Hindu groups.

This violence is opening the door for a rise in sectarian attacks in various Indian states.

Extremist groups were able to clamp down on religious minorities, impose an extremist cultural pattern on them, and ignore the cultural specificities of different groups in a country known for its multiculturalism.

Suspending prayers

Extremist Hindu groups have continued to organize protests in conjunction with every Friday prayer for several months now.

These protests aim at disrupting prayers in public places in the Indian capital, New Delhi.

The same groups noisily demand a halt to prayers in empty plots of land, car parks and courtyards outside factories and markets.

Muslims have to perform their prayers in the open because of the lack of mosques in most Indian states.

Extremist Hindu groups chant slogans and park their vehicles in the streets to prevent Muslims from entering the places designated for prayers.

They harass Muslim worshippers and demonize them by describing them as ‘Pakistani’, in reference to a country that has been an archrival of India for many years now.

The Sikh minority tried to open their places of worship for Muslims to pray in them.

However, they had to back down after angry Hindus protested against them.

Hindu groups have often been implicated in the brutal killing of members of the Muslim minority after accusing them of slaughtering cows. Soon, however, it becomes clear that this was not the case.

These groups are spread in the states ruled by the extremist Bharatiya Janata Party, where 20 extremist Hindu formations, most likely consisting of unemployed youths, allied themselves with the Sanyukt Hindu Sangarsh Samiti which is known for its extremism against religious minorities.

Meanwhile, The New York Times published a report recently about Indian authorities responding to extremist Hindu pressure.

The authorities, according to the newspaper, launched campaigns in the western part of the country against egg-selling carts in implementation of the extremist religious edicts of some of those groups.

It cited an example that occurred in the city of Ahmedabad, in which municipal workers chased carts in a crowded neighborhood of the city and seized their gadgets, while the vendors ran or watched their things being confiscated helplessly.

These hard-line groups are constantly raising their demands against the minorities.