Indian Independence Day, Minorities Under Attacks

By Sajjad Shaukat

Every year, when India celebrates Independence Day on August 15, Kashmiris living on both sides of the Line of Control (LoC) and Pakistanis, including those living abroad observe it as the black day to convey the message to the international community that New Delhi continues to usurp their inalienable right of self-determination as recognized by the related UNO resolutions. This very day has also proved black day for Indian lower-caste minorities like Dalits and religious minorities such as Muslims, Christians and Sikhs.

Since the fanatic Narendar Modi, the leader of the biased ruling party BJP became Indian Prime Minister, he started implementing Ideology of Hindutva (Hindu nationalism). Under his regime, persecution of minorities has been intensified by the extremist Hindus.

However, during the partition of the Sub-continent, the people of the state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) which comprised Muslim majority decided to join Pakistan. But, Dogra Raja, Sir Hari Singh, a Hindu who was ruling over the J&K in collusion with the Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Governor General Lord Mountbatten joined India.

The Radcliffe Boundary Award gave the Gurdaspur District—a majority Muslim area to India to provide a land route to the Indian forces to move into the J&K.

Indian forces invaded Srinagar on October, 27 1947 and forcibly occupied the J&K in utter violation of the partition plan.

When Pakistan responded militarily, on December 31, 1947, India made an appeal to the UN Security Council to intervene and a ceasefire ultimately came into effect on January 01, 1949, following UN resolutions calling for a plebiscite in Kashmir.

On February 5, 1964, India backed out of its commitment of holding plebiscite. Instead, Indian Parliament declared Kashmir-an integral part of the Indian union.

On August 5, 2019, Modi-led government abrogated articles 35A and 370 of the Constitution, which gave a special status to the disputed territory of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK). News bifurcated Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories—Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh to be ruled by the federal government. On the same day, strict military lockdown was imposed in the IIOJK which continues unabated.

And the deployment of more than 900,000 military troops in the IIOJK, who have martyred tens of thousands of the Kashmiris, including women and children through brutal tactics-fake encounters, while closure of mosques, shortage of foods, medicines for the patients have further increased the plight of the Kashmiris.

While, under a well-planned hidden agenda, Modi-led regime has intensified, bringing ethno- demographic changes in IIOJK. In this context, Indian various moves such as introduction of new laws, amendment of the laws to facilitate non-Kashmiris and outsiders in order to usurp the rights of the Muslim Kashmiris—issuance of domicile certificates to more than 800000 non-Kashmiris, registration of almost 2.5 million new non-local voters in the IIOJK—failure of fake drama to host G-20 summit on May 22-24, 2023 in the IIOJK, from time to time, violations of the Line of Control (LoC) by shelling inside Pakistanis side of Kashmir—in violation of the ceasefire agreement of 2003 might be cited as instance.

Recently, the unique peaceful protest was held in front of UN Headquarters Geneva, made by placing, standees’ posters and banners bearing details of Indian gross human rights violations. The depicted pictorial messages displayed persecution of Christians, state sponsored terror attacks on minorities, maltreatment of lower-caste Dalits including burning of Christian churches and religious preachers. The protest coincided during the latest session of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC).

In this respect, a disturbing video showing a group of men dragging a woman by her hair, brutally kicking and assaulting her with sticks, while she screams and cries surrounded by onlookers is going viral on social media platforms—the footage of the violent incident took place in Uttar Pradesh where a Dalit girl is being subjected to extreme violence,  taking place in an open field near a water body, on the charges of her bathing in the nearby water;  making the water impure/de-sanctifying it for upper class Hindus.

Nevertheless, injustice directed at the Dalits cause profound trauma and suffering—stigma follows an individual from birth until death, affecting all aspects of life from education, housing, work, access to justice and political participation. Women and girls are often victims of sexual violence, trafficking and are especially vulnerable to early and forced marriage, bonded labour and harmful cultural practices.

In this regard, Wikipedia writes: “The Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Indian Tribes (SITs) are officially designated groups of people and among the most disadvantaged socio-economic groups in India. The terms are recognized in the Constitution of India and the groups are designated in one or other of the categories. For much of the period of British rule in the Indian subcontinent, they were known as the Depressed Classes.  In modern literature, the Scheduled Castes are sometimes referred to as Dalit, meaning “broken” or “dispersed”.

Social scientists and Dalit activists say, “Dalits-formerly known as “untouchables” are still victim of thousands of attacks each year despite laws put in place…Dalits, as the lowest caste in the occupational hierarchy, have been assigned the most demeaning jobs, such as skinning dead animals or cleaning public toilets and sewers”.

Regarding Indian caste system, modern scholars point out that persons belonging to the caste of “Brahims have been held in the greatest esteem in India” and “they have considered themselves superior to the people of other castes…the other major castes, from highest to lowest, are the Kashatriya (warriors and princes), Vaisya (farmers or merchants) and Shudra (servants and sharecroppers)…Today, the Brahmins comprise about 5% of the total population of India.”

Notably, Indian Constitution declares India to be a secular and democratic state, which safeguards the rights of religious minorities, but, its subsequent regimes continued undemocratic practices by targeting Muslims and Christians as well as Sikhs. 

Particularly, under the Modi-led prejudiced government, discrimination against the Muslim and Christian communities has been accelerated by the extremist Hindus. Under his regime, various developments like unprecedented rise of Hindu extremism, persecution of religious minorities such as Muslims and Christians etc., assaults on their places of worships and property—forced conversion of other religious minorities into Hindus, creation of war-like situation with Pakistan etc. have clearly proved that encouraged by the Hindu fundamentalist outfits such as BJP, RSS VHP, Bajrang Dal and Shiv Sena have been promoting religious and ethnic chauvinism in India by propagating the Hindutva ideology.

It is intimated that the OHCHR (Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights) Complaints Procedure Branch has issued an official communication to New Delhi, and expressed concerned on information regarding the obstruction and discrimination against Muslim-Christian owned minorities’ businesses.

It pointed out that in March-April 2022; multiple calls by Hindu organizations were made to boycott Muslim and some Christian owned businesses in the states of Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh. These calls for the economic boycott of Muslim minority have been supported by state representatives and respective state governments. This elaborated that the Muslim vendors were not allowed to run their shops and stalls on several temple premises in Karnataka.

It is mentionable that some other discriminatory policies and moves against the Muslims such as the Indian Citizenship Amendment Act 2019 (CAA), passed by the Indian Parliament coupled with the National Register of Citizens (NRC)—mainly against the Muslim immigrants especially from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan—In December 15, 2019, despite daily mass protests, across every state against the CAA and the NRC, which resulted into killing of more than 300 persons-mostly Muslims by the police and prejudiced Hindus, Modi-led regime has not withdrawn the CAA/NRC—assaults on Muslims, their shops, burning of their houses and recently on a mosque etc. might be cited as example.

In this connection, protests by members of the Muslim minority in response to the decision of the Karnataka High Court to uphold a governmental ban on Muslim girls, wearing the hijab in educational institutions are also notable.

It is of particular attention that RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat had said on October 8, 2019: “Bharat is Hindu Rashtra and all Bharatiyas are Hindus.”

At present, drastic situation against the Christians in the Indian state of Manipur and Muslims in the state of Hyrina is of particular attention.

In fact, under Modi’s prejudiced government led by biased Hindu parties, India has become a fascist country. In this respect, The New York Times wrote on August 9, 2023: “In Manipur, Christians are bearing the brunt as the state’s B.J.P. government stokes the insecurities of the majority ethnic Meitei, who are predominantly Hindu. State leaders have branded the Kuki tribes who populate are mostly Christian—have blamed them for poppy cultivation intended for the drug trade and evicted some of them from their forest habitats. The specific trigger for the current violence was a court ruling in the state in favor of granting the Meitei affirmative action provisions and other benefits that have long been enjoyed by the Kuki and other tribes, which sparked a protest by tribal communities opposed to the ruling. Emboldened by the state government’s rhetoric, Meitei militias in Manipur have gone on a rampage of raping, pillaging, looting police armories and burning villages. More than 250 churches have been burned down”.

Besides, Indian authorities imposed a curfew in various parts of northern Haryana state after the violence began on July 31, this year. Nonetheless, Manipur-like bloody game is being played by the biased Hindus against the Muslims. Recently, extremist Hindus have boycotted the Muslims and stop purchasing their products in Haryana.

Similarly, like other religious communities, Sikhs have experienced numerous incidents of intimidation, harassment and violence, largely at the hands of Hindu nationalist groups.

It is notable that the leading Sikh leader of the Khalistan’s movement Hardeep Singh Nijjar was killed on June 18, 2023 in the targeted shooting in Canada’s Surrey.

In a video statement, leading pro-Khalistan’s separatist group Sikhs For Justice (SFJ) General Counsel Gurpatwant Singh Pannun disclosed: “The Indian intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), acting under the instructions of Narendra Modi assassinated Hardeep Singh Nijjar—the incharge of Khalistan Referendum in Canada”.

According to the World Sikh Organisation (WSO) of Canada, “Nijjar had been warned by Canada’s spy agency about threats against him.”

Nijjar’s death came few days after a close aide of Amritpal Singh Avtar Singh Khanda—the chief of the UK-based group—Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF) died in the UK. Reports suggest that Avtar Singh was working in close association with UK based Sikhs, Paramjit Singh Pamma and Nijjar who were spearheading secessionist campaign ‘Referendum 2020’ of organisation ‘Sikhs For Justice’.

India Today revealed on June 15, 2023: “Avtar Singh Khanda, UK-based chief of the Khalistan Liberation Force has died…sources said… he evaded the police for 37 days in between March and April, was suspected of being poisoned.”

Nevertheless, the Sikhs are fighting for a separate homeland since 1947, but the movement attained impetus after the brutal operation Blue Star launched by the Indian Army in 1984 at highly sacred Sikh religious place-the Golden Temple complex (Harmandir Sahib) in Amritsar, Punjab where their spiritual leader Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale had taken shelter.

Undoubtedly, when India celebrates Independence Day on August 15, Kashmiris living on both sides of the LoC and Pakistanis, including those living in rest of the world observe it as the black day. This very day has also become the black day for Indian lower-caste minorities like Dalits and religious minorities such as Muslims and Christians, including Sikhs.

Sajjad Shaukat writes on international affairs and is author of the book: US vs Islamic Militants, Invisible Balance of Power: Dangerous Shift in International Relations

Email: sajjad_logic@yahoo.com