Pakistan strongly condemned the recent Islamophobic remarks by K S Eshwarappa, a BJP leader and Deputy Chief Minister of Karnataka, and denounced the proposed plan of the Indian government for closing down over 600 religious seminaries in its country. According to the Foreign Office Spokesperson, these remarks are another manifestation of the rising Islamophobia in the so-called biggest democracy of the world. Pakistani Spokesman expressed deep concerns about the alarming rise in racism, faith-based crimes, and violence against Muslims in India.
Right-wing politics and anti-minority rhetoric of the BJP-led Indian government had squeezed the space for minorities in India while Muslims across the country remained a major victim of ultra-nationalist policies and religion-based politics of the Modi government since assuming power in 2014. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s campaign for cow protection and baseless propaganda for bulldozing hundreds of Muslim seminaries over the alleged accusation of being built on Hindu temples are those provocative schemes that spill hate and Islamophobia in Hindu extremists and cause large-scale anti-Muslim riots in most parts of India.
According to reports, BJP leaders deliberately incite hate and spread Islamophobia to grasp power and increase their public rating among the masses but their heinous politics has ruined the life of Indian Muslims and exposed fake secularism of Indian society. Apparently, multiple legislations of the Indian parliament including cow protection and religion conversion laws, inter-religion marriage act, citizenship act, and residential segregation played a pivotal role in promoting social injustice, religious bigotry, and hate crimes while providing shelter to the perpetrators of those regretful acts in Modi ruled India.
The recurrent incidents of hate speech, racism, and Islamophobia have become customary, whereas profanation of poise personality, desecration of the Holy Quran and Islamic verses, along with physical attacks on Muslim men, women, and Mosques are common in India. Presently, over 210 million Indian Muslims face intimidation and religion-based discrimination from the Hindu majority and feels insecure not in public places, educational institutions, and market but equally unsafe in their homes across India, particularly the states ruled by the Hindutva-influenced BJP fanatics. According to statistics, over 1000 incidents of hate crimes and violence agaisnt Msulim had been reported since April 2021 while undocumented occurrences are likely to be many times more than it. Unfortunately, neither the central government nor the provincial administrations ever condemned the Islamophobic act and violence against Muslim rather political leadership and state Police blatantly assisted the criminals during the legal formalities, investigation, as well as prosecution which always led to the release of the culprits involved in multiple terror incidents including Samjota Express, 2002 Gujrat’s riots, and others.
Historically, Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hatred have deep roots in India throughout history. Although Muslim communities had been residing in the Indo-Subcontinent since the 6th century AD and a significant number of local Hindus were converted to Islam at an early age, Hindus never consider Muslim as indigenous people over the past centuries. That is the reason that at the helm of the independence movement from British rule, Hindu politicians and religious clerics opposed the partition of Pakistan and pursued the nefarious doctrine of Akhand Bharat so far.
In fact, hate crimes, desecration of poise Muslim personalities, and physical attacks against Muslims are common phenomena across India, however, BJP leaders deliberately commit such shameful acts on the eve of International Day to Combat Islamophobia that clearly illustrates inner filthiness and prejudice of Indian leaders against 1.5 billion Muslim residing in their country and across the world. Pakistan and other Muslim nations must raise this issue globally to expose India’s odious designs to the world.
