Rise of Communalism and Hatred in India: A Discussion with Harsh Mander скачать в хорошем качестве

Rise of Communalism and Hatred in India: A Discussion with Harsh Mander

The 10 years of Modi Raj witnessed an unprecedented rise in communalism and hate in India. Calls for violence, genocide, and economic boycott of minorities were openly made through rallies and dharma sansads. Despite a Supreme Court order, hate speeches were made by political leaders to incite the common people. False and clearly-disproven rhetoric like Love Jihad, Population Jihad, Land Jihad, Mazar Jihad, were used to target the Muslims. The communal incitement and hatemongering took a physical form with mob violence against the minorities, where people were murdered on the pretext of eating beef, or even for being Muslims. In Uttarakhand, this led to a state-led ethnic cleansing of the Muslims. Meanwhile, religious festivals were captured by political mobs. Processions of swords and sticks were taken out, and religious places like Mosques and Churches were attacked. Instead of taking action against the mobs, the police arrested the Muslims. A Bulldozer Raj was used as a state policy to tear down their houses. The 2024 General Election saw BJP leaders make open hate speeches through rallies. Communal ads were aired through social media. Prime Minister Narendra Modi openly used the rhetoric of “infiltrators”, “people with many children”, love jihad against the Muslims. Communalism is a betrayal of the values of our independence movement and the idea of India envisioned by our leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindra Nath Tagore, Maulana Azad, Babasaheb Ambedkar and Jawaharlal Nehru. It is a betrayal of the sacrifice of revolutionaries like Ram Prasad Bismil, Ashfaqulla Khan, and Bhagat Singh. It is a betrayal of our plural teachings of Sant Kabir, Ramananda and Guru Nanak. Today, communalism presents the greatest threat to India. Harsh Mander is a human rights and peace worker, writer, columnist, researcher and teacher. He served as an IAS officer for two decades, and resigned after witnessing the role of the state in the 2002 Gujarat pogrom. He leads the national initiative called the Karwan e Mohabbat or Caravan of Love to counter rising hate violence and lynching. He is a member of the working group of Genocide Watch. He is also the founder of Aman Biradari, a people's campaign for a secular, peaceful, just and humane world. He convenes and edits the annual India Exclusion Report, to document the experience of disadvantaged people of the state. He is visiting faculty in the Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, and Heidelberg University, Germany; Vrije University, Amsterdam; and the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. He has written 25 books including ‘Partitions of the Heart: Unmaking the Idea of India’; ‘Burning Pyres, Mass Graves and a State That Failed Its People: India’s Covid Tragedy’; ‘Looking Away: Inequality, Prejudice and Indifference in New India’; and ‘Ash in the Belly: India’s Unfinished Battle against Hunger’.