A professor at the Manipal Institute of Technology in Udupi district asked a student for his name and then said, “Oh you are like Kasab”. Ajmal Kasab was the sole surviving gunman from the 26 November 2008 “terror” attacks in India’s financial capital, Mumbai. He was convicted and hanged in 2012. This incident reveals that anti-Muslim propaganda has percolated minds of even educated people.
Genocide warning
Genocide Watch, a global organisation, dedicated to the prevention of genocide, has issued two warning alerts for India. One is for the occupied territory of Kashmir and the other for Assam state. According to the website, a ‘Genocide Watch’ warning is declared by the NGO when there are signs of the early stages of genocide in progress.
The NGO was founded by academic Dr Gregory Stanton in 1999Genocide Watch objective is to predict, prevent, stop, and punish genocide.
The most recent genocide alert issued by the organisation was for occupied Kashmir, in which it identified the genocidal process, based on Dr Stanton’s 10 Stages of Genocide. These stages are mentioned heretofore.
Genocide stages
Classification: The fanatics first begin to believe myths that they are an endangered species threatened by the other. In the case of India, Hindus constitute about 79 percent of India’s population. Being in majority they have nothing to fear. The Hindutva government of Narendra Modi is there to protect their interests. Yet, they presume that Muslims are more virile than them. They can take up to four wives, As such; a Muslim household would have invariably more siblings than a traditional Hindu household. Hinduism is monogamous. A so-called Hindu religious assembly exhorted Hindu community to produce the maximum number of kids lest Muslim population exceeds Hindu population in a few years. The religious assembly called upon Hindus to buy the latest state-of-the-art arms and ammunition to kill Muslims. The local police at Haridwar were reluctant to file First Information Reports. When they, at long last, filed the FIRS, the Hindutva influenced courts bailed out the fiery speakers. The bailees received a heroic welcome back home.
Symbolisation: All Muslims are traitors as “they” look towards Mecca. Their prayer caps, dress and food habits distinguish them from “US”, Hindus. Muslims have Muslim names (on ID cards). Similarly Kashmiri Muslim is distinguished by their dress. Muslims mock our gods. They slaughter and eat cows.
Discrimination: Hindu Pandits were economically dominant until 1990. The congress government initiated a number of schemes to ameliorate the lot of the pauper Muslims.
Dehumanisation: Muslims are called “terrorists”, “separatists”, “criminals”, “insurgents”. Even members of a peaceful Tablighi Jamaat (Preachers’ Party) visiting India were hounded, harassed and expelled.
Organisation: Extremist Hindu organisations like the RSS, Bajrang Dl, etc are imparting military training to their recruits. They indulge in arson, shooting, and looting whenever riots break out. They enjoy police connivance.
Polarisation: Extremist Hindu organisations incite anti-Muslim hatred. They are very active on social media to spread falsehoods.
Preparation: Around nine lac Indian army and security personnel dot every nook and corner in occupied Kashmir. They kill Kashmiris in fake encounters, in police custody and in so many other ways. An Indian army major tied a Kashmiri to bonnet of his jeep and paraded him in several villages to create “terror”. BJP leaders speak of the “Final Solution” (holocaust) for Kashmir
Persecution: Muslims in India are persecuted in multifarious ways. They are not allowed to offer prayers at mosques. The Supreme Court has declared that a mosque is not essential to Muslim mode of worship. Muslim s offering prayer at Gurgaon open space was beaten up. Even those offering group prayer within houses were beaten. Thousands of loudspeakers were removed from mosques on ground that they disturb peace people living in the vicinity.
Extermination: Since 1990, there have been at least 25 massacres by Indian troops as well as Muslim fighters with death tolls over 25
Denial: Modi and BJP say their goals are to “bring prosperity” and “end terrorism”; they deny any massacres. No Indian Army troops or police are ever tried for torture, rape or murder
In view of these developments, Genocide Watch has called upon the United Nations and its members to warn India not to commit genocide in occupied Kashmir.
Assam
Genocide Watch has also issued an alert for Assam state in India, where millions of Bengali Muslims face losing citizenship status.
Over seven million people in Assam State, mostly Muslims of Bengali descent, may lose their Indian citizenship and risk imprisonment in special “foreigner detention centers”. A process is now underway to “verify” the citizenship of all 32 million inhabitants of Assam state, which requires each person to affirmatively prove that they are Indian and not an “illegal migrant”.
“At the urging of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist central government, Assam is updating its master list of ‘citizens’ […] Anyone not on the final ‘citizen’ list will be presumptively declared a ‘foreigner’, subject to statelessness and indefinite detention.
“Assam’s Muslims are especially likely to be excluded from the ‘citizen’ list as part of a decades-long pattern of discrimination. The word ‘foreigners’ is a common term of dehumanization used to exclude targeted groups from citizenship and the exercise of their fundamental civil and human rights,” said Genocide Watch.
“The Home Minister of India called Bengali Muslims (“foreigners”) living in North eastern states ‘termites’. Anti-Muslim propaganda has polarised the Assam population.
According to Genocide Watch “Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal has requested additional Indian government troops and police to arrest ‘foreigners’. The Assam state is building ten new ‘foreigner’ detention centers to add to the six prisons already in existence.”
“If India imprisons Bengali Muslims in Assam, it will be violating its obligations under the UN Refugee Conventions. If it expels them from India, it will be perpetrating ‘forced displacement’, a crime against humanity. If genocidal massacres occur, India will violate its obligations to prevent genocide under the Genocide Convention,” added the watchdog.
Genocide Watch called upon the UN Secretary General, the UN Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and key UN member states to warn India “not to strip citizenship from, imprison, and forcibly displace millions of Bengali Muslims, many of whom have lived their entire lives in Assam state”.
Concluding remarks
The Genocide Watch has announced that India has completed eight out of ten genocide stages. Yet the Indian government shrugged off their warnings.
