While Modi and Yogi governments continue to make life increasingly difficult for the large Muslim minority in India, Hindutva ideologues are now flexing their muscles on a global scale moving from hate speech to violence targeting Muslims, Sikhs and Christians.
On Thursday 22 September 2022, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) conducted a large-scale raid across the country on the premises of the Popular Front of India (PFI), an Indian Muslim political movement formed largely to counter Hindutva groups, detaining over 100 PFI leaders and activists on trumped up charges of terror-funding and money laundering.
It has now been banned as an anti-national organisations since Wednesday 28 September with hundreds more of its leaders and workers arrested and its offices sealed in more than 15 states throughout India including the capital New Delhi.
PIF, a large scale India-wide organisation has been holding peaceful rallies advocating for rights and dignity of the 200 million strong Muslim minority in India that is increasingly being repressed under the Modi government.
Founded in 2006 with the merger of the Karnataka Forum for Dignity (KFD) and the National Development Front (NDF), PIF has various wings to cater to different sections of society, including the National Women’s Front (NWF) and the Campus Front of India (CFI).
Meanwhile the Yogi government in the most populous state of Uttar Pradesh (UP) is making life difficult for Muslims by “surveying” with the aim of breaking up Islamic educational institutions, Awqaf, Muslim endowment boards and legislating provincial laws against interfaith marriages, prosecution and financial penalties as well of bulldozing of homes of those protesting against oppression.
Overseas ofshoots of RSS and Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in Western countries, particularly in US, UK and Australia are increasingly advocating for Hindu right wing vision of India, engaging in Islamophobia and hate speech.
Events in US, Australia and recently in Leicester in the UK are an indication of propagation of Hindu right wing political philosophy, Hindutva, in new ways, violently, on the streets of Western countries being exported out of India.
On Saturday 17 September, young Hindu men marched through the streets of Leicester, chanting “Jai Sri Ram”, now a Hindu nationalist war cry, and attacking Muslims.
In the US, Canada, UK as well as Australia, the Hindu right is moving rapidly from electoral influence and lobbying to demonstrations of street might, muscular brand of Hindu pride and chauvinism that Hindu nationalists have always aspired to.
Australia has been witnessing an uptick in hate crimes committed by Hindus against Muslims and Sikhs. One such attacker, Vishal Sood, was eventually arrested for a series of attacks on Sikhs, and was convicted and deported since his visa had expired. When he got back to India, he received a hero’s welcome.
Attempts have also been made by Indian authorities in Australia to silence critics of Modi and his Hindu nationalist policies.
Thirteen academic fellows resigned from the Australia India Institute at the University of Melbourne citing interference from the Indian High Commission and attempts to censor research and writing that presented an “unflattering” image of India.
Associate Professor Somdeep Sen from Roskilde University in Denmark in an opinion piece on Aljazeera published on Monday 26 September 2022 has warned that the recent UK violence should serve as a wake-up call and Hindu nationalism is no longer a worry just in India.
“Islamophobia now appears to be a matter of public and foreign policy for India. The Indian High Commission in the UK responded to the events in Leicester by specifically referring only to the worries of the Hindu community there,”
A/Prof Somdeep Sen writes.
He concludes, “However, Leicester should serve as a wake-up call: Hindu nationalism cannot be ignored any more as a domestic, Indian issue. The movement has gone international – and is taking an increasingly violent form in other countries too. It is now a threat to democratic principles, equality and human rights everywhere. India under Modi will not address it. The world must.”
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