By: IBRAHIM Jaafar
After four years under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the intensity and frequency of violence meted out against religious minorities has been escalating.
There has been a disturbing increase in cases of lynching. Some are carried out in the name of protecting cows, which are considered a sacred animal in Hinduism.
Such episodes have claimed many lives since 2010, with majority of the victims being Muslims, according to a recent report by the IndiaSpend website.
They are the chief target of these violent attacks, oppressive laws and a general atmosphere of repression despite numbering 170 million, which makes India the country with the third-biggest Muslim population in the world after Indonesia and Pakistan.
Communalism and communal violence are among the problems faced by Indian Muslims. Quoting from the past, In 1961 and 1964 there were riots in Jamshedpur, Rourkela and Jabalpur. Major riots took place in Ranchi, Bihar in 1967 and in Ahmedabad in Gujarat in 1969. In the 1970s and 1980s major communal riots took place. In many of these riots nearly 1000 Muslims were killed. In 1992–93 riots took place in Bombay in which 575 Muslims perished. From 1992 to 2003 the Muslim community faced a series of communal riots, among which the most serious was the Babri mosque incident.
Noor-ul-Amin, the octogenarian Pakistani fisherman whose remains were handed over at the Wagah border in Lahore a couple of days ago, after been tortured to death in an Indian jail where he was serving jail term for mistakenly having crossed over to Indian waters during a fishing expedition two years ago was reported to have missing eyes, his skull opened with the brain and his kidneys been taken out.
Muslim Hotel Businessman, Shaukat Ali, 68 year old, in Assam was brutally attacked on 7th april by an extremist mob, calling him "Bangladeshi" and interrogating him of his NRC status (citizenship). He was beaten and forced to eat pork by an extremist mob. His crime? Allegedly Carrying Beef!
Muslim shopkeeper Haji Yasin Sheikh and his family were brutally attacked by an extremist mob in India on the 8th day of April this year.
Sadly, India is not alone in seeing a rise of religious nationalism, which is becoming the new normal in South Asia and Southeast Asia.
Yet it's painful to see that any diminution of social justice against Islam and Muslims in countries where the US and its democratic Asia-Pacific allies Japan, South Korea and Australia wish to be on "friendly" terms with either militarily or strategically tends to go un-commented on.
This way of doing business has become ingrained in those governments, which brings to mind the truism that the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men (or countries) to do nothing.
However, India has been getting something of a free pass lately despite its growing track record of religious persecution for reasons of political expediency.
This is because it is part of the so-called Quadrilateral Security Alliance, or "Quad," which binds it together with the U.S., Japan and Australia as they battle for more influence in the Asia-Pacific region.
Under Modi, India's appalling treatment of ethnic minorities and minority religions - Islam imclusive - is starting to resemble that of its bitter enemy, Communist China, which has recently begun a systematic program of persecution against Muslims.