Islamophobia spreading unchecked
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Last Friday, March 15 was the International Day to combat Islamophobia. The day was launched on the basis of a resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly to combat the growing hatred, discrimination and violence against Muslims. As part of this, symposiums, online and offline discussions and awareness campaigns were held in many world famous universities. Some of the fraternal civil rights activists in Kerala expressed solidarity with the persecuted Muslim community by fasting and organizing Iftar. The message conveyed by the call to fast and the iftars organized without much publicity beyond social media posts, is highly significant, exciting and more than that, comforting. But if we ask if this in any way shookthe anti-Islamism that has taken root in the general public of India, at least in Kerala, the honest answer would be No. After a terrorist act of a blast in the congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses in Kalamassery which took the lives of many, and the culprit confessed to the crime and surrendered the very same day, many minds expressed disappointment and doubts which bore the clear signs of Islamophobia. The same Islamophobia was in display by the police who arrested and detained Muslim youth immediately after that incident, and jailed journalists who had gone to report the incident.
If this is the case in Kerala, things further north of Chandragiri river seem to be such that the hatred and spite against Muslims have become the hallmark of lifestyle. Two weeks ago, on a Friday afternoon in Inderlok in the capital city of Delhi, the world saw the sight of a policeman kicking with his boots believers who had come out, for want of space inside the mosque, to pray on the road. The atrocity was reminiscent of Israeli forces unleashing unprovoked attacks on worshipers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem over the past few years, especially during the month of Ramadan. Police violence against worshipers during their act of performing worship is a continuation of Hindutva state actions such as demolishing and occupying mosques built centuries ago, restricting the construction of new mosques and denying permission for Friday prayers in parks and grounds. In any case, the redeeming part is that in the instance in Delhi, the Delhi Police lost no time in suspending the policeman who committed this injustice against human decency and even against Indian constitutional values.
Two incidents of extreme Islamophobia that rules the roost in educational institutions came to light in the month of March. It is from Gujarat, the home state of the country's Prime Minister and Home Minister. In one of them, Hindutva racists gatecrashed and attacked foreign students who were performing Ramadan night prayers (Taraweeh) at a designated place allowed for prayer in the Gujarat University hostel. The assailants, not satisfied with causing wounds and bleeding, even entered the students' rooms and smashed all the laptops and study materials. The police who reached the spot only much after being informed about the violence, in the process facilitated the passage of the terrorists with weapons. Another is a picture from Assam. In a cultural procession organized by the History Department of the Bodoland University, in Kokrajhar, where the symbols of various communities and communities of the state were included, two young men with round caps and beards were paraded being led away by the police in handcuffs. The biggest sponsors of Islamophobia are the governments that are not ready to prevent them even with a blink of an eye when such flagrant atrocities and organized evil propaganda continue to be carried out against a minority religious community. And the political parties who are reluctant to respond to this in the hope of gaining votes, are equally guilty in this reprehensible state of affairs.
