BJP leader, Yogi Adityanath, has praised U.S. President Donald Trump's 'Muslim Ban' and stated that "similar action is needed to contain terror activities in this country (India)."
These statements by officials demonstrate in part, systematic otherization and Islamophobia. The statements clear the way for discriminatory legislation, policies and actions toward this vulnerable population. As a result, people may face discrimination, harassment, acts of physical violence, criminalization, imprisonment, deportation, and death.
It has been reported that India is experiencing and aggressive form of McCarthyism to silent dissent against the BJP. Media personnel and reporters are being tracked by BJP headed 'war rooms' that gather data on both traditional and new media, rating and categorizing it in relation to its position on the ruling BJP government, which has caused concern for many.
The Reporters Without Borders World Press
Freedom Index has revealed that mainstream media and journalists are
"increasingly the targets of
Some journalists have claimed that they face intimidation if they are critical of Modi or his administration. It was reported that "three senior editors have left their jobs at various influential media outlets in the past six months after publishing reports that angered the government or supporters of Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)." Reporters and others also face the threat of prosecution for 'sedition' which is punishable by life imprisonment if they are "overly critical."
Female journalists report being threatened
with gangrape against themselves and family members. Recently, the United
Nations intervened and called upon the
Media under ruthless pressure
In 2017 four reporters were murdered and in 2018, four journalists were murdered at the time of report compilation.
A recent India Today article stated that the 2017 murder of female reporter Gauri Lankesh was planned a year in advance. Her murderer Parashuram Waghmare was affiliated with members of a "nameless underground organization that has members from Sanathan Sanstha, Hindu Janjagruthi Samithi, and many other right-wing organisations, according to the Special Investigation Team (SIT)." The article also reports that Waghmore was ordered to execute her "for the sake of saving Hindu dharam." Additionally, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), report that three journalists were murdered in India in 2017 and four in 2018. Since 2014, when Modi took office 12 reporters have been killed.
In an effort to promote a Hindutva agenda and "polarize voters in the run-up to the 2019 election," a recent media expose' entitled Operation 136 (named after the ranking India received from the World Press Freedom Index of 2017) was undertaken by Cobrapost." The expose' revealed that payments were offered to over two dozen various media companies to promote a Hindutva agenda in order to "polarize voters in the run-up to the 2019 election." All but two media outlets reportedly accepted, including major media houses. A series of undercover exposes revealed that "news organizations were willing to not only cause communal disharmony among the citizens but also tilt the electoral outcome in favour of a particular party." This included "newspapers, radio stations, TV channels and websites" as well as "advertorials and events."
Politically-stoked communal Violence
This report contextualizes and documents politically-stoked violence against Muslim communities in India. In doing so, the negative impact of such attacks on the general security of Muslims in every day, as well as Muslim spaces is exposed. Documenting various cases of spatialized Islamophobia in 2017 onwards exposes the impacts of politically-stoked mass violence on Muslim residential patterns, internal displacement, and subsequent patterns of ghettoization and segregation. Such negative spatial outcomes are situated as a byproduct of experiences of Islamophobia, which are and sustained through discriminatory policies that further restrict the social and spatial mobility of Muslims in India.
Islamophobia is spatialized through 'communal violence,' attacks and contestations over the right for Muslim neighborhoods and places of worship to exist in the Indian national space. Historically, India has suffered various outbreaks of large-scale politically-stoked violence against religious minorities, particularly against Muslims that remain unresolved years later.
There is a pronounced geographic pattern where politically-stoked violence occurs, which can be traced in ten states. These states with the highest incidence of communal violence included Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Telangana and Assam. Collectively these ten states accounted for 1,972 cases of politically- stoked violence during the period of 2015-2017.
Statistics reveal that Muslims suffer disproportionately from communal violence given the outcomes in comparison to the population overall and in each area, further diminishing the likelihood that Muslims are enacting violence against Hindus, as some have claimed
India's beef legislation
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