Dr Gregory Stanton, the founder of Genocide Watch, who had predicted a genocide in Rwanda years before it took place in 1994 has warned of an impending genocide of 200 million Muslims in India. He is comparing the situation in India under the Narendra Modi government to events in Myanmar and Rwanda.
Addressing a virtual event, cosponsored by a group of 17 human rights and interfaith organizations, he said that India is in Stage 8 of Genocide, Persecution, just one step away from conducting extermination. He further said that the country's Prime Minister Modi "will be very happy to watch it happen".
Dr. Stanton further criticized Modi over his link with Hindu extremist group, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). "RSS is filled with hate ever since it was founded, it is basically a Nazi organization, and in fact, it admired Hitler," he added.
In his video address, Dr Stanton began with highlighting that Genocide Watch had been warning of a genocide in India since 2002, "when riots and massacres in Gujarat occurred that killed over a thousand Muslims".
"At that time, the chief minister of Gujarat was Narendra Modi, and he did nothing. In fact, there is a lot of evidence that he actually encouraged those massacres," he said, adding that Modi, now the prime minister of India, had used "anti-Muslim, Islamophobic rhetoric" to build his political base.
Dr Stanton said the two ways Modi went about this was by revoking the special autonomous status of Indian - administered Kashmir in 2019 and passing the Citizenship (Amendment) Act the same year.
He explained that the revocation of occupied Kashmir's special autonomy was "largely aimed at restoring Hindu domination" in the valley, which had Muslim majority. Moreover, he added, the enactment of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act was especially "aimed at Muslims".
"It gave [a] specific favorable status to refugees who had come from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh, who were of certain religious groups. But the one group that was excluded was Muslims," he said. "This act was specifically ... aimed at the Muslims who had fled Bangladesh during the Bangladesh civil war in 1971 and had settled in Assam," he continued.
Citizenship (Amendment) Act
Dr Stanton said there were around three million such people, mostly Muslims, who had fled to India and "has settled down" as "regular citizens of India".
But the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, he said, required people to prove through documentation that they had been the citizens of India before 1971 as part of a census that was to be overseen by the Indian supreme court.
"Now a lot of people don't have that kind of documentation, of course," he pointed out, adding that "the idea [behind the Act] is to essentially declare them (people who had fled to India from Bangladesh in 1971) foreigners, and therefore, to allow their deportation."
He said this was "the same as the Myanmar government did to the Rohingya Muslims" in 2017. The Myanmar government, he said, first declared Rohingya non-citizens through a legislation and then expelled them through violence and genocide.
In this regard, he also highlighted that the UN Genocide Convention , an international treaty that criminalizes genocide, not just "covers genocides in whole. It also covers genocides in part".
"It is specifically aimed at the destruction, in whole or in part, of a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, and that is exactly what the Myanmar government did in Myanmar against Rohingya," he said.
Dr Stanton said the Indian government's aim was to extend the census under the Citizenship (Amendment) Act across the country and the "victims will be 200 million Muslims in India".
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