Fact Check: Mr Rijiju, Persecution of Religious Minorities in India is Not 'Propaganda' But the Reality |
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Mangaluru: On Thursday (June 4), while speaking at the Minority Affairs Ministry’s “Reforms Utsav” organised at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi, a one-of-its-kind event by any Union ministry to mark 12 years of the Modi government, Union minority affairs minister Kiren Rijiju made a rather bold statement.
“Give me one example where a person has left India because he doesn’t feel safe due to his identity or religious background,” he asked. He also dismissed persecution of religious minorities in India as nothing but “propaganda” spread by the opposition.
Coming from a minority affairs minister, this wasn’t just denial. It was a blatant distortion of ground realities, where hate violence and institutional discrimination have been on the rise.
Over the past decade since the BJP came to power, India’s minorities, especially Muslims and Christian converts from marginalised communities, have faced the brunt of vigilante attacks by Hindutva extremists. And this has been possible only because the state machinery has either failed or completely turned a blind eye to such blatant attacks. If that was not bad enough, the Union government and BJP-ruled states have rolled out policies that have pushed these already vulnerable communities even further to the margins.
Here’s a list of the many violations of minority rights that Rijiju chose to ignore in his desperate act to whitewash his government.
Even a simple Google search would have directed Rijiju or whoever wrote his speech to the list of cow vigilante violence in India post-2014. The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), the only government body that releases crime statistics every year, has consistently refused to categorise cow vigilantism or hate crimes separately. However, different studies carried out over various periods have documented cases of murder and injuries from different parts of the country. Wikipedia lists at least 82 such incidents. This is by no means a complete list, as several cases of vigilantism go unreported in most parts of the country. Nevertheless, it gives a very clear sense of the extent to which vigilante groups have terrorised Muslim communities across different parts of India.
Hate speech targeting religious minorities
Hate speech targeting religious minorities,........