As members of South Asian organizations in the U.S. that believe in the values of dignity, justice and inclusion for all, we are horrified by the violence targeting Indian Muslims in Delhi this week. Since Sunday, at least
40 people have been killed and hundreds more injured. We are struck by the heart wrenching footage of Muslims fleeing their homes, stores and homes burnt to ashes, the desecration of mosques and violent attacks by mobs on Muslim communities.
What is most alarming is the role of the police in inciting the violence and the
speech of a local politician from the Hindu nationalist BJP party warning protestors of the brutality that would be unleashed on them if they failed to clear the streets before Trump’s visit. This is state sanctioned violence, as chief officers of the Delhi police stood behind him in solidarity.
As members of the Diaspora we cannot be silent.
These events are horrifying. And disturbingly, they are not entirely unexpected. They come after a series of exclusionary and unjust actions targeting religious and caste minorities and vulnerable populations, particularly since the re-election of Modi.
There have been wide scale protests throughout India since the government passed the inherently discriminatory
Citizenship Amendment Act, whichactively creates an unconstitutional, religion-based criteria to grant citizenship to select immigrants and lays the legal foundation to denaturalize millions of Indian minorities, effectively creating the largest network of concentration camps in the world. The CAA, in conjunction with the National Registration of Citizens (NRC) list, effectively renders
India’s 200 million Muslims stateless.
In Kashmir, India's ongoing military occupation has intensified since August 5th, when communications were cut and the region was placed under an intense crackdown. The Indian state has effectively silenced Kashmiris and
detained thousands of people including minors and many Kashmiris fear a settler-colonial project that would change the demographics of the region from a Muslim-majority state to a Hindu-majority state.
The Modi government is implementing a
Hindu nationalist agenda, known as Hindutva, or right wing Hindu nationalism, which is rooted in the alarming notion that Hindus are racially and culturally superior to others. Similar to white supremacy, which South Asians (including Hindus) in the United States contend regularly with, Hindutva threatens the rights, bodies, freedoms, and livelihoods of non-Hindus in India.
These supremacist ideologies implicitly and explicitly sanction hate - and put our communities in danger- both in the U.S. and in the subcontinent. SAALT has
documented more than 542 incidents of hate violence in the U.S. targeting Muslims and those racialized as Muslim since November 2015.
As South Asian organizations working toward building power and capacity with our communities, we urge all South Asian Americans to understand the connections between white supremacy and Hindutva, to unite around human rights, to support policies that uphold dignity and inclusion for all, and to denounce hate violence in all its forms.
We urge South Asians to: ask their Members of Congress to join Representatives Beyer, Raskin, Omar, Castro, Tlaib, and Jayapal; and Senators Sanders and Warren in condemning the violence targeting Indian Muslims, caste oppressed communities and Kashmiris (including
co-sponsoring House Resolution 745); to
educate themselves and their own communities about the implications and impacts of Hindutva; and organize their personal networks, temples, and cultural institutions to defund hate and stop supporting the BJP and RSS now. The time to stop genocide is now.
Signed,
Atlanta Kashmiri Community
Council Of Peoples Organization
