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Showing posts with label Uttarakhand. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Uttarakhand. Show all posts
September 27, 2024
India: Communal clash at Dehradun railway station over interfaith relationship
Communal clash at Dehradun railway station over interfaith relationship
The confrontation escalated with objects being hurled and damage caused to parked trains.
Written by Avaneesh Mishra
Dehradun | Updated: September 27, 2024
February 12, 2024
Joint statement and appeal from Uttarakhand's public organizations, intellectuals, and citizens
The incident happened in Haldwani on 8 February is worrisome, condemnable and sad. We extend our condolences to all the dead and injured and demand appropriate compensation for them. We request the people of Haldwani, Uttarakhand and country to keep peace. We condemn all forms of violence and want fair legal action to be taken. Any resistance should be in the realm of law and constitution.
At this critical time we would also request the administration that no action should be against constitutional values.
- This incident shows the negligence, haste and biased approach of the administration is clearly visible. The use of communal language is seen in the statements of the administration. When allegedly made illegal mosque and madrassa were sealed and the case was to be heard in court on 14 February then what was the need for demolition of preparation without hurry? So the District Collector and Senior Superintendent of Police should be immediately transferred and judicial investigation of this incident by a High Court judge.
- It is also necessary to keep in mind that Uttarakhand government is not taking fair legal action against continuous crowd violence and hate propaganda since 2017 till date. State citizens, public organizations, opposition parties and senior intellectuals to Supreme Court lawyers and former generals of the army. When the government's steps are not fair, the resonance for anti-social elements increases. Therefore constantly voices raised that ruling forces promoting hate, communal and violent events for political gain increases threats to social harmony and the rule of law. So in 2018 and beyond, the Supreme Court should strictly implement the decisions on hate propaganda and violence should be taken at war level.
- We are constantly saying that the "Remove Encroachment Campaign" shows an eagerness and bias. Dozens of sabotage incidents have occurred over the past one year without giving notice, while we believe no one should be homeless without rehabilitation first and any such action should be legally, with sensitivity after adequate hearing. Lakhs of people are living on Najul land in Uttarakhand. Haldwani also has a large population on Nazul land, including people who believe in all religions. The public is demanding that the people living on Najul land should be given the right to ownership. For this, the state government has also sent a proposal to the Center. Despite this hurrying on encroachment matters is beyond comprehension. For the long time state government is homelessing common man in the name of remove encroachment campaign, destroying forest land, najul land and other places. The government is advancing its communal agenda in the name of remove encroachment campaign. This should be banned immediately.
Don't hate, give employment!
The contractor,
Rajiv Lochan Sah, President, Uttarakhand Lok Channel
Naresh Nodiyal, General Secretary, Uttarakhand Transformation Party
Tarun Joshi, Van Panchayat Sangharsh March
Bhuwan Pathak and Shankar Dutt, Goodwill Committee Uttarakhand
Shankar Gopal and Vinod Badoni, consciousness movement
Islam Hussain, Sarvoday Mandal, Uttarakhand
Lalit Upreti and Munish Kumar, Samajwadi Lok Forum
Trilochan Bhatt, independent journalist
Diamond Jungwater, Women Farmers Rights Forum
February 09, 2024
India: How state-backed Hindutva rhetoric is fuelling the ethnic cleansing of Uttarakhand | Harsh Mander (November 3, 2023)
(Large excerpt from the article is pasted below)
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How state-backed Hindutva rhetoric is fuelling the ethnic cleansing of Uttarakhand
Extremist organisations project the hill state as the ‘holy land’ of Hindus and Muslims a ‘polluting presence’ unleashing a battery of ‘jihads’. –
India’s most populous hill state Uttarakhand is in unprecedented turmoil. It is the first state in India in which an influential and popular campaign for ethnic cleansing has gathered ominous momentum: a battle for the expulsion of all Muslims from the state. This crusade is tacitly supported by the state government.
These alarming fractures in the state have mostly escaped national attention because not much blood has been spilt. But barely below the surface, Uttarakhand smoulders with communal temperatures ratcheted to perilous levels.
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Uttarakhand has not witnessed significant communal tensions between its religious communities in the past. Its ruptures have much more pivoted on caste. Uttarakhand probably has a higher proportion of Brahmins than any other state, estimated at around 20% of the population. The sometimes violent movement for the separation of Uttarakhand from Uttar Pradesh to create a separate state in the 1990s was substantially sparked off by the decision of the Mulayam Singh government to extend reservations in government jobs to members of the other backward classes. Muslims widely supported the demand for the separate hill state.
Muslims constitute around 14% of the state’s population. The present canvassing for the ejection of the state’s Muslim population rests on three pillars. The first of these is the premise of the pristine sacredness for Hindus of the hill state, polluted by the presence of Muslims. The second is claims of the exclusive indigeneity of Hindus in this holy land, threatened by the surge of Muslim outsiders who are rapidly and dangerously altering the demography of the state. The third is the alleged inherent perfidy of Muslims, evident in the battery of jihads that they are unleashing on hapless Hindu residents of this sanctified land – population jihad, love jihad, land jihad, mazaar jihad and, most recently, vyapar jihad. Mazaar refers to mausoleums and vyapar to trade.
These arguments are propagated vigorously by an extensive network of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and its family of Hindutva formations that have expanded to remote mountainous corners of the state. There are 1,400 shakhas or branches of the Sangh in Uttarakhand and plans are underway to double the number in the next two years. Sangh workers explain that their work is cut out for them: they must warn the Hindu people of the dangers that Muslim residents of the state pose to the purity of the Dev Bhumi.
The hatred against Muslims is fuelled and legitimised by Hindu religious leaders in saffron, who do not desist even from calls for mass rape and genocide. Their discourse is amplified exponentially by right-wing publications, the social media and a widely communalised local press. All of these get embedded into ruptured social and economic relations by calls for boycott, expulsion, and occasional acts of violence against Muslims.
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But what has most decisively inflamed anti-Muslim sentiments in the hill state is its elected political leadership. Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami has for 33 years of his life of 45 years been a dedicated worker of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. He was a political lightweight when he was suddenly installed as chief minister in 2021. His importance to the Sangh became further apparent when he was re-elected as chief minister even after he lost his assembly seat in the state elections in 2022.
He was later elected from a seat vacated by a Bharatiya Janata Party legislator. He regularly presses all the buttons that craft the toxic mythology of the Muslim in the state of Uttarakhand as outsider, jihadi and enemy.
Six months after he became chief minister, a notorious Dharm Sansad, literally a religious parliament was organised in Hardwar, from December 17 to 19 in 2021. Speakers urged people to keep “sharpened swords” ready at home to kill “intruders”. Another held up the Myanmar persecution of the Rohingya as a model for the state, and called for a “safai abhiyan”, or cleansing drive, in which the police, army and leaders would also take up arms against the enemy within.
Yet another speaker called for 100 soldiers to kill two million Muslims to “reduce their population”. But the state police dealt with these incendiary and patently criminal calls for genocide with kid gloves. The Quint observes that prominent among those who made hate speeches in the Dharma Sansad of 2021 were Prabodhanand and Darshan Bharti, who continue to freely spout hate and instigate violence in Uttarakhand even today.
First, take the casting of Uttarakhand as the holy land of the Hindus. The argument is that the Abrahamic religions have their holy lands – Muslims have their Mecca and Christians their Vatican. It is claimed that people of other religious faiths are not allowed into these two holy sites. There is, in fact, no such restriction in the Vatican and the Vatican is sacred for Catholics, not all Christians. The Hindutva project, in many ways, is trying to mimic the Abrahamic faiths, such as by propounding a central deity (Ram), a central text (the Gita), and now a single and exclusionary holy land. All of these are at odds with the extraordinary pluralism of the Hindu faith.
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The modelling of Uttarakhand as the holy land of Akhand Bharat (as Hindutva publications declare) is of course highly contestable. Only one of the Char Dham or four pilgrimage sites that devout Hindus believe they must visit at least once in their lives, Badrinath, is in Uttarakhand. The others are Dwarka in Gujarat, Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu and Puri in Odisha. Each of these sites – and indeed most states in India – can claim to be holy for Hindus.
Today it has become commonplace to describe Uttarakhand as Dev Bhumi or the Land of the Gods, not just in popular discourse and tourism hype but also in official documents. Even in a matter as prosaic as accomplishments in vaccination – as pointed out by Caravan – does the prime minister refer to Uttarakhand as Dev Bhumi. He underlines its special sacredness by his frequent – and extravagantly photographed – visits to Badrinath.
The Uttarakhand government legislature passed a statute that doubled the maximum punishment for “forcible” religious conversions from five to ten years. Dhami declared that the state needed a more stringent anti-conversion law since Uttarakhand is “the country of the gods” and acts like religious conversion are “detrimental to us”.
The elevation of Uttarakhand into the sacred land of Hindus is twinned with a demand as a corollary for the barring of Muslims from living or trading in the vicinity of religious sites. This has become a common chorus across the family of Hindutva organisations and many BJP leaders. But this appears more the thin edge of the wedge; the maximalist objective of many is to expel Muslims from the entire “holy” state.
The campaign to expel Muslims from Uttarakhand is in fact of much older vintage. Madan Mohan Malviya, founder of the Hindu Mahasabha, had constituted Ganga Sabha in the early 1900s. It campaigned to restrict Muslim presence near Har ki Pauri in Haridwar. Ujjwal Pandit, an office-bearer of the Ganga Sabha told reporters that even today, the bye-laws of the Haridwar municipal council prohibit non-Hindus from running any business or buying a house, and from the sale of alcohol, cigarettes, and meat and eating meat within four kilometres north and south of Har Ki Pauri, reported the Caravan.
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The discourse of religious leaders and members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh family of organisations is belligerent and raucous in their call to expel Muslims. Hindu priest Anandswaroop is pugnacious in his ranting. “If the entry of non-Hindus is not banned, then Hindu priests will take to the streets,” he threatened. “Members of the Muslim community are creating a ruckus here, spreading non-vegetarianism, throwing meat and cow meat in the Ganga to defile it [sic]. If we don’t take note, then it will become Kashmir. There should be one state for Hindus at least.”
Ajendra Ajay, senior BJP leader, alleged that instances of “love jihad” and other crimes have increased in Uttarakhand because of an influx of people belonging to “a certain religious community”. This community, he claims, “secretly” constructs its places of worship which leads to communal tension, and this he describes as “land jihad”.
“The hill districts are getting empty and people are migrating… [while] those belonging to a particular community are occupying every place here,” he said. “This is also a big threat to national security…”
“There is an international conspiracy to make Dev Bhumi hell,” echoed Prabodhanand, president of the Hindu Raksha Sena. He urged Chief Minister Dhami to be “vigilant” because there is “a growing jihadi population in Uttarakhand...They even attempted to desecrate our holy pilgrimage sites” he alleged, and “to hold namaz there”. Darshan Bharti, founder of the Devbhoomi Raksha Abhiyan, asked in the same tenor, “Do you want Dev Bhumi to be the land of gods or the land of shrines and mosques?”
In the Hindutva worldview the new-found elevated sacredness to Hindus of Uttarakhand privileges Hindu inhabitants in their claims of special belonging to the state. These assertions are further invigorated by Hindutva claims that the Hindu inhabitants of the state are its indigenous inhabitants, in contrast to the alleged “foreignness” of Muslims. Muslims I spoke to in Uttarakhand were at pains to maintain that Muslims have lived in the hills and valleys of the state from as far back as the 13th century.
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They point also to Haldwani, the second-largest city in the state, that this was primarily a Muslim town adjacent to the military cantonment. It is only in recent decades that Hindus have built and populated the new city of Haldwani. Muslims in the state mostly run small businesses like fruit and vegetable stores, barber salons, and motor repair garages. Many trace their residence in the state back at least two or three generations. Some Muslims are doubtless recent migrants into the state, but the Constitution defends the right of Indian citizens to travel to and work in any part of the country.
Claims of indigeneity of Hindus and foreignness of Muslims are buttressed by allegations of a systematic dark Muslim conspiracy to skew the population ratios of the state by a massive and organised influx of Muslim migrants. Even Dhami never tires of decrying what he describes as disturbing demographic changes of a steep and unnatural rise in the population of a “certain community”.
He is not restrained by the fact that he does not offer concrete data to support his claim of an exceptional rise in the ratio of Muslims in Uttarakhand. The 2011 census recorded a ratio of nearly 14% people of Muslim identity in the state. This was an increase of only around 2% from the 2001 census, reflecting the natural increase in population and possibly some small numbers of migration from other states.
Also, even if there is indeed a rise in the population of Muslims in the state, why should this be viewed as a matter of worry or a threat by the government and other residents of the state? After all, Muslims are also equal citizens of this diverse and pluralist country and have the right to settle in any part of the country that they choose (except some remote sensitive areas populated by particularly vulnerable communities).
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Still, alarmist reports are rife in the right-wing media. OpIndia, for instance, claims that security agencies are anxious about a sudden surge in the Muslim population in several districts of Uttarakhand, behind which they see a “specific conspiracy”. Although there has been no census since 2011, the report claims that Muslim populations have more than doubled since then.
Dainik Jagran goes even further, claiming that security agencies reveal that these illegal settlers are attempting to build a premeditated corridor connecting Uttarakhand, Bangladesh, Bihar, Nepal, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, and Punjab, and ultimately Pakistan.
These claims of conspiratorial changes in demography in the state are further grist for anti-Muslim propaganda. Gajraj Singh Bisht, former state general secretary of the BJP in Uttarakhand, declares that “initially, these Muslims would come to hold your feet. They will then beg you with folded hands. But, when their count grows from one to ten, they will not even let you access their streets” .
The claimed duplicity of Muslims is not restricted to their alleged population jihad. Hate propaganda against Muslims (encouraged and amplified from the top) is also of love jihad. The construction of the Muslim male as a sexual predator goes back to the Partition riots. But the hate mythology of love jihad is of more recent origin, dating to the 2000s, fabricated in right-wing publications, pamphlets and social media.
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Hindutva propagandists allege that love jihad is a conspiracy by Muslims fuelled by petrodollars from the Gulf. In this imagination, Hindu women are assumed to lack both agency and discernment, and Muslim men as being shifty, devious and devoid of finer sentiments of love and care. Good-looking Muslim men are trained to entrap young Hindu girls and women into romantic and sexual relations and marriage. They coldly and cynically lure these hapless and naïve Hindu girls into sex and marriage with the sole intention of converting them to Islam and producing through their bodies, large numbers of Muslim children.
In just a few years, love jihad has become the staple of social media forwards and is the main rationale offered for lynching and hate attacks in many parts of the country after cow protection. It has become today the core of the hate propaganda that feeds the calls for the expulsion of Muslims from the state of Uttarakhand.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath was the first among heads of governments who publicly declared war on love jihad, instructing his police force to be vigilant to prevent and punish such misdemeanours. He then passed what he described as a law against love jihad, criminalising religious conversions by women for marriage. This statute in effect, as observed by political scientist Ajay Gudavarthy, regulates Hindu women and criminalises Muslim men. The chief minister made an unsubtle threat of violence against Muslim men in relationship with Hindu women, “I warn those who conceal their identity and play with the honour of our sisters and daughters, if you don’t mend your ways, your final journey will begin”.
Many BJP-ruled chief ministers followed in the trail blazed by Adityanath. Prominent among them is Dhami, who frequently thunders against love jihad, often in implied support of civilian vigilante action against claimed crimes of love jihad.
Hindutva hardliner Prabodhanand speaks of love jihad as an international plot against the sacred Dev Bhumi. “Protecting sisters and wives in Dev Bhumi has become harder... This is not a single girl’s story [sic]. Many girls are being targeted in Uttarakhand,” he declared, according to The Quint. At a press meeting on June 5, he alleged, “Love jihad incidents are on the rise in Dehradun as well. Their goal is to make Dev Bhumi look like Kashmir... To prevent this from happening, each of us must take action. The Jihadis have crossed the border and are now targeting Hindu women.”
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Reema Chauhan, a Hindutva politician from Roorkee in Uttarakhand, said in a widely circulated video, “I want to request the people of Uttarakhand to wake up before something like this occurs to our daughters in Uttarakhand... These jihadis disguise themselves as barbers, carpenters, vegetable dealers, or scrappers and infiltrate Uttarakhand. They entice our daughters and then either kill or abduct them”.
Amid the heat and dust raised against love jihad, the political leadership, the police officialdom and the entire Hindutva enterprise seem unperturbed and unconstrained by the fact that few of the Muslim-Hindu alliances actually proved to be of Muslim men forcing or tricking Hindu women into the relationship. Most turn out to be consensual, or occasionally of crimes of trafficking or rape that had nothing to do with any organised communal conspiracy.
There is cynical doublespeak in the official pronouncements around love jihad even in Uttar Pradesh. When questioned in the Uttar Pradesh legislative assembly, the official reply laconically contradicted the fiery public statements of the chief minister.
An incident that briefly drew national attention was in the Uttarkashi town of Purola. A host of right-wing organisations claimed that a local Muslim man was caught trying to abduct a minor Hindu girl in a shocking incident of “love jihad”. Posters came up around the town demanding the ejection of all the Muslim residents of Purola. Shops and homes were ransacked and 41 Muslim families fled from the town.
But Newslaundry journalist Anmol Pritam spent a week in the town investigating and uncovered a very different story. The minor girl of 14 was an orphan, raised by her uncle Rakesh (name changed). Two men, one Hindu and one Muslim, Ubed Khan and Jitendra Saini, tried to kidnap her presumably for trafficking, but the girl was rescued on time. Rakesh said that he filed a complaint with the police, who acted fairly and arrested both men.
But a local journalist tried to persuade Rakesh to be silent about the Hindu kidnapper, and complain instead that the girl was lured away by a Muslim man in a love jihad conspiracy. He refused, but this did not constrain local Hindutva organisations to leap in and manufacture this into a crime of love jihad, resulting in violence and the exodus of Muslim families from the state.
On May 29, hundreds joined a rally in the town in which hundreds chanted “drive away the love jihadis. Drive away the Muslims. Muslim rule won’t be tolerated.” They added, “Muslim mukt Uttarakhand chahiye” – We want a Muslim-free Uttarakhand. On June 5, posters were pasted outside their shops that warned “all love jihadis” to leave the town, signed by the Dev Bhoomi Raksha Abhiyan.
[ . . . ]
August 07, 2023
India - Uttarakhand: Far-Right Bajrang Dal all male rally call on Muslims to leave town in Chamba, Tehri Garhwal
At the Bajrang Dal rally, far-right leaders threatened Muslims to leave the town & asked locals not to rent them homes & shops
https://twitter.com/HindutvaWatchIn/status/1688414518345367552
August 01, 2023
July 16, 2023
July 13, 2023
Gangajal at police stations, facility camps, closure of meat, liquor shops: States vie to roll out red carpet for Kanwariyas piligrimage with Public money | Report in Indian Express
Indian Express
Gangajal at police stations, facility camps, closure of meat, liquor shops: States vie to roll out red carpet for Kanwariyas
Uttarakhand CM Pushkar Singh Dhami washed the feet of Kanwar pilgrims in Haridwar, saying that he was ‘serving Kanwariyas as a mark of respect to them’
By: Express News Service
New Delhi | July 10, 2023 12:46 IST
Haridwar: Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami at the Kanwar Mela, in Haridwar, Saturday, July 8, 2023. (PTI Photo)
On July 8, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami washed the feet of Kanwar Yatris in Haridwar. Saying that he was “serving Kanwariyas as a mark of respect to them”, Dhami pointed out that all adequate arrangements have been made for the Yatra this year, including health camps, toilets, parking, tin sheds, among others. This year’s Kanwar Yatra beginning July 5 would continue till July 15.
Last year saw similar scenes in Uttarakhand, with the BJP government even making budgetary allocations for the Kanwar pilgrimage for the first time. Dhami had washed the feet of Kanwariyas then too.
The Kanwar Yatra is an annual event which sees lakhs of devotees undertaking pilgrimage to places like Haridwar, Gaumukh, Gangotri in Uttarakhand, Sultanganj in Bihar, and Prayagraj, Ayodhya and Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh. The Yatris return by carrying Ganga water in kanwars to seek the blessings of Mahadev. The Yatra sees the governments in various states taking several measures to facilitate the pilgrims.
June 18, 2023
June 12, 2023
India: Cross Marks on Doors, Cries of Extermination: How Uttarakhand Became Our Hate Speech Capital | Alishan Jafri
Cross Marks on Doors, Cries of Extermination: How Uttarakhand Became Our Hate Speech Capital
A campaign by Hindutva supporters to drive out supposedly 'illegal' Muslim shopkeepers and vendors from the state comes along with various kinds of attempts, coupled with the government's inaction against hate campaigners in the state, in creating fear among Muslims in the state.
New Delhi: Videos of disturbing hate speeches and instances of vigilantism have emerged from Uttarakhand amidst the recent campaign by Hindutva supporters to drive out supposedly “illegal” Muslim shopkeepers and vendors from the state.
Sources say that the present drive was triggered by the news of two people – one named Ubaid and another named Jitender Saini – allegedly abducting a Hindu minor girl. The incident led to tensions that have pervaded the Purola district since May 26.
However, there are videos from before the alleged abduction showing Hindutva leaders calling for action against, “Love jihadi wolves who come in the forms of carpenters, mechanics, masons, electricians and plumbers.”
As per reports in the local press, some of the homes and shops belonging to the minority community were marked with an “X” sign.
The Times of India reported that even a BJP minority cell leader who had been living in the town for 25 years was forced to flee the town.
Timeline of events
The duo accused in the Purola abduction case were charged under sections of the POCSO act (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) and arrested by the Uttarkashi police on May 26.
Subsequently, Hindutva groups took up this case and began calling it an instance of “love jihad.” Posters in the name of Devbhoomi Raksha Abhiyan, a local Hindutva outfit, surfaced in the area. The posters warned the minority community to leave the “devbhoomi” or “god’s land” and shut down their businesses before the Mahapanchayat on June 15, failing which they would face consequences in due course.
The leader of the outfit, Darshan Bharti, has reportedly denied pasting the posters though he accepted that the call for the Mahapanchayat is by him. He also told The Hindu newspaper, “I am meeting people from across town and urging them not to give their houses and shops on rent to people from the Muslim community. Almost 50% of them agreed with me.”
The bandh calls by local market unions, as per reports, are spiralling out of Purola and are gradually turning into a statewide campaign.
On May 29, a large rally by Hindutva supporters turned violent, leading to vigilantism. Local activists allege a lackadaisical approach by the state administration in not invoking Section 144 to stop the mobilisation. Now a letter by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad to the administration has surfaced, asking the administration to ensure that “Muslims are evicted” from several cities, failing which a chakka jam or road blockade would be launched on June 20.
Also read: ‘Chakka Jam’ Assam vs ‘Starve’ Mizos ‘to Death’: UAPA for Sharjeel but No Action Against BJP MLA
As of now, a criminal case has been filed by the police against only unnamed miscreants for marking minority establishments with cross marks. On the other hand, the Uttarkashi police has repeatedly claimed that it has made serious efforts to bring down the tension but repeat offenders continue to target the minority community.
Certain key speakers from the 2021 Haridwar Dharma Sansad – where calls for a Muslim genocide were made, sending shockwaves across the country – have been vocal about pushing out Muslims from the state.
One of the prominent Hindutva leaders leading this drive is Swami Darshan Bharti and his disciple Rakesh Uttarakhandi.
Based on the videos posted by these Hindutva leaders on their social media and their interviews to local YouTubers, The Wire has attempted to piece together the speeches of those driving the present anti-Muslim campaign in Uttarakhand.
To a local channel, Hindutva activist Rakesh Tomar Uttarakhandi said, “We have worked to chase ‘jihadis’ from the hills under Swami Darshan Bharti for the last eight…We have given them a ten-day ultimatum.”
Darshan Bharti said, “I thank the people of Yamuna valley who have given a message to the entire people of Uttarakhand that the state will be free of ‘jihad’. I am telling you that ‘jihadis’ should not be given work because they eye on our land, women and businesses. We are only awakening the people. This is our first phase.”
The Haridwar Dharma Sansad
The Wire had also reported that between December 17 and 19, a large collection of major religious leaders, right-wing activists, hardline fundamentalist militants and Hindutva organisations came together at Haridwar for an event called the ‘Dharma Sansad’ or ‘religious parliament’. Over the course of three days, this event had witnessed an extraordinary outpouring of hate speech, mobilisations to violence and anti-Muslim sentiment. At the Dharma Sansad, Bharti and others had talked about how the “devbhoomi” is being infiltrated.
The ‘Dharma Sansad’ at Haridwar. Photo: Video screengrab
At the Haridwar Dharma Sansad, Bharti spoke about “Islamic activities in the devbhoomi.” He said that even Aurangzeb had not managed to conquer the devbhoomi and claimed that its people have not allowed any mosque to be built there since 2015.
“No mazar was allowed to be built.. No madrasa was allowed to be built…Remember this too…Learn this from these poor…I definitely wish to put to you people that only after saving that shrine of Hindu religion can we talk of a Hindu nation…If India follows the path shown by Shankaracharya ji, then surely this saint will give you this knowledge,” he said.
Also read: Is Uttarakhand Govt’s ‘Demographic’ Probe of Property Deals a Play on ‘Land Jihad’ Bogey?
The Wire had reported how in 2019, members of Bharti’s group, the Uttarakhand Raksha Abhiyan, had reportedly circulated 1.5 lakh pamphlets that incited Hindus to stand up against alleged changes in the demography of the state because of Muslims. Bharti was briefly incarcerated after this, having been arrested on charges of instigating communal violence against minorities after instances of looting and arson of shops belonging to the minority community were linked to his Facebook posts.
In a video uploaded two days ago on Facebook, Prabodhanand, the president of the Dharma Sansad in Haridwar extended support to Darshan Bharti in leading the campaign to evict “jihadis” from the state.
A screenshot of the Facebook video post.
“You forced jihadis to leave. You have taught them a lesson in Purola. Jihadis should be taught a lesson in the entire Uttarakhand. Every single jihadi should be evicted from Uttarakhand. Only then can the devbhoomi can be protected…If you want to protect your temples and shrines then Uttarakhand has to be made free of these jihadis,” he said.
The video ends with a slogan: “Save the devbhoomi, chase the jihadis.”
Prabodhanand, in the 2021 Dharma Sansad too, had made an open call for Muslims’ extermination.
“We have to make preparations,” said Swami Prabodhanand Giri, president of the Hindu Raksha Sena, a right-wing organisation based out of Uttarakhand.
“And I’ll tell you what those preparations are. I will make myself clear, this is the solution, and if you follow this solution, then the path is made for you…in Myanmar, Hindus were being chased away. The politicians, government and police were just standing and watching. They started by killing them by cutting their necks, and not only this, but they began to cut them in the streets and eat them. The people watching thought we are going to die, we are not going to live.”
Video screengrab of Annapurna Maa, Mahamandleshwar of Niranjini Akhada and general secretary of Hindu Mahasabha, speaking at Haridwar Dharam Sansad. Photo: Twitter/@zoo_bear
Another priest at the Dharma Sansad has been advocating the total ban on the entry of non-Hindus in Uttarakhand. Recently, he had endorsed the government’s demolition drive against “illegal shrines,” a move criticised by observers as targeting the minority community. At the Dharma Sansad, Swaroop had clearly said that Haridwar is the land of Hindus and non-Hindu festivals like Christmas should not be allowed. “We have written to nearly 300 hotels that they should not entertain Christmas celebrations at their places on December 25. If they still go ahead, they will have to face the consequences,” he had said.
The government
A September 2021 Uttarakhand government order to the police and administrative officers to track “illegal land deals” based on fears around the changing demography of the state is also a contributing factor to tensions.
The statement issued by the Pushkar Singh Dhami-led Bharatiya Janata Party government had said: “Due to unprecedented rise in population in certain areas of the state, the demography of those areas has been majorly affected. And due to this demographic change, members of a certain community are forced to migrate from those areas. Also, there are possibilities that the communal harmony in those areas may be disturbed.”
The statement added: “A list of all such people should be made who have a criminal background and are living in Uttarakhand. A verification of their profession and domicile status should be done to make their records. The DMs (district magistrates) should also monitor the illegal land dealings in their districts and check whether someone is selling his land out of fear or pressure. If it is found so, then they should stop it and take strict action against those responsible for it (sic).”
Also read: Is Uttarakhand Govt’s ‘Demographic’ Probe of Property Deals a Play on ‘Land Jihad’ Bogey?
Qurban Ali, the petitioner in the Haridwar hate speech case, feels that the government in Uttarakhand has failed to implement Supreme Court orders on hate speech.
Dismayed by what he describes as the lack of political will to act against repeat offenders, Qurban said, “When no option is left we go to the Supreme court but merely registering an FIR won’t help. The police have to act on the FIRs and make arrests. Lack of action has emboldened these people. Last time, when the Supreme Court intervened, the administration was forced to stop these hate assemblies and the temperatures were suddenly brought down.”
Calls for peace and demands for accountability
A memorandum by local civil society members and opposition parties in at least 10 districts expressed anger at the attitude of state law enforcement authorities. It called upon the government to take action against the “unconstitutional environment of hate” being created in the state.
“The safety of every citizen is the responsibility of the government, but despite repeated strict orders from the Supreme Court and communal propaganda in various cities of the state, the government is not seen to be taking any steps,” it read. A social activist who is part of this memorandum pointed out that the present drive should be seen in the context of recent campaigns against Vanngujjars by the same set of Hindutva activists.
In Dehradun, the memorandum was handed over to the City Magistrate and Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order). During the programme, Kamla Pant, president of Uttarakhand Mahila Manch, said that any kind of sexual violence and crime against any woman cannot be tolerated and it was on this issue that the people of Uttarakhand took to the streets when Ankita Bhandari’s murder happened. But creating a communal atmosphere on the pretext of such incidents and targeting a particular community is a criminal act in itself, Pant said.
Indu Nautiyal of the Janwadi Mahila Samiti said that such an environment is being created in the state in which communities are not able to maintain their businesses and are feeling insecure. Samar Bhandari of the Communist Party of India said that this is also in contempt of the orders of the Supreme Court.
Highlighting the series of eviction drives, mob violence and hate speech in the state, over two hundred organisations and concerned citizens also wrote an open letter to the President of India, expressing concerns.
“This type of violent, hate filled atmosphere has never existed in the state of Uttarakhand. The real development of the state can happen only through these principles. The ongoing hate-filled efforts will only harm our country,” the letter reads. Local activists allege that the anti-Muslim mobilisation has only escalated in recent months.
Earlier, a letter dated May 30 by senior Supreme Court advocates to the government of Uttarakhand highlighted how the SC order in the hate speech case has not been implemented in its spirit.
The letter said how in 2018, in its judgment in the Tehseen Poonawalla vs. Union of India and Ors. case, the Supreme Court directed all state governments to proactively act against hate speech and mob violence, including through appointing nodal officers who will “also make efforts to eradicate hostile environment against any community or caste which is targeted in such incidents.”
The letter also said:
“Further, as per the Court’s 21.10.2022 order in Shaheen Abdullah vs. Union of India (WP(C) 940/2022), the states of Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Delhi were specifically directed to “ensure that immediately as and when any speech or any action takes place which attracts offences such as Sections 153A, 153B and 295A and 505 of the IPC etc., suo motu action will be taken to register cases even if no complaint is forthcoming and proceed against the offenders in accordance with law.”
The letter was addressed to the Uttarakhand governor.
It also highlighted a National Commission for Minorities report against Hindutva activist Rakesh Tomar Uttarakhandi, who allegedly threatened the Van Gujjar community to leave their land by April 10 or be ready for consequences.
A screenshot taken from Rakesh Tomar Uttarakhandi’s video.
The community, which predominantly comprises Muslims, had to appeal to the District Magistrate after being threatened by the Hindutva activist. However, no serious action was taken against the activist.
On April 20, a Dharma Sabha was reportedly held by Rudra Sena in the state’s Chakrata region, where hate speeches were made calling for the economic boycott of minorities, and a ban on the settlement of “non-Sanatanis” in the state, the letter said.
They had even declared that “peace cannot prevail in the world, unless every ‘jihadi’ is eliminated.”
It is pertinent to note that as per the letter, which was reported by the Times of India, one of the speakers at the event was Prabhodanand Giri. He’s also named in the FIR that was lodged after a similar event in Haridwar in December 2021 had attracted international outrage and condemnation from senior retired officers of the armed Forces as well as large sections of civil society.
As per the letter, the
speeches in Chakrata were posted on Facebook. The police also claimed
that they had videographed the event,
but they said they had received no complaints.
June 11, 2023
March 16, 2023
India: Radha Semwal Dhoni Hindutva leader on mission to demolish mazars (shrines) located in Uttarakhand
#RadhaSemwalDhoni is a Hindutva leader from #Uttarakhand, who spends a good part of her day walking through the dense forests of the state and demolishing the mazars (shrines) she spots.
October 05, 2021
Uttarakhand’s BJP govt making claims of spurt in population of a certain 'community' - Prithviraj Singh in the The Print
Uttarakhand’s BJP govt accused of targeting Muslims as it flags ‘rising numbers of a community’
Last month, BJP govt in Uttarakhand asked local authorities to identify areas allegedly witnessing a spurt in population of a certain 'community'. Congress dubs it a poll ploy.
Prithviraj Singh 5 October, 2021
[ . . . ]
https://theprint.in/india/governance/uttarakhands-bjp-govt-accused-of-targeting-muslims-as-it-flags-rising-numbers-of-a-community/744835/
May 22, 2021
Labors of Love: On the Political Economies and Ethics of Bovine Politics in Himalayan India by Radhika Govindrajan (Cultural Anthropology, Vol 36 No 2 (2021) )
CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Vol. 36, Issue 2, pp. 193-221, ISSN 0886-7356. DOI: 10.14506/ca36.2.02
Labors of Love: On the Political Economies and Ethics of Bovine Politics in Himalayan India
Abstract
This essay asks how conceptualizing love as work might provide a fresh perspective on love’s politics. In offering an ethnographic account of how love for Gau-Mata, the Cow-Mother of the idealized Hindu nation, fuels a right-wing Hindu nationalist politics of cow-protection in India’s central Himalayan state of Uttarakhand, I suggest that the specific arrangements of labor through which affective attachments are organized critically shape the ethics and politics of love. More specifically, I depict how different kinds of situated labor produced varied kinds of love in the conjoined social worlds of right-wing gau-rakshaks (cow-protectionists) and rural women dairy farmers in Uttarakhand. For these social actors, genuine love for the cow manifested in a willingness to labor for her. Yet their understandings of what this loving labor entailed differed starkly. This article examines three distinct kinds of work—protection, service, and care-labor—that these actors variously undertook out of love for the cow. It traces how these different labors produced a varied set of relationships, affiliations, and obligations that crucially shaped the ethics and politics of love. Ultimately, I show, attending to the varied labors of love in situated social worlds reveals how love can condition a variety of often conflicting political and ethical possibilities, working simultaneously as a force of transcendence, fascist violence, and repair.
Keywords
love; fascism; gender; affect; labor; cow protection; Hindu nationalism; South Asia; Himalaya
https://journal.culanth.org/index.php/ca/article/view/4838/610
May 12, 2021
April 17, 2021
India: RSS workers as Special Police Officers for Kumbh crowd management . . . [a good so it was officillly done] Hindu Rashtra ia already here | See report in India Express April 15, 2021
In Kumbh crowd management, a first: RSS workers as Special Police Officers
Kumbh Mela Deputy SP Birendra Prasad Dabral said RSS volunteers helped out during Kumbh in the past as well but this is the first time they have been issued identity cards of SPOs. “They are doing well in traffic and crowd management,” said Dabral.
RSS workers working as SPO at Haridwar railway station. (Express Photo)
As devotees returned to railway and bus stations after the second shahi snan Monday evening, a young RSS worker in his traditional shakha uniform stood at Post Office Crossing in Haridwar, helping out with directions – as well as gently nudging them to wear the mask properly. These are Covid times and you should be careful with the mask, he reminded a batch of youngsters, as he gave directions to the station.
Ashish Chaudhary and another RSS worker, Tarun Sharma, both in early 20s, have been working in a 12-hour shift – 8 pm to 8 am – since April 7, assisting personnel of central forces and local police in crowd and traffic management at their assigned location.
Chaudhary and Sharma are among the 1,553 RSS volunteers who have been appointed as Special Police Officers (SPOs) by Uttarakhand Police for this year’s Kumbh festival – the first time ever. While 1,053 RSS volunteers are working in the field, the rest are back-up strength.
[ . . . ]
August 30, 2018
India: Uttarakhand HC bans fatwas after panchayat asks rape victim to leave village
Hindustan Times
Uttarakhand HC bans fatwas after panchayat asks rape victim to leave village
Fatwas violate “rights, dignity, status, honour” of individuals, says court.
india Updated: Aug 30, 2018 21:54 IST
Neeraj Santoshi
Hindustan Times, Nainital
The Uttarakhand high court on Thursday banned fatwas in the state, stepping in after a media report that a panchayat in Haridwar district had asked a 15-year-old rape victim and her family to leave their village.
Fatwa are religious edict issued by Islamic clerics that have no legal force but are influential. A fatwa “infringes upon the statutory rights, fundamental rights, dignity, status, honour and obligation of individuals,” said the High Court as it ordered the Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) of Haridwar to ensure security for the girl and her family in the village.
“The panchayat, instead of sympathising with the rape victim, had the audacity to extern the family from the village. Fatwa is nothing but extra-constitutional adventurism, not permissible under the Constitution”, the court said.
The court ordered criminal proceedings against the panchayat members and other people who issued the fatwa. A division bench of acting Chief Justice Rajiv Sharma and Justice Sharad Kumar Sharma ordered that the matter be registered as a public interest litigation (PIL).
Advocate Vivek Shukla, who brought a newspaper report about the fatwa to the court’s notice, was appointed amicus curiae (friend of the court) in the case.
Amar Chand Sharma, the officer in charge of the village police station, said the accused is absconding.
Uttarakhand HC bans fatwas after panchayat asks rape victim to leave village
Fatwas violate “rights, dignity, status, honour” of individuals, says court.
india Updated: Aug 30, 2018 21:54 IST
Neeraj Santoshi
Hindustan Times, Nainital
The Uttarakhand high court on Thursday banned fatwas in the state, stepping in after a media report that a panchayat in Haridwar district had asked a 15-year-old rape victim and her family to leave their village.
Fatwa are religious edict issued by Islamic clerics that have no legal force but are influential. A fatwa “infringes upon the statutory rights, fundamental rights, dignity, status, honour and obligation of individuals,” said the High Court as it ordered the Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) of Haridwar to ensure security for the girl and her family in the village.
“The panchayat, instead of sympathising with the rape victim, had the audacity to extern the family from the village. Fatwa is nothing but extra-constitutional adventurism, not permissible under the Constitution”, the court said.
The court ordered criminal proceedings against the panchayat members and other people who issued the fatwa. A division bench of acting Chief Justice Rajiv Sharma and Justice Sharad Kumar Sharma ordered that the matter be registered as a public interest litigation (PIL).
Advocate Vivek Shukla, who brought a newspaper report about the fatwa to the court’s notice, was appointed amicus curiae (friend of the court) in the case.
Amar Chand Sharma, the officer in charge of the village police station, said the accused is absconding.
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