The report cited numerous examples of discrimination against the Muslim minority in the country by the BJP government, both at the national level and in individual states.
Afnan Habib | TwoCircles.net
NEW DELHI — India ranks eighth among the nations with the highest threat of mass killings in 2022 and 2023, a US-based research organizations’ latest report has claimed.
From being ranked second the previous year, India has dropped in rank this year.
“India has ranked in the top-15 highest-risk countries since our 2017±18 assessment, including its highest from second to eighth can be mostly attributed to an improvement in the freedom of movement for men (which was one of the variables used for the analysis),” the Early Warning Project report revealed while identifying countries at risk of mass violence.
According to the report, India would have been ranked top in this year’s evaluation with an 11% increase in risk had this variable remained the same even this year.
The Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College and the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum collaborated on the project.
According to the study, a mass killing is defined as the deliberate killing of 1,000 or more civilians for one year or fewer by armed forces (whether government or non-state) because of their affiliation with a particular organization. If a case of genocide fits this description, mass killings, according to the report, are almost always involved.
This year, out of the 162 nations, Pakistan came out on top, followed by Yemen, Myanmar, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Afghanistan. There is a one in six possibility that a new mass murder would occur in 2022 or 2023 in Pakistan.
The report cited numerous examples of discrimination against the Muslim minority in the country by the BJP government, both at the national level and in individual states.
“Hindu nationalist leaders have continued to propagate hate speech, including religious leaders’ calls for mass killings of Muslims in December 2021. Several states saw large-scale and violent incidents targeting Muslims in recent months, which involved Hindu nationalist processions engaging in derogatory anti-Muslim chants and the desecration of mosques. In response to these violent provocations, local authorities bulldozed Muslim-owned property across several states, which rights groups cited as an apparent attempt at collective punishment,” it noted.
Numerous Hindutva leaders who are either affiliated with the BJP or who support the party have propagated hate speech against Muslims during the last couple of years. Even worse, leaders from the ruling party have made anti-Muslim statements with little to no repercussions.
In one such instance of hate speech against minorities, Anurag Thakur, a BJP leader who is currently the minister of information and broadcasting, in 2020 was seen in a video clip leading an assemblage chanting “Desh ke gaddaron ko, goli maro salon ko “Shoot the traitors of the country,” referring to Muslims as ‘traitors’.
The report also noted that Christians and Dalits, the two minority groups, continue to face violence and discrimination. It also emphasized instances of ongoing violations of human rights in Jammu and Kashmir, such as terrorists’ increased targeting of Hindu civilians in the region.
“According to our model, the factors accounting most for India’s high-risk estimate are its large population, its history of mass killing, its geographic region (South and Central Asia), and the presence of battle-related deaths (armed conflict between the Government of India, the Communist Party of India [Maoist], and Kashmir insurgents), The Early Warning Project judged there was an ongoing mass killing perpetrated by Naxalite-Maoists as of the end of 2021,” it said.
Afnan Habib is a freelance journalist based in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir. He tweets @afnanhabib_