Secular India Rhetoric is Questionable

By Shane Ronen

After more than 40 people died (mostly Muslims) in three days of incessant violence in New Delhi, a lot of question marks have surfaced over the credibility of India as a secular state that considers itself to be the leader of the South Asian region.

Indeed, India has come a long way in the last decade, boosting its GDP and the government enacting several laws to boost the rapid industrialization. However, in the midst of all this, there’s a particular murky world where inequality is ripe.

Image Courtesy Of Climate Home News

The Indian Muslims have long been the focus of the sort of hatred by the Hindutva ideology that it would put the hateful tendencies of European right-wing politics to shame.

Violence erupted in New Delhi after a controversial citizenship law was approved by the government which according to Muslims, is discriminatory towards them.

The riots were a massacre, a hammering and a lynching fest with many reports suggesting mobs focusing their hatred on individuals, most of whom were lucky to have come out of their ordeal alive. It was pure carnage and the lowest point of humanity as mosques were set alight, Muslims were burned alive, dragged to the streets and lynched to death in front of their loved ones.

Image Courtesy Of Viator

The mobs were so organized that they were stopping people in the streets and checking their IDs in order to find out whether they were Hindus or not. If you happen to be a Muslim, you would be made to pay for it.

All this boils down to the fact that the Indian government in the last few years, has run anti-Muslim rhetoric even though Indian Muslims have always identified themselves as Indians.