Op/Ed: What Will A BJP Government Mean For The Religious Minorities?

narindra-modiMore than 814 million Indians will start voting today, in an election which will last until 12 May 2014. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world several eminent officials and experts in Washington (USA), have told lawmakers that a BJP-led government at the centre would be detrimental to the basic rights of the religious minorities in India.
Testifying before an influential human rights commission of the US Congress, Vice Chair of USCIRF, Katrina Lantos said the situation in India is being closely monitored. “Many religious minority communities have reported to USCIRF that they fear that a BJP win, and the election of Narendra Modi as the country’s Prime Minister, will be detrimental to them and religious freedom. Between 2002 and 2004 USCIRF had recommended that the State Department designate India a ‘Country of Particular Concern’ due to the then BJP government’s systematic and ongoing violations of religious freedom,” she said.

Of particular concern is the BJP’s and Modi’s close association with Hindu nationalist organizations. “The activities of these groups, especially those with an extremist agenda or history of using violence against minorities, often negatively impact the status of religious freedom in the country,” she said. Many of these groups exist under the banner of the ‘Sangh Parivar’, made up of some 30 organisations including the RSS. “The ‘Sangh Parivar’ organisations aggressively press for governmental policies that would promote a Hindu nationalist agenda, and adhere in varying degrees to an ideology of Hindutva, which holds non-Hindus as foreign to India,” Lantos said.

Also testifying before the committee was John Dayal, member of India’s National Integration Council, who expressed his serious concern over the future of secularism and freedom of religion in the country. “The root cause of our fear is the stranglehold that the infamous RSS has achieved on the political discourse, and the apparatus of the powerful BJP,” explained Dayal, who is also secretary general of the All India Christian Council. A BJP-led government, he feared, would use state machinery and law enforcement apparatus to harass, intimidate and disenfranchise religious minorities. Hundreds of youth from minority communities are still in jail accused of acts of terror that are now proven to be the handiwork of Hindutva terror groups, he said.

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