[ad_1]
Photograph Essays | Politics | South Asia
The houses of Muslims are being lowered to rubble to punish them for protesting in opposition to authorities actions concentrating on members of the group.
Regardless of the punishing heatwave sweeping northern India, college students and social activists converged on June 13 at New Delhi’s Jantar Mantar and Uttar Pradesh Bhavan to protest in opposition to the illegal prosecution of members of India’s Muslim group and the prejudiced “bulldozer politics” that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Get together has unleashed on Muslims within the nation recently.
The previous weeks have seen a surge in state violence in opposition to Muslims.
Among the many victims of its “bulldozer politics” is 22-year-old Afreen Fatima, a college scholar and a Muslim activist, whose father Mohammad Javed, a pacesetter of the Welfare Get together of India, is accused of masterminding protests that erupted in Uttar Pradesh’s Prayagraj within the aftermath of the now-suspended BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma’s vile feedback in opposition to Prophet Muhammad.
Fatima’s father was arrested, whereas her mom and sister had been detained, on the night time of June 10 by police officers. Quickly after, the Uttar Pradesh administration ordered a demolition drive. Citing unlawful development, it focused Fatima’s home. In line with sources, there are a number of discrepancies within the discover issued by the civic authorities concerning the demolition of Fatima’s home.
The illegal demolition of protestors’ homes by the Uttar Pradesh authorities is uncannily just like what unfolded in current weeks in Madhya Pradesh’s Khargone and Delhi’s Jahangirpuri neighborhood, the place authorities deployed bulldozers to raze to the bottom homes of solely Muslim residents.
College students, activists, and Muslims from completely different elements of the nation who got here collectively in New Delhi not too long ago in help of Fatima additionally raised their voices in opposition to the religion-based violence that’s unfolding in India.
“Simply because Fatima participated in an anti-government protest [on the hijab row], her home has been demolished,” Balu, a 26-year-old scholar at Jawaharlal Nehru College in New Delhi mentioned.
“We got here right here as a result of it’s excessive time we inform the individuals in energy that this nation won’t be divided once more on the idea of faith,” mentioned Prithvi, a scholar activist of the Krantikari Yuva Sangathan in Delhi College. “The federal government simply desires to divert our consideration away from the issues that matter by inciting spiritual rigidity among the many individuals. We can’t be part of a society stuffed with such hate,” he mentioned.
Many activists of the All-India College students Affiliation and the College students Federation of India shouted slogans in opposition to the Yogi Adityanath authorities in Uttar Pradesh. Folks had been seen holding placards that learn “Cease bulldozing Muslim lives,” “Down with Bulldozer politics,” and “Muslim lives matter.”
Delhi police detained a number of the protesters at Uttar Pradesh Bhavan. Dozens of police and paramilitary personnel had been current on the protest websites.
“Islamophobia is actual in India. Boycotting Muslims is actual in India. That is the reality of the state of affairs within the nation,” Saumya, a scholar of Ambedkar College in Delhi who participated within the protests, mentioned. “The mainstream media has turned a university-going scholar right into a manipulative terrorist simply because she is a vocal Muslim. The identical information channels are broadcasting the demolition of her house as whether it is one thing to be pleased with. It makes me really feel indignant,” she mentioned.
Describing the demolitions of Muslim houses as “really unconstitutional,” Saumya mentioned that “fascist forces are intruding India’s state equipment and are literally demolishing the structure of the nation.”
Pointing to the unconstitutional implies that the Uttar Pradesh authorities is utilizing to silence Muslim voices, social activist Mohammed Farhan Akhtar mentioned that he was on the protest website “to save lots of our democratic nation and its values.”
“The widespread citizen fails to grasp the Hindu-Muslim divide that this regime is imposing on the individuals only for petty politics,” Akhtar mentioned. “If we imagine in Gandhian ideas [of non-violence] then what’s stopping us from popping out on the streets to save lots of this nation?”
[ad_2]
Source link
