First woman detained under India's controversial Love Jihad laws 'forced into miscarriage'
Joe Wallen
The Telegrap Sat, December 12, 2020, 9:48 AM CST
Rashid & Pinky have been forced apart
The first woman detained under India's controversial new 'Love Jihad' laws has miscarried in custody, her family have told The Sunday Telegraph.
Yesterday a distraught Muskan Jahan, 22, called her mother-in-law, from a government shelter where she is being held in the city of Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh, saying she had bled profusely and then lost her baby.
Mrs Jahan believes her three-month-pregnant daughter-in-law was given an injection to abort the baby by staff because she converted from Hinduism to Islam and married a Muslim man.
“The tyrannical world has said goodbye to this child before he was able to see the world,” said Mrs Jahan.
Muskan's husband Rashid, 27, is being held in an unknown prison in Uttar Pradesh for allegedly coercing Muskan into converting from Hinduism to Islam by marrying her.
Uttar Pradesh passed legislation last month designed to prevent marriages arranged to convert Hindu women into Muslims, a practice known as 'Love Jihad'. But critics say the law is a poorly disguised attempt by the Hindu nationalist ruling party of prime minister Narendra Modi to break up interfaith unions.
The arrests have driven protests against BJP-lead government
The arrests have driven protests against BJP-lead government
A further four Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled (BJP) states are expected to pass similar laws later this month, despite the Indian government admitting in February it had not been able to find one case of so-called 'Love Jihad' nationwide.
While the law doesn’t specify any religion, police in Uttar Pradesh are targeting Muslims - at least ten Muslim men have been arrested so far but no Hindus.
Muskan and Rashid met when Rashid left his impoverished family home to work as a hairdresser in the northern Indian city of Dehradun.
Scraping to get by, he began to grow close to another migrant worker from Uttar Pradesh, a woman then known as Pinky.
The pair were employed by adjacent salons and Rashid began walking to work every morning with Pinky, making her laugh.
“Then, around five months ago, we got a sudden call from Rashid, he was very excited and he said that he had married the Hindu girl,” Mrs Jahan told the Sunday Telegraph.
“I scolded him that he did a wrong thing and asked him why he didn’t consult with us first. But, then he said he was coming home in July and we treated Pinky like our own daughter.”
Rashid got a new job in a salon in Moradabad and Pinky - who had taken the decision to convert to Islam and adopt the name Muskan before her marriage in July - soon fell pregnant, much to the delight of her mother-in-law.
“Like every mother, I also had a dream that my son should get married and then the happiness of all of us increased with the news of Muskan’s pregnancy,” said Mrs Jahan.
“There is no small baby in our house that we could play with on our lap and we had dreams of making the baby a good person through education.”
Rashid's family
Rashid's family
Hindus and Muslims have lived side-by-side in Uttar Pradesh for hundreds of years and while interfaith marriages are rare, they constitute three percent of unions.
However, since Mr Modi was re-elected with a landslide win in 2019, the BJP has implemented a string of policies protecting Hinduism. He has regularly been accused of Islamophobia.
The BJP has argued that Muslim men trying to brainwash Hindu women to convert to Islam before marriage to enact demographic change, a practice described as 'Love Jihad'. India’s Muslim community constitutes just 14 per cent of the population.
On Tuesday, the police arrested Haider Ali, a Muslim from the town of Kushinagar, tortured him and threatened to “skin him alive”. Mr Ali was released the next day after it was discovered his bride was born a Muslim.
Rashid was arrested on Sunday after the family visited a lawyer in Moradabad to register their marriage in Uttar Pradesh, as the couple had married in neighbouring Uttarakhand.
The family’s route home was blocked by the Bajrang Dal, a hardline Hindu nationalist group, who threatened them and called the police.
The police arrested Rashid and took Muskan to the shelter home, despite her protesting the couple were happily married.
“This is what Muslims do, first they love, and then they carry out Love Jihad after a few months. We know Pinky [Muskan] is seeing love right now, but after a few days she will find it very difficult to live her life,” said Gaurav Bhatnagar, the Bajrang Dal leader from Moradabad.
“Our workers are active in the street, locality, villages, cities, everywhere. Our job is to inform the police when Love Jihad cases occur and then it’s the court’s job to punish them.”
When Mrs Jahan tried to visit Muskan at the Nari Niketan shelter on Saturday morning, she was refused inside the building.
“Fear aggravates in our family, I do not know what will happen when both of them get released but I am very scared,” said Mrs Jahan.
The Sunday Telegraph approached the shelter where Muskan is held but did not receive a response.
Additional reporting by Mohammad Sartaj Alam
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/fi ... 36521.html
Islam and Hinduism's blurred lines
'Love Jihad' couple reunited in India as doctors back claims of forced miscarriage
Joe Wallen
The Telegraph Sat, December 19, 2020, 1:03 PM CST
Rashid and Muskan have been reunited after their ordeal shocked India
Rashid and Muskan have been reunited after their ordeal shocked India
The first couple detained under India’s controversial ‘Love Jihad’ laws have been reunited after authorities released the husband following outrage over his wife's miscarriage in detention.
Rashid, 22, was released after police in his home city of Moradabad, in Uttar Pradesh, admitted they had no evidence to prosecute him under new laws designed to crack down on Hindus converting to Muslims.
The new rules in Uttar Pradesh are designed to stamp out so-called ‘Love Jihad’, but critics say they are a poorly disguised attempt by the Hindu nationalist ruling party of prime minister Narendra Modi to break up genuine interfaith unions.
While the laws do not specify any religion, police in Uttar Pradesh are targeting Muslims - at least ten Muslim men have been arrested so far but no Hindus.
The release of Rashid, 22, came after The Sunday Telegraph revealed his three-month pregnant wife Muskan, 22, had been forced to undergo an abortion while she was in detention, triggering national outrage.
After being released from detention at a women’s shelter in Moradabad, Muskan underwent an ultrasound on Wednesday, which confirmed she had a miscarriage.
Muskan alleges that she was administered abortifacient injections by the Moradabad District Hospital after she was admitted with stomach pain.
The Moradabad District Hospital did not give Ms Jahan any antibiotics or painkillers to prevent post-miscarriage infections, which can result in a reduction in future fertility.
“I am so sad about my baby and my wife, Muskan. When I heard about Muskan’s bad health and what happened to our baby, I cried, I couldn’t stop my tears,” Rashid told The Telegraph after his release. “I want justice for the sake of Muskan, I will go to the high court for her pain and tears.”
He added: “I can’t believe I have come home, everything happened so quickly that it feels like a dream."
“Rashid was released not only because the marriage happened in July but because it was apparent from the start that Muskan converted to Islam and got married of her own choice, and had been living happily for months in her own home,” said Kavita Krishnan, Secretary of the All India Progressive Women’s Association, after visiting Rashid and Muskan on Saturday.
The Sunday Telegraph contacted the Uttar Pradesh Police and Moradabad District Hospital for comment but did not receive a response.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/lo ... 40198.html
Joe Wallen
The Telegraph Sat, December 19, 2020, 1:03 PM CST
Rashid and Muskan have been reunited after their ordeal shocked India
Rashid and Muskan have been reunited after their ordeal shocked India
The first couple detained under India’s controversial ‘Love Jihad’ laws have been reunited after authorities released the husband following outrage over his wife's miscarriage in detention.
Rashid, 22, was released after police in his home city of Moradabad, in Uttar Pradesh, admitted they had no evidence to prosecute him under new laws designed to crack down on Hindus converting to Muslims.
The new rules in Uttar Pradesh are designed to stamp out so-called ‘Love Jihad’, but critics say they are a poorly disguised attempt by the Hindu nationalist ruling party of prime minister Narendra Modi to break up genuine interfaith unions.
While the laws do not specify any religion, police in Uttar Pradesh are targeting Muslims - at least ten Muslim men have been arrested so far but no Hindus.
The release of Rashid, 22, came after The Sunday Telegraph revealed his three-month pregnant wife Muskan, 22, had been forced to undergo an abortion while she was in detention, triggering national outrage.
After being released from detention at a women’s shelter in Moradabad, Muskan underwent an ultrasound on Wednesday, which confirmed she had a miscarriage.
Muskan alleges that she was administered abortifacient injections by the Moradabad District Hospital after she was admitted with stomach pain.
The Moradabad District Hospital did not give Ms Jahan any antibiotics or painkillers to prevent post-miscarriage infections, which can result in a reduction in future fertility.
“I am so sad about my baby and my wife, Muskan. When I heard about Muskan’s bad health and what happened to our baby, I cried, I couldn’t stop my tears,” Rashid told The Telegraph after his release. “I want justice for the sake of Muskan, I will go to the high court for her pain and tears.”
He added: “I can’t believe I have come home, everything happened so quickly that it feels like a dream."
“Rashid was released not only because the marriage happened in July but because it was apparent from the start that Muskan converted to Islam and got married of her own choice, and had been living happily for months in her own home,” said Kavita Krishnan, Secretary of the All India Progressive Women’s Association, after visiting Rashid and Muskan on Saturday.
The Sunday Telegraph contacted the Uttar Pradesh Police and Moradabad District Hospital for comment but did not receive a response.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/lo ... 40198.html
Indian Muslims flee their homes after Love Jihad laws leave them in fear of Hindu neighbours
Mohammad Sartaj Alam
The Telegraph Fri, January 1, 2021, 9:33 AM CST
Nearly 40 Muslim families in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh are planning to flee their village after saying they had been subjected to a campaign of harassment by a Hindu nationalist group, one month after laws were passed criminalizing marriage between Hindus and Muslims.
On Dec 23, two dozen members of the Bajrang Dal fired bullets at the house of a Muslim shopkeeper in the village of Mavi Meera after he refused to give them free cigarettes.
The shopkeeper and his family did not sustain injuries but members of Mavi Meera's Muslim minority population immediately decided to leave the village, placing signs on their homes that read: “This house is on sale. We are migrating from this village.”
Sartaj Alam, 25, was the first to flee this week with his family, saying they no longer felt safe. “The Hindu community wants us to vacate the village. They have been attacking us and harassing us for a long time," he told the Telegraph.
"I left my village with my wife and rented a house in a Muslim-dominated town. Others are also leaving the village.”
Mavi Meera is home to approximately 600 families, and tensions between its Hindu and Muslim residents have existed since 2013. But since the “Love Jihad” laws were passed in November, the Bajrang Dal group has stepped up its regular sermons in the village and described Muslims as outsiders.
“Earlier, there would have been scuffles between the two communities and Hindus would beat us with canes, but now they feel confident to have fired bullets. It is better to leave this village before it turns ugly," said Mr Alam.
When Muslims approached the local police to register the shootings, some Hindu officers allegedly told them to drop the claims or face charges themselves.
“Our families are waiting for the return of relatives who are working in different parts of India and then we will find a safe place to migrate to from here," said Arif Malik, a relative of the shopkeeper.
The Uttar Pradesh Police denied they were pressuring the village’s Muslims to drop the charges and said they were investigating the incident when contacted by the Telegraph.
Zakir Ali Tyagi, a leading human rights activist, said the migration of Muslims from Hindu-majority villages in Uttar Pradesh to Muslim towns and cities was increasing.
India has become a “dangerous and violent space for Muslim minorities” ever since the Hindu nationalist BJP scrapped the autonomous status afforded to its then only Muslim-majority state of Jammu and Kashmir in August 2019, according to the 2020 South Asia State of Minorities Report.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/in ... 43988.html
Mohammad Sartaj Alam
The Telegraph Fri, January 1, 2021, 9:33 AM CST
Nearly 40 Muslim families in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh are planning to flee their village after saying they had been subjected to a campaign of harassment by a Hindu nationalist group, one month after laws were passed criminalizing marriage between Hindus and Muslims.
On Dec 23, two dozen members of the Bajrang Dal fired bullets at the house of a Muslim shopkeeper in the village of Mavi Meera after he refused to give them free cigarettes.
The shopkeeper and his family did not sustain injuries but members of Mavi Meera's Muslim minority population immediately decided to leave the village, placing signs on their homes that read: “This house is on sale. We are migrating from this village.”
Sartaj Alam, 25, was the first to flee this week with his family, saying they no longer felt safe. “The Hindu community wants us to vacate the village. They have been attacking us and harassing us for a long time," he told the Telegraph.
"I left my village with my wife and rented a house in a Muslim-dominated town. Others are also leaving the village.”
Mavi Meera is home to approximately 600 families, and tensions between its Hindu and Muslim residents have existed since 2013. But since the “Love Jihad” laws were passed in November, the Bajrang Dal group has stepped up its regular sermons in the village and described Muslims as outsiders.
“Earlier, there would have been scuffles between the two communities and Hindus would beat us with canes, but now they feel confident to have fired bullets. It is better to leave this village before it turns ugly," said Mr Alam.
When Muslims approached the local police to register the shootings, some Hindu officers allegedly told them to drop the claims or face charges themselves.
“Our families are waiting for the return of relatives who are working in different parts of India and then we will find a safe place to migrate to from here," said Arif Malik, a relative of the shopkeeper.
The Uttar Pradesh Police denied they were pressuring the village’s Muslims to drop the charges and said they were investigating the incident when contacted by the Telegraph.
Zakir Ali Tyagi, a leading human rights activist, said the migration of Muslims from Hindu-majority villages in Uttar Pradesh to Muslim towns and cities was increasing.
India has become a “dangerous and violent space for Muslim minorities” ever since the Hindu nationalist BJP scrapped the autonomous status afforded to its then only Muslim-majority state of Jammu and Kashmir in August 2019, according to the 2020 South Asia State of Minorities Report.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/in ... 43988.html
Muslim comedian detained by police in India for five days in free speech crackdown
Joe Wallen
The Telegraph Tue, January 5, 2021, 9:10 AM CST
A Muslim comedian has been detained for five days in India after he was accused of insulting Hindu gods at a gig.
Munawar Faruqui, a popular stand-up who is often critical of the government, was performing in the Bharatiya Janata Party-led state of Madhya Pradesh when the son of a local politician stormed the stage and accused him of sacrilege.
Mr Faruqui was assaulted by a mob after the gig and brought by the politician's son, Eklavya Gaur, to the police station.
He has been detained along with four friends on the grounds of "hurting religious sentiments".
However, police in Indore city admitted on Tuesday that they had no evidence of Mr Faruqui making any anti-Hindu remarks during the show.
“There’s no evidence against him for insulting Hindu deities or Union Minister Amit Shah,” said a police spokesperson in Indore, who clarified that anti-Hindu videos submitted by Mr Gaur were actually of another comedian.
Members of the audience had also shared videos of the gig, where Mr Faruqui was not seen to be insulting Hinduism or Home Office minister Amit Shah, another of the allegations.
Fellow comedians have called for his release, arguing the case is yet another example of a crackdown on freedom of speech in India. “A fellow Indian, a fellow comedian is in jail and got beaten up by a mob because of the words he uttered. Here he’s trying to logically, calmly present his case but our systems now just want to brutally silence every voice,” said Varun Grover, an Indian stand-up comedian.
India’s ruling BJP has detained opposition activists and politicians since Prime Minister Narendra Modi was re-elected with a landslide victory in 2019, as well as introducing a string of Islamophobic policies.
Madhya Pradesh became the third Indian state to pass legislation effectively criminalizing marriages between Muslims and Hindus in December, emboldening Hindu nationalist mobs who have since attacked several mosques.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/mu ... 22810.html
Joe Wallen
The Telegraph Tue, January 5, 2021, 9:10 AM CST
A Muslim comedian has been detained for five days in India after he was accused of insulting Hindu gods at a gig.
Munawar Faruqui, a popular stand-up who is often critical of the government, was performing in the Bharatiya Janata Party-led state of Madhya Pradesh when the son of a local politician stormed the stage and accused him of sacrilege.
Mr Faruqui was assaulted by a mob after the gig and brought by the politician's son, Eklavya Gaur, to the police station.
He has been detained along with four friends on the grounds of "hurting religious sentiments".
However, police in Indore city admitted on Tuesday that they had no evidence of Mr Faruqui making any anti-Hindu remarks during the show.
“There’s no evidence against him for insulting Hindu deities or Union Minister Amit Shah,” said a police spokesperson in Indore, who clarified that anti-Hindu videos submitted by Mr Gaur were actually of another comedian.
Members of the audience had also shared videos of the gig, where Mr Faruqui was not seen to be insulting Hinduism or Home Office minister Amit Shah, another of the allegations.
Fellow comedians have called for his release, arguing the case is yet another example of a crackdown on freedom of speech in India. “A fellow Indian, a fellow comedian is in jail and got beaten up by a mob because of the words he uttered. Here he’s trying to logically, calmly present his case but our systems now just want to brutally silence every voice,” said Varun Grover, an Indian stand-up comedian.
India’s ruling BJP has detained opposition activists and politicians since Prime Minister Narendra Modi was re-elected with a landslide victory in 2019, as well as introducing a string of Islamophobic policies.
Madhya Pradesh became the third Indian state to pass legislation effectively criminalizing marriages between Muslims and Hindus in December, emboldening Hindu nationalist mobs who have since attacked several mosques.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/mu ... 22810.html
Modi accused of remaking India in his image after renaming world's largest stadium after himself
Ben Farmer
The Telegraph Sat, February 27, 2021, 11:14 AM
The renaming of the world's largest cricket stadium after India's prime minister, has renewed accusations of narcissism and a growing personality cult around the nationalist leader, in the latest row over politically-driven name changes in the country.
The announcement that the 132,000-seat venue formerly known as Sardar Patel Stadium in Ahmedabad would be become the Narendra Modi Stadium sparked delight in his supporters and scorn from political opponents.
Mr Modi's gift for oratory and keen populist instincts have made him by far the most popular politician in India, and in 2019 won his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) a second term.
Yet he has also attracted accusations of vanity and attempting to glorify himself as the founder of a new Hindu India. Critics last week asked whether the stadium's new name was an attempt to bolster his legacy with a relabelling spree.
Dedicating sports stadiums to former prime ministers is common in India, but renaming such a high-profile venue for a sitting leader is rare.
The prime minister's allies hit back by pointing to a host of public buildings and government projects named after members of the Congress' Nehru-Gandhi dynasty that governed India for decades.
Mr Modi's nationalist BJP party has also gained a reputation for aggressively pursuing name changes. The intent behind them ranges from pure vanity and political point-scoring to more ambitious attempts to rewrite history and eclipse the role played by non-Hindus in the nation, commentators say.
In one of the most recent examples, in December the government announced the Rajiv Gandhi Biotechnology Centre in Kerala would be renamed to celebrate MS Golwalkar, a Hindu nationalist ideologue.
While previous governments have replaced colonial Anglicised names, such as changing Bombay to Mumbai and Madras to Chennai, the current government has been accused of going further to try to erase non-Hindu identities and particularly Muslim history.
In 2018, the Modi government approved the renaming of 25 towns and villages across India, and among the pending proposals is one for the state of West Bengal to be switched to Bangla.
That year, the BJP-ruled state of Uttar Pradesh, which has the highest Muslim population in India, changed the name of Allahabad to Prayagraja to reference a Hindu pilgrimage site.
The name Allahabad had dated to the 16th century and the Mughal Emperor Akbar. "Today, the BJP government has rectified the mistake made by Akbar," a BJP official was quoted as saying when the name was altered.
Indian historian and novelist Prof Mukul Kesavan said the renaming of the stadium was trivial compared to the campaign to rename Muslim sites.
“With the changeover from Allahabad to Prayagraj, what we are seeing is an assertion that India is a Hindu state and its place names should be appropriately Hindu. And that is a dangerous kind of renaming. We have to distinguish between different kinds of renaming – some kinds of renaming are acts of individual vanity like the cricket stadium. But other kinds of renaming are historically more important. They are trying to erase historical meaning.”
He said: “When they change the name of a city, they change our history, language, cultural references. They make us foreigners in our own country. Whether we are Muslim, Hindu or Sikh, when you are officially declared to be dead then what happens you no longer recognizes the world around us and this is the ambition.”
General view of the "Statue of Unity" portraying Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, one of the founding fathers of India, during its inauguration in Kevadia, in the western state of Gujarat, India - AMIT DAVE /Reuters
General view of the "Statue of Unity" portraying Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, one of the founding fathers of India, during its inauguration in Kevadia, in the western state of Gujarat, India - AMIT DAVE /Reuters
Mr Modi's opponents say he has not only used name changes to boost his profile and secure a lasting grip on the country's cultural fabric.
In 2018, he unveiled the world’s largest statue in a bid to showcase his position as leader of a new, world-beating India. The 597ft “Statue of Unity” depicts Vallabhbhai 'Sardar' Patel, one of the heroes of India’s independence movement.
His grandiose plan to redevelop the Indian parliament and Delhi's central vista were last year dismissed by the acclaimed Indian-born sculptor Anish Kapoor as an “expensive vanity project”,.
Mr Kapoor said the project was a “way of placing himself at the centre and cementing his legacy as the ruler-maker-builder of a new Hindu India”.
Prof Rakesh Sinha, a BJP member of parliament, said the renaming of cities and towns “ is returning to originality” and said Allahabad had originally been called Prayagraj.
As for the parliament plans, he said India should decolonize its architecture.
“Why should we go with colonially designed structures? Why not independent India design its own structure? We are decolonizing not only minds but also architecture.
“Decolonization is not about Britishers having left India, it means we have to erase everything and anything which is making a negative impact on the minds of our people.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/mo ... 43248.html
Ben Farmer
The Telegraph Sat, February 27, 2021, 11:14 AM
The renaming of the world's largest cricket stadium after India's prime minister, has renewed accusations of narcissism and a growing personality cult around the nationalist leader, in the latest row over politically-driven name changes in the country.
The announcement that the 132,000-seat venue formerly known as Sardar Patel Stadium in Ahmedabad would be become the Narendra Modi Stadium sparked delight in his supporters and scorn from political opponents.
Mr Modi's gift for oratory and keen populist instincts have made him by far the most popular politician in India, and in 2019 won his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) a second term.
Yet he has also attracted accusations of vanity and attempting to glorify himself as the founder of a new Hindu India. Critics last week asked whether the stadium's new name was an attempt to bolster his legacy with a relabelling spree.
Dedicating sports stadiums to former prime ministers is common in India, but renaming such a high-profile venue for a sitting leader is rare.
The prime minister's allies hit back by pointing to a host of public buildings and government projects named after members of the Congress' Nehru-Gandhi dynasty that governed India for decades.
Mr Modi's nationalist BJP party has also gained a reputation for aggressively pursuing name changes. The intent behind them ranges from pure vanity and political point-scoring to more ambitious attempts to rewrite history and eclipse the role played by non-Hindus in the nation, commentators say.
In one of the most recent examples, in December the government announced the Rajiv Gandhi Biotechnology Centre in Kerala would be renamed to celebrate MS Golwalkar, a Hindu nationalist ideologue.
While previous governments have replaced colonial Anglicised names, such as changing Bombay to Mumbai and Madras to Chennai, the current government has been accused of going further to try to erase non-Hindu identities and particularly Muslim history.
In 2018, the Modi government approved the renaming of 25 towns and villages across India, and among the pending proposals is one for the state of West Bengal to be switched to Bangla.
That year, the BJP-ruled state of Uttar Pradesh, which has the highest Muslim population in India, changed the name of Allahabad to Prayagraja to reference a Hindu pilgrimage site.
The name Allahabad had dated to the 16th century and the Mughal Emperor Akbar. "Today, the BJP government has rectified the mistake made by Akbar," a BJP official was quoted as saying when the name was altered.
Indian historian and novelist Prof Mukul Kesavan said the renaming of the stadium was trivial compared to the campaign to rename Muslim sites.
“With the changeover from Allahabad to Prayagraj, what we are seeing is an assertion that India is a Hindu state and its place names should be appropriately Hindu. And that is a dangerous kind of renaming. We have to distinguish between different kinds of renaming – some kinds of renaming are acts of individual vanity like the cricket stadium. But other kinds of renaming are historically more important. They are trying to erase historical meaning.”
He said: “When they change the name of a city, they change our history, language, cultural references. They make us foreigners in our own country. Whether we are Muslim, Hindu or Sikh, when you are officially declared to be dead then what happens you no longer recognizes the world around us and this is the ambition.”
General view of the "Statue of Unity" portraying Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, one of the founding fathers of India, during its inauguration in Kevadia, in the western state of Gujarat, India - AMIT DAVE /Reuters
General view of the "Statue of Unity" portraying Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, one of the founding fathers of India, during its inauguration in Kevadia, in the western state of Gujarat, India - AMIT DAVE /Reuters
Mr Modi's opponents say he has not only used name changes to boost his profile and secure a lasting grip on the country's cultural fabric.
In 2018, he unveiled the world’s largest statue in a bid to showcase his position as leader of a new, world-beating India. The 597ft “Statue of Unity” depicts Vallabhbhai 'Sardar' Patel, one of the heroes of India’s independence movement.
His grandiose plan to redevelop the Indian parliament and Delhi's central vista were last year dismissed by the acclaimed Indian-born sculptor Anish Kapoor as an “expensive vanity project”,.
Mr Kapoor said the project was a “way of placing himself at the centre and cementing his legacy as the ruler-maker-builder of a new Hindu India”.
Prof Rakesh Sinha, a BJP member of parliament, said the renaming of cities and towns “ is returning to originality” and said Allahabad had originally been called Prayagraj.
As for the parliament plans, he said India should decolonize its architecture.
“Why should we go with colonially designed structures? Why not independent India design its own structure? We are decolonizing not only minds but also architecture.
“Decolonization is not about Britishers having left India, it means we have to erase everything and anything which is making a negative impact on the minds of our people.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/mo ... 43248.html
A Muslim boy was beaten in India for entering and drinking water from a Hindu temple, multiple Indian media outlets reported on Sunday.
The incident took place on Thursday in the city of Dasna in Ghaziabad district, which lies in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.
The 14-year-old boy had entered the temple to drink water when he was noticed by the temple caretaker, Shringi Nandan Yadav, 23, who proceeded to beat the boy, the boy's family told the Hindustan Times.
“My son stopped to drink water from a tap located inside the temple as he was thirsty. He was beaten up after they asked his identity. He suffered a head injury," said the father, adding that his son usually didn't frequent the temple and has been told to stay clear of it in the future.
"He was badly beaten up and humiliated. Does water have a religion? I don’t think there is any religion that can refuse water to a thirsty person," he said while speaking to The Indian Express. He lamented that the temple had been open to the public in the past but that changed, adding that he hoped his son would receive justice.
Ghaziabad police took notice of the incident and arrested the main accused, Yadav, along with Shivanand Saraswati, another caretaker, who had recorded the incident. The recorded video was circulated online on social media platforms and went viral on Friday evening.
Cases were registered against the two men under Indian Penal Code sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 504 (intentional insult to provoke breach of peace), 352 (assault or criminal force otherwise than on grave provocation), 505 (statements conducing to public mischief) and also provisions of the Information Technology Act.
Senior Superintendent of Police Ghaziabad Kalanidhi Naithani said the main accused had been arrested shortly after the incident had first come to light.
"Any person found indulging in anti-social activities will face strict action by the police," he told The Indian Express.
Yadav had been staying in the temple for the past three months and both arrested individuals had contributed to the viral spread of the video, said another police officer.
Police officials said Yadav, hailing from Bihar, had shifted to Ghaziabad six months ago. He was doing voluntary service at the Dasna Devi Temple and considered himself a disciple of its caretaker, Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati.
Priyank Kanoongo, chairperson of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) posted Yadav's picture on Twitter on Saturday. "[The] NCPCR Is committed to providing justice to the child."
'He's a good man'
The management committee of the temple, meanwhile, said it would extend its help to Yadav for legal aid. A member from the committee, Anil Yadav, said the temple bore full responsibility for the event.
"There is a conspiracy; that boy was not alone," he said, chalking the incident off as an attempt to charge the atmosphere.
He defended Yadav as a "good man" who had lost his job as an engineer during the Covid-19 pandemic and decided to volunteer at the temple by managing their IT system. "We will make sure he’s free."
Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati alleged the boy had been caught spitting in the temple and the temple authorities would seek bail for the two arrested individuals.
Temple authorities said they had prohibited entry of non-Hindu people while it is written on a board placed outside the temple, "This temple is a holy place for Hindus, it is forbidden for Muslims to enter. By order of Narsinghanand Saraswati.”
Saraswati is a rightwing preacher whose inflammatory speeches were also shared by the main accused on his social media, along with pictures of him holding various
weapons.https://www.dawn.com/news/1612503/musli ... e-in-india
The incident took place on Thursday in the city of Dasna in Ghaziabad district, which lies in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.
The 14-year-old boy had entered the temple to drink water when he was noticed by the temple caretaker, Shringi Nandan Yadav, 23, who proceeded to beat the boy, the boy's family told the Hindustan Times.
“My son stopped to drink water from a tap located inside the temple as he was thirsty. He was beaten up after they asked his identity. He suffered a head injury," said the father, adding that his son usually didn't frequent the temple and has been told to stay clear of it in the future.
"He was badly beaten up and humiliated. Does water have a religion? I don’t think there is any religion that can refuse water to a thirsty person," he said while speaking to The Indian Express. He lamented that the temple had been open to the public in the past but that changed, adding that he hoped his son would receive justice.
Ghaziabad police took notice of the incident and arrested the main accused, Yadav, along with Shivanand Saraswati, another caretaker, who had recorded the incident. The recorded video was circulated online on social media platforms and went viral on Friday evening.
Cases were registered against the two men under Indian Penal Code sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 504 (intentional insult to provoke breach of peace), 352 (assault or criminal force otherwise than on grave provocation), 505 (statements conducing to public mischief) and also provisions of the Information Technology Act.
Senior Superintendent of Police Ghaziabad Kalanidhi Naithani said the main accused had been arrested shortly after the incident had first come to light.
"Any person found indulging in anti-social activities will face strict action by the police," he told The Indian Express.
Yadav had been staying in the temple for the past three months and both arrested individuals had contributed to the viral spread of the video, said another police officer.
Police officials said Yadav, hailing from Bihar, had shifted to Ghaziabad six months ago. He was doing voluntary service at the Dasna Devi Temple and considered himself a disciple of its caretaker, Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati.
Priyank Kanoongo, chairperson of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) posted Yadav's picture on Twitter on Saturday. "[The] NCPCR Is committed to providing justice to the child."
'He's a good man'
The management committee of the temple, meanwhile, said it would extend its help to Yadav for legal aid. A member from the committee, Anil Yadav, said the temple bore full responsibility for the event.
"There is a conspiracy; that boy was not alone," he said, chalking the incident off as an attempt to charge the atmosphere.
He defended Yadav as a "good man" who had lost his job as an engineer during the Covid-19 pandemic and decided to volunteer at the temple by managing their IT system. "We will make sure he’s free."
Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati alleged the boy had been caught spitting in the temple and the temple authorities would seek bail for the two arrested individuals.
Temple authorities said they had prohibited entry of non-Hindu people while it is written on a board placed outside the temple, "This temple is a holy place for Hindus, it is forbidden for Muslims to enter. By order of Narsinghanand Saraswati.”
Saraswati is a rightwing preacher whose inflammatory speeches were also shared by the main accused on his social media, along with pictures of him holding various
weapons.https://www.dawn.com/news/1612503/musli ... e-in-india
India’s court paves way for Rohingya deportation
Reuters Published April 9, 2021 - Updated 2 days
Two refugees petitioned the Supreme Court for the release of Rohingya men and women detained in India-occupied Jammu last month, and block the government from deporting them.
NEW DELHI: India’s Supreme Court rejected a plea on Thursday to stop the government from deporting to Myanmar some 150 Rohingya MUSLIM police detained last month, paving the way for them to be sent to a country where hundreds have been killed following a military coup.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has been trying to send back Rohingyas, a Muslim minority from Myanmar who have found refuge in India after fleeing persecution and waves of violence over the years.
Two refugees petitioned the Supreme Court for the release of Rohingya men and women detained in India-occupied Jammu last month, and block the government from deporting them.
But Chief Justice Sharad Arvind Bobde said the deportation could go ahead as long as officials followed due process. “It is not possible to grant the interim relief prayed for,” the judge said in his order.
“Regarding the contention raised on behalf of the petitioners about the present state of affairs in Myanmar, we have to state that we cannot comment upon something happening in another country,” he added.
Hundreds of people have been killed in Myanmar since the army seized power in a coup on Feb 1.
The ruling triggered panic among refugees in India, a Rohingya community leader in New Delhi said.
“This is a terrifying order made by the highest court in India,” he said. “Given the horrifying situation in Myanmar, I had really hoped the judge would rule in our favour.”
The Modi government says the Rohingya are in the country illegally and a security threat. A total of 12 Rohingya have been deported since 2017, according to community leaders.
Last week, officials tried deporting a 16-year-old Rohingya girl to Myanmar and drove her to the border, but that attempt failed as authorities in Myanmar were not reachable.
Many of the Rohingya in India carry identity cards issued by the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) recognizing them as refugees, but the country is not a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention. India also rejects a UN position that deporting the Rohingya violates the principle of refoulement _ forcible return of refugees to a country where they face danger.
Thursday’s order shows a “blatant disregard” for that principle, said Fazal Abdali, a lawyer involved in Rohingya deportation cases.
“It sends a message that India is no longer a refuge for persecuted minorities,” Abdali said.
Published in Dawn, April 9th, 2021
https://www.dawn.com/news/1617237/india ... eportation
Reuters Published April 9, 2021 - Updated 2 days
Two refugees petitioned the Supreme Court for the release of Rohingya men and women detained in India-occupied Jammu last month, and block the government from deporting them.
NEW DELHI: India’s Supreme Court rejected a plea on Thursday to stop the government from deporting to Myanmar some 150 Rohingya MUSLIM police detained last month, paving the way for them to be sent to a country where hundreds have been killed following a military coup.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has been trying to send back Rohingyas, a Muslim minority from Myanmar who have found refuge in India after fleeing persecution and waves of violence over the years.
Two refugees petitioned the Supreme Court for the release of Rohingya men and women detained in India-occupied Jammu last month, and block the government from deporting them.
But Chief Justice Sharad Arvind Bobde said the deportation could go ahead as long as officials followed due process. “It is not possible to grant the interim relief prayed for,” the judge said in his order.
“Regarding the contention raised on behalf of the petitioners about the present state of affairs in Myanmar, we have to state that we cannot comment upon something happening in another country,” he added.
Hundreds of people have been killed in Myanmar since the army seized power in a coup on Feb 1.
The ruling triggered panic among refugees in India, a Rohingya community leader in New Delhi said.
“This is a terrifying order made by the highest court in India,” he said. “Given the horrifying situation in Myanmar, I had really hoped the judge would rule in our favour.”
The Modi government says the Rohingya are in the country illegally and a security threat. A total of 12 Rohingya have been deported since 2017, according to community leaders.
Last week, officials tried deporting a 16-year-old Rohingya girl to Myanmar and drove her to the border, but that attempt failed as authorities in Myanmar were not reachable.
Many of the Rohingya in India carry identity cards issued by the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) recognizing them as refugees, but the country is not a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention. India also rejects a UN position that deporting the Rohingya violates the principle of refoulement _ forcible return of refugees to a country where they face danger.
Thursday’s order shows a “blatant disregard” for that principle, said Fazal Abdali, a lawyer involved in Rohingya deportation cases.
“It sends a message that India is no longer a refuge for persecuted minorities,” Abdali said.
Published in Dawn, April 9th, 2021
https://www.dawn.com/news/1617237/india ... eportation
By Rohan Venkataramakrishnan
April 13, 2021
“This is not negligence. It’s a serious criminal act.”
“Spreading Covid-19 is also like terrorism, and all those who are spreading the virus are traitors.”
“The government should not sit quietly. It should gun down a few to ensure they follow lockdown norms.”
Those are just a few of the comments by ministers and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) members from 2020, referring to a gathering by the Tablighi Jamaat group in Delhi that turned out to be an early Covid-19 hotspot. Though the congregation began before the novel coronavirus had been declared a health emergency in the country, some believe that the actions of the Jamaat were condemnable. Court cases filed against members have led to numerous acquittals.
What is much more evident is how the incident and the BJP’s rhetoric fueled hate speech and bigotry against Muslims in the early stages of the pandemic. Muslims were blamed for deliberately spreading the virus across India by waging what Hindutva adherents claimed was a “corona jihad”.
For months, headlines, incendiary statements, and viral videos sought to convey the idea that the spread of the virus in the country was the responsibility of a single community.
Imagine if the TABLIGHI Jamaat gathering had been happening right now, with India in the grip of a brutal second wave of Covid-19 and daily case counts hitting numbers far higher than the worst days of 2020. Imagine the response of the BJP and India’s pro-government news channels if a police person had said something like this:
“We are continuously appealing to people to follow Covid appropriate behaviour. But due to the huge crowd, it is practically not possible to issue challans today. It is very difficult to ensure social distancing… A stampede-like situation may arise if we would try to enforce social distancing at ghats so we are unable to enforce social distancing here.”
It is not hard to imagine the anger and demands for accountability that might have been unleashed by a comment like that, from a senior police officer.
So what explains the relative silence of the government and the BJP when the same comment comes from the Inspector General of the Kumbh Mela currently taking place in Uttarakhand?
The point is, of course, not to encourage bigotry or hatred directed towards the millions of people who have congregated on the banks of the Ganga for the Kumbh but to point out the blatant double standards—and the utter lack of accountability from the authorities.
In the Tablighi Jamaat incident, it was clear that the government had failed to dissipate a gathering that eventually became a hotpsot and then proceeded to make things worse by stigmatising the disease and making Indians afraid about getting tested.
In the case of the Kumbh, the dangers are much more obvious.
As new variants are ripping through states around the country, with patients filling up hospitals and crematoriums struggling to handle the numbers of dead, the Uttarakhand government did not just fail to take action limiting numbers at the Hindu festival—it actively encouraged people to come and told them not to worry about Covid-19 restrictions.
This was what Uttarakhand Chief Minister Tirath Singh Rawat said on March 20:
“I invite all devotees across the world to come to Haridwar and take a holy dip in the Ganga during Mahakumbh. Nobody will be stopped in the name of Covid-19 as we are sure the faith in God will overcome the fear of the virus.”
While claiming that all Central guidelines would be followed and that only those with a negative RT-PCR would be allowed to come, Rawat repeatedly said there would be no “rok-tok” or obstacles. “There is no strictness,” he said. “But Covid-19 guidelines should be followed… It’s open for everyone.”
https://qz.com/india/1996084/modi-gover ... source=YPL
April 13, 2021
“This is not negligence. It’s a serious criminal act.”
“Spreading Covid-19 is also like terrorism, and all those who are spreading the virus are traitors.”
“The government should not sit quietly. It should gun down a few to ensure they follow lockdown norms.”
Those are just a few of the comments by ministers and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) members from 2020, referring to a gathering by the Tablighi Jamaat group in Delhi that turned out to be an early Covid-19 hotspot. Though the congregation began before the novel coronavirus had been declared a health emergency in the country, some believe that the actions of the Jamaat were condemnable. Court cases filed against members have led to numerous acquittals.
What is much more evident is how the incident and the BJP’s rhetoric fueled hate speech and bigotry against Muslims in the early stages of the pandemic. Muslims were blamed for deliberately spreading the virus across India by waging what Hindutva adherents claimed was a “corona jihad”.
For months, headlines, incendiary statements, and viral videos sought to convey the idea that the spread of the virus in the country was the responsibility of a single community.
Imagine if the TABLIGHI Jamaat gathering had been happening right now, with India in the grip of a brutal second wave of Covid-19 and daily case counts hitting numbers far higher than the worst days of 2020. Imagine the response of the BJP and India’s pro-government news channels if a police person had said something like this:
“We are continuously appealing to people to follow Covid appropriate behaviour. But due to the huge crowd, it is practically not possible to issue challans today. It is very difficult to ensure social distancing… A stampede-like situation may arise if we would try to enforce social distancing at ghats so we are unable to enforce social distancing here.”
It is not hard to imagine the anger and demands for accountability that might have been unleashed by a comment like that, from a senior police officer.
So what explains the relative silence of the government and the BJP when the same comment comes from the Inspector General of the Kumbh Mela currently taking place in Uttarakhand?
The point is, of course, not to encourage bigotry or hatred directed towards the millions of people who have congregated on the banks of the Ganga for the Kumbh but to point out the blatant double standards—and the utter lack of accountability from the authorities.
In the Tablighi Jamaat incident, it was clear that the government had failed to dissipate a gathering that eventually became a hotpsot and then proceeded to make things worse by stigmatising the disease and making Indians afraid about getting tested.
In the case of the Kumbh, the dangers are much more obvious.
As new variants are ripping through states around the country, with patients filling up hospitals and crematoriums struggling to handle the numbers of dead, the Uttarakhand government did not just fail to take action limiting numbers at the Hindu festival—it actively encouraged people to come and told them not to worry about Covid-19 restrictions.
This was what Uttarakhand Chief Minister Tirath Singh Rawat said on March 20:
“I invite all devotees across the world to come to Haridwar and take a holy dip in the Ganga during Mahakumbh. Nobody will be stopped in the name of Covid-19 as we are sure the faith in God will overcome the fear of the virus.”
While claiming that all Central guidelines would be followed and that only those with a negative RT-PCR would be allowed to come, Rawat repeatedly said there would be no “rok-tok” or obstacles. “There is no strictness,” he said. “But Covid-19 guidelines should be followed… It’s open for everyone.”
https://qz.com/india/1996084/modi-gover ... source=YPL
Punjab’s only Muslim-majority town Malerkotla to become state’s 23rd district
Chief minister also announced Rs 500-crore medical college, women's college, new bus stand and women police station in Malerkotla
Chandigarh: Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Friday announced the creation of a new district of Malerkotla, carving the state’s only Muslim-majority town from Sangrur district.
Adjoining Amargarh and Ahmedgarh will also form part of Punjab’s 23rd district, according to the announcement at a state-level event on Eid-ul-Fitr.
According Malerkotla, which is 35 km from the Sangrur district headquarters, a district status was a pre-poll promise by the Congress.
The chief minister also announced a Rs 500-crore medical college, a women’s college, a new bus stand and a women police station in Malerkotla.
“I know this has been a long-pending demand,” he said through video conference.
In a tweet later, he said, “Happy to share that on the auspicious occasion of Eid-ul-Fitr, my govt has announced Malerkotla as the newest district in the state. The 23rd district holds huge historical significance. Have ordered to immediately locate a suitable site for the district administrative complex.”
The CM said Punjab had 13 district at Independence.
The chief minister underscored India’s secular character, which he said was manifested in the defeat of “communal forces” in the recent assembly elections in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal.
Recalling the rich history of Malerkotla, Amarinder Singh said the creation of the new district will ease hardships of people in dealing with administrative problems.
Initially, subdivisions of Malerkotla and Ahmedgarh as well as the sub-tehsil of Amargarh will be included in the district.
The process of bringing villages under the jurisdiction of Malerkotla district will begin later after the conclusion of the Census operations, he added.
Amarinder Singh directed the Sangrur deputy commissioner to find a suitable building to immediately start the functioning of the district administration office, according to an official statement.
The deputy commissioner for the newly carved out district will be appointed soon, he said.
Announcing various development projects, the CM said a government medical college in the name of Sher Mohammed Khan, who had been a Nawab of Malerkotla, will soon be set up and the state government has already allotted 25 acres on the Raikot road for it.
The first instalment of Rs 50 crore has already been sanctioned, he added. The chief minister also announced the establishment of a government college for women.
A new bus stand will be constructed at a cost of Rs 10 crore, he said, adding Malekotla will also get a women police station.
To ensure holistic development of Malerkotla, the CM also announced a sum of Rs 6 crore under the Urban Environment Improvement Programme (UEIP).
To promote the cultural heritage of Malerkotla, the CM said he has written to Aga Khan Foundation to undertake conservation and restoration of the Mubarak Manzil Palace.
The Punjab government has acquired the 150-year-old palace and its restoration and upkeep will be a befitting tribute to the Nawabs of Malerkotla, he said.
Tracing the town’s history, the chief minister said it was established in 1454 by Sheikh Sadruddin-i-Jahan from Afghanistan and subsequently the State of Malerkotla was established in 1657 by Bayazid Khan.
Malerkotla was later merged with other nearby princely states to create the Patiala and East Punjab States Union (PEPSU).
During the reorganisation of states in 1956, the territory of the erstwhile State of Malerkotla became part of Punjab.
Going down memory lane, the chief minister, who belongs to the erstwhile Patiala royals, recalled his cordial ties with the then Nawab of Malerkotla, whom he fondly called chachaji and who lovingly addressed him bhateej (nephew) during his early childhood visits to the town.
The CM said people across the globe, especially Sikhs, revered Sher Mohammed Khan, former Nawab of Malerkotla, who protested against the inhuman act of torture and bricking alive of younger sons of Guru Gobind Singh–Baba Zorawar Singh and Baba Fateh Singh–by the then governor of Sirhind Wazir Khan.
Amarinder said thereafter, Guru Gobind Singh blessed Nawab Sher Mohammed Khan and people of Malerkotla that the town will live in peace and happiness.
Malerkotla remained largely peaceful during the Partition in 1947, which saw communal clashes and large-scale migration of people across the India-Pakistan border.
He further noted that the town is also blessed by Sufi saint Baba Haider Sheikh, whose dargah also exists there.
Punjab minister and Malerkotla MLA Razia Sultana and state Congress president Sunil Jakhar also spoke on the occasion.
https://www.siasat.com/punjabs-only-mus ... t-2137232/
Chief minister also announced Rs 500-crore medical college, women's college, new bus stand and women police station in Malerkotla
Chandigarh: Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Friday announced the creation of a new district of Malerkotla, carving the state’s only Muslim-majority town from Sangrur district.
Adjoining Amargarh and Ahmedgarh will also form part of Punjab’s 23rd district, according to the announcement at a state-level event on Eid-ul-Fitr.
According Malerkotla, which is 35 km from the Sangrur district headquarters, a district status was a pre-poll promise by the Congress.
The chief minister also announced a Rs 500-crore medical college, a women’s college, a new bus stand and a women police station in Malerkotla.
“I know this has been a long-pending demand,” he said through video conference.
In a tweet later, he said, “Happy to share that on the auspicious occasion of Eid-ul-Fitr, my govt has announced Malerkotla as the newest district in the state. The 23rd district holds huge historical significance. Have ordered to immediately locate a suitable site for the district administrative complex.”
The CM said Punjab had 13 district at Independence.
The chief minister underscored India’s secular character, which he said was manifested in the defeat of “communal forces” in the recent assembly elections in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal.
Recalling the rich history of Malerkotla, Amarinder Singh said the creation of the new district will ease hardships of people in dealing with administrative problems.
Initially, subdivisions of Malerkotla and Ahmedgarh as well as the sub-tehsil of Amargarh will be included in the district.
The process of bringing villages under the jurisdiction of Malerkotla district will begin later after the conclusion of the Census operations, he added.
Amarinder Singh directed the Sangrur deputy commissioner to find a suitable building to immediately start the functioning of the district administration office, according to an official statement.
The deputy commissioner for the newly carved out district will be appointed soon, he said.
Announcing various development projects, the CM said a government medical college in the name of Sher Mohammed Khan, who had been a Nawab of Malerkotla, will soon be set up and the state government has already allotted 25 acres on the Raikot road for it.
The first instalment of Rs 50 crore has already been sanctioned, he added. The chief minister also announced the establishment of a government college for women.
A new bus stand will be constructed at a cost of Rs 10 crore, he said, adding Malekotla will also get a women police station.
To ensure holistic development of Malerkotla, the CM also announced a sum of Rs 6 crore under the Urban Environment Improvement Programme (UEIP).
To promote the cultural heritage of Malerkotla, the CM said he has written to Aga Khan Foundation to undertake conservation and restoration of the Mubarak Manzil Palace.
The Punjab government has acquired the 150-year-old palace and its restoration and upkeep will be a befitting tribute to the Nawabs of Malerkotla, he said.
Tracing the town’s history, the chief minister said it was established in 1454 by Sheikh Sadruddin-i-Jahan from Afghanistan and subsequently the State of Malerkotla was established in 1657 by Bayazid Khan.
Malerkotla was later merged with other nearby princely states to create the Patiala and East Punjab States Union (PEPSU).
During the reorganisation of states in 1956, the territory of the erstwhile State of Malerkotla became part of Punjab.
Going down memory lane, the chief minister, who belongs to the erstwhile Patiala royals, recalled his cordial ties with the then Nawab of Malerkotla, whom he fondly called chachaji and who lovingly addressed him bhateej (nephew) during his early childhood visits to the town.
The CM said people across the globe, especially Sikhs, revered Sher Mohammed Khan, former Nawab of Malerkotla, who protested against the inhuman act of torture and bricking alive of younger sons of Guru Gobind Singh–Baba Zorawar Singh and Baba Fateh Singh–by the then governor of Sirhind Wazir Khan.
Amarinder said thereafter, Guru Gobind Singh blessed Nawab Sher Mohammed Khan and people of Malerkotla that the town will live in peace and happiness.
Malerkotla remained largely peaceful during the Partition in 1947, which saw communal clashes and large-scale migration of people across the India-Pakistan border.
He further noted that the town is also blessed by Sufi saint Baba Haider Sheikh, whose dargah also exists there.
Punjab minister and Malerkotla MLA Razia Sultana and state Congress president Sunil Jakhar also spoke on the occasion.
https://www.siasat.com/punjabs-only-mus ... t-2137232/
Most Indians oppose interfaith marriage, survey shows
Lebo Diseko - Global Religion Correspondent
Tue, June 29, 2021, 7:18 PM
Several Indian states have introduced a controversial law that criminalizes interfaith love.
Most Indians see themselves and their country as religiously tolerant but are against interfaith marriage, a survey from Pew Research Center has found.
People across different faiths in the country said stopping interfaith marriage was a "high priority" for them.
The research comes after laws were introduced in several Indian states criminalizing interfaith love.
Pew interviewed 30,000 people across India in 17 languages for the study.
The interviewees were from 26 states and three federally administered territories.
According to the survey, 80% of the Muslims who were interviewed felt it was important to stop people from their community from marrying into another religion. Around 65% of Hindus felt the same.
The survey also asked about the relationship between faith and nationality. It found that Hindus "tend to see their religious identity and Indian national identity as closely intertwined".
Nearly two-thirds of Hindus (64%) said it was very important to be Hindu in order to be "truly Indian".
The study found that despite sharing certain values and religious beliefs, members of India's major religious communities "often don't feel they have much in common".
"Indians simultaneously express enthusiasm for religious tolerance and a consistent preference for keeping their religious communities in segregated spheres - they live together separately," the study said.
Many lead religiously segregated lives, it added, when it comes to friendships, and "would prefer to keep people of certain religions out of their residential areas or village".
Marriages between Hindus and Muslims have long attracted censure in conservative Indian families, but couples are also facing legal hurdles now.
India's Special Marriage Act mandates a 30-day notice period for interfaith couples. And some Indian states led by the governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have taken further steps, introducing laws which ban "unlawful conversion" by force or fraudulent means.
It is in response to what right-wing Hindu groups call "love jihad" - a baseless conspiracy theory that accuses Muslim men of luring Hindu women with the sole purpose of converting them to Islam.
Interfaith lovers face several challenges, both from societal attitudes and the Indian law.
The opposition to interfaith relationships is something Sumit Chauhan and his wife Azra Parveen can relate to. Mr Chauhan is from a Hindu family, although he identifies by his Dalit caste (formerly known as untouchables). Ms Parveen is a Muslim.
Mr Chauhan said his Hindu relatives "had some misconceptions about the Muslim community, but I convinced my mother and sister and brother."
But for Ms Parveen, things were not as simple. Her family refused to let them marry, she said. The couple decided to tie the knot in secret, and Ms Parveen's family did not talk to the couple for almost three years, Mr Chauhan said.
And even though they are now on speaking terms, Ms Parveen's parents still won't publicly acknowledge the marriage.
"Last year, my wife's younger sister got married but we were not invited," Mr Chauhan said. "You shouldn't have to change your religion to marry someone you love."
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/mo ... 15454.html
Lebo Diseko - Global Religion Correspondent
Tue, June 29, 2021, 7:18 PM
Several Indian states have introduced a controversial law that criminalizes interfaith love.
Most Indians see themselves and their country as religiously tolerant but are against interfaith marriage, a survey from Pew Research Center has found.
People across different faiths in the country said stopping interfaith marriage was a "high priority" for them.
The research comes after laws were introduced in several Indian states criminalizing interfaith love.
Pew interviewed 30,000 people across India in 17 languages for the study.
The interviewees were from 26 states and three federally administered territories.
According to the survey, 80% of the Muslims who were interviewed felt it was important to stop people from their community from marrying into another religion. Around 65% of Hindus felt the same.
The survey also asked about the relationship between faith and nationality. It found that Hindus "tend to see their religious identity and Indian national identity as closely intertwined".
Nearly two-thirds of Hindus (64%) said it was very important to be Hindu in order to be "truly Indian".
The study found that despite sharing certain values and religious beliefs, members of India's major religious communities "often don't feel they have much in common".
"Indians simultaneously express enthusiasm for religious tolerance and a consistent preference for keeping their religious communities in segregated spheres - they live together separately," the study said.
Many lead religiously segregated lives, it added, when it comes to friendships, and "would prefer to keep people of certain religions out of their residential areas or village".
Marriages between Hindus and Muslims have long attracted censure in conservative Indian families, but couples are also facing legal hurdles now.
India's Special Marriage Act mandates a 30-day notice period for interfaith couples. And some Indian states led by the governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have taken further steps, introducing laws which ban "unlawful conversion" by force or fraudulent means.
It is in response to what right-wing Hindu groups call "love jihad" - a baseless conspiracy theory that accuses Muslim men of luring Hindu women with the sole purpose of converting them to Islam.
Interfaith lovers face several challenges, both from societal attitudes and the Indian law.
The opposition to interfaith relationships is something Sumit Chauhan and his wife Azra Parveen can relate to. Mr Chauhan is from a Hindu family, although he identifies by his Dalit caste (formerly known as untouchables). Ms Parveen is a Muslim.
Mr Chauhan said his Hindu relatives "had some misconceptions about the Muslim community, but I convinced my mother and sister and brother."
But for Ms Parveen, things were not as simple. Her family refused to let them marry, she said. The couple decided to tie the knot in secret, and Ms Parveen's family did not talk to the couple for almost three years, Mr Chauhan said.
And even though they are now on speaking terms, Ms Parveen's parents still won't publicly acknowledge the marriage.
"Last year, my wife's younger sister got married but we were not invited," Mr Chauhan said. "You shouldn't have to change your religion to marry someone you love."
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/mo ... 15454.html
LA Times
An Indian island paradise escaped COVID-19. Then a Hindu nationalist official arrived
David Pierson, Varsha Torgalkar
Wed, June 30, 2021, 5:00 AM
A security person checks on a visitor, left as activists of Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) gather for a protest outside the Lakshadweep administration office in Kochi, Kerala state, India, Tuesday, June 15, 2021. A dozen activists of the CITU staged a peaceful protest here Tuesday expressing solidarity with the inhabitants of the archipelago who have been protesting against the reforms of a new administrator appointed by the Indian government.
A dozen activists of the Center of Indian Trade Unions stage a peaceful demonstration in Kochi, India, on June 15, 2021, expressing solidarity with the inhabitants of Lakshadweep against changes made by a new administrator.
For 44 years, Nijamuddin K. lived his life in peace on Kavaratti, a sandy atoll surrounded by turquoise water 200 miles west of India’s Malabar coast.
On a good day, when the winds cooperated and the fish were running, he could take his wooden boat with the creaky motor out to sea and catch up to 60 tuna. Steady demand for the prized fish on the Indian mainland made him the breadwinner for an extended family of 14.
The turbulence of modern India has long eluded Kavaratti and the 35 other flecks of idyllic tropical land scattered across the Arabian Sea and known as Lakshadweep. That serenity was upended in December, when a newly appointed administrator for the federal territory named Praful Khoda Patel visited the archipelago following the death of his predecessor.
Patel lifted restrictions on travel to the islands that had kept Lakshadweep remarkably free of COVID-19. The relaxation came just as India’s disastrous second wave was developing, resulting in a sudden and deadly outbreak in the island community.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks with the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh at a campaign rally in 2019.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, right, seen in 2019 with Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh state Yogi Adityanath. Under the Modi government, Muslims have been increasingly marginalized in a country where they make up 14% of the population.
But what sparked protests and turned this rarely noticed collection of reefs into national news was prompted when Patel, a loyalist of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, introduced sweeping plans to overhaul life in the Muslim enclave. It was as if the targeting of Muslims that has riven the mainland in recent years had suddenly made its way across the sea.
Without consulting anyone in Lakshadweep, Patel proposed giving the government unchecked powers to seize property and relocate residents in the name of developing the island chain into a tourist destination that could rival the nearby Maldives.
He then suggested a ban on beef and a lifting of prohibitions on alcohol, an affront to local religious sensibilities. Patel also wanted to bar anyone with more than two children from running for local elections, a move widely seen as a ploy to weaken the political standing of Muslims, who make up 95% of the population.
Patel also wants to hand authorities the power to detain anyone without public disclosure for up to a year — a rule more commonly used in parts of India with national security concerns, not a place like Lakshadweep where there’s virtually no crime.
“It’s no secret they want to eradicate our community,” said Nijamuddin. “It makes me angry and sad. They could have learned about our lifestyle and culture instead of imposing all these rules.”
Nijamuddin’s problems began on April 27 when workers employed by the federal government demolished his beach shed and disconnected his electricity supply without warning. The government has been clearing beachfront land in Kavaratti and other inhabited islands in Lakshadweep, declaring structures like sheds illegal.
Nijamuddin had dipped into his savings to construct the shed made of bamboo and coconut leaves to store his fishing nets and shelter his boat when it needed repair. The vessel still has a gash on its bow from Cyclone Tauktae earlier this year.
The following month, Nijamuddin’s 75-year-old father died of COVID-19. He had been struggling to breathe for weeks, but there was little doctors could do at a government hospital overwhelmed by patients and short on beds.
“We used to feel safe here because there were no cases while there were millions in other parts of India,” said Nijamuddin, who suspects everyone in his family has been infected, most asymptomatically.
Lakshadweep’s residents are now under lockdown to contain a wave of COVID-19 that’s infected more than 9,000 people and killed at least 46, making it one of the worst outbreaks in India on a per capita basis.
Unable to fish, Nijamuddin has had to borrow money from friends and relatives to make ends meet. Growing signs of a third wave in India mean Lakshadweep could be months from recovery.
“I have a family of 14 people to feed and fishing is the only way of earning money,” Nijamuddin said. “Now that is also taken away and I don’t know how I am going to survive.”
The father of two was so frustrated that he joined the so-called Black Day protest on June 14 organized by local activists. Thousands of island residents wore black in solidarity and posted signs outside their homes that read “Go back Patel.”
More demonstrations have followed, including a hunger strike. The hashtag #SaveLakshadweep has been trending in India. Authorities have responded to the uproar by arresting nearly two dozen demonstrators.
Patel, who could not be reached for comment, has defended his plan by saying the “BJP administration is trying to uplift the lives of coconut growers and fishermen of the island.”
He said the stringent security laws are needed “so that youth are not misguided.”
Residents don’t believe they will benefit from Lakshadweep’s development of luxury hotels. They say they are being pushed aside because of their faith.
Under the Modi government, Muslims have been increasingly marginalized in a country where they make up 14% of the population. They’ve been targeted by police and violent mobs. And in a bid by Modi’s ruling party to make India more of a Hindu nation, many could be rendered stateless by a citizenship law that excludes Muslim migrants.
Human rights activists say Patel epitomizes Modi’s imprint on the world’s largest democracy by suppressing dissent and ignoring the interests of Lakshadweep’s Muslim population to advance his party’s ideology.
“Lakshadweep is an indication of how the Hindu nationalist agenda of the Modi administration has seeped into what should be nonpartisan governance structures,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director for Human Rights Watch. “Political appointments have resulted in arbitrary actions to enforce the governing ideology without consultation or taking into account rights protections and constitutional freedoms.”
The result, Ganguly said, was an avoidable crisis of the government’s own making.
“The biggest problem in Lakshadweep is there was no problem,” she said. “What were they trying to solve?”
Patel’s proposals are awaiting approval by the Home Ministry and Modi’s Cabinet. Opposition lawmakers have criticized the plans, which have also attracted the attention of celebrities, including Aisha Sulthana, a popular filmmaker and native of Lakshadweep, who likened Patel to a “bioweapon” for relaxing COVID-19 travel restrictions and triggering an outbreak. Sulthana has since been charged by police with sedition for the remark.
Residents of Lakshadweep say Patel’s actions suggest he’s trying to purge the islands of their inhabitants. In another unpopular move, the federal government has cited budget constraints after laying off hundreds of employees and contractors on the islands.
Raida C.K., a former office assistant at Lakshadweep’s recreation department, was fired after she spent two weeks in jail for participating in a demonstration against Patel’s relaxed COVID-19 rules. Gone is her $150 monthly salary needed to take care of her mother and brother. The family has been feeding itself thanks to the generosity of neighbors.
“Our freedom is being taken away,” said Raida, 30. “People on these islands are simple, straightforward people. We don't know how to deal with this attack on our culture and traditions.”
Nijamuddin spends his days restless, stuck at home. His nets are dry and he doesn't know when he'll get back to sea. He has trouble sleeping most nights as he lies awake thinking about how to repay his debts and his family's future in Lakshadweep.
"If they take our lands," he said, "we have nowhere else to go."
Times staff writer Pierson reported from Singapore and special correspondent Torgalkar from Pune.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/in ... 50306.html
An Indian island paradise escaped COVID-19. Then a Hindu nationalist official arrived
David Pierson, Varsha Torgalkar
Wed, June 30, 2021, 5:00 AM
A security person checks on a visitor, left as activists of Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) gather for a protest outside the Lakshadweep administration office in Kochi, Kerala state, India, Tuesday, June 15, 2021. A dozen activists of the CITU staged a peaceful protest here Tuesday expressing solidarity with the inhabitants of the archipelago who have been protesting against the reforms of a new administrator appointed by the Indian government.
A dozen activists of the Center of Indian Trade Unions stage a peaceful demonstration in Kochi, India, on June 15, 2021, expressing solidarity with the inhabitants of Lakshadweep against changes made by a new administrator.
For 44 years, Nijamuddin K. lived his life in peace on Kavaratti, a sandy atoll surrounded by turquoise water 200 miles west of India’s Malabar coast.
On a good day, when the winds cooperated and the fish were running, he could take his wooden boat with the creaky motor out to sea and catch up to 60 tuna. Steady demand for the prized fish on the Indian mainland made him the breadwinner for an extended family of 14.
The turbulence of modern India has long eluded Kavaratti and the 35 other flecks of idyllic tropical land scattered across the Arabian Sea and known as Lakshadweep. That serenity was upended in December, when a newly appointed administrator for the federal territory named Praful Khoda Patel visited the archipelago following the death of his predecessor.
Patel lifted restrictions on travel to the islands that had kept Lakshadweep remarkably free of COVID-19. The relaxation came just as India’s disastrous second wave was developing, resulting in a sudden and deadly outbreak in the island community.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks with the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh at a campaign rally in 2019.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, right, seen in 2019 with Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh state Yogi Adityanath. Under the Modi government, Muslims have been increasingly marginalized in a country where they make up 14% of the population.
But what sparked protests and turned this rarely noticed collection of reefs into national news was prompted when Patel, a loyalist of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, introduced sweeping plans to overhaul life in the Muslim enclave. It was as if the targeting of Muslims that has riven the mainland in recent years had suddenly made its way across the sea.
Without consulting anyone in Lakshadweep, Patel proposed giving the government unchecked powers to seize property and relocate residents in the name of developing the island chain into a tourist destination that could rival the nearby Maldives.
He then suggested a ban on beef and a lifting of prohibitions on alcohol, an affront to local religious sensibilities. Patel also wanted to bar anyone with more than two children from running for local elections, a move widely seen as a ploy to weaken the political standing of Muslims, who make up 95% of the population.
Patel also wants to hand authorities the power to detain anyone without public disclosure for up to a year — a rule more commonly used in parts of India with national security concerns, not a place like Lakshadweep where there’s virtually no crime.
“It’s no secret they want to eradicate our community,” said Nijamuddin. “It makes me angry and sad. They could have learned about our lifestyle and culture instead of imposing all these rules.”
Nijamuddin’s problems began on April 27 when workers employed by the federal government demolished his beach shed and disconnected his electricity supply without warning. The government has been clearing beachfront land in Kavaratti and other inhabited islands in Lakshadweep, declaring structures like sheds illegal.
Nijamuddin had dipped into his savings to construct the shed made of bamboo and coconut leaves to store his fishing nets and shelter his boat when it needed repair. The vessel still has a gash on its bow from Cyclone Tauktae earlier this year.
The following month, Nijamuddin’s 75-year-old father died of COVID-19. He had been struggling to breathe for weeks, but there was little doctors could do at a government hospital overwhelmed by patients and short on beds.
“We used to feel safe here because there were no cases while there were millions in other parts of India,” said Nijamuddin, who suspects everyone in his family has been infected, most asymptomatically.
Lakshadweep’s residents are now under lockdown to contain a wave of COVID-19 that’s infected more than 9,000 people and killed at least 46, making it one of the worst outbreaks in India on a per capita basis.
Unable to fish, Nijamuddin has had to borrow money from friends and relatives to make ends meet. Growing signs of a third wave in India mean Lakshadweep could be months from recovery.
“I have a family of 14 people to feed and fishing is the only way of earning money,” Nijamuddin said. “Now that is also taken away and I don’t know how I am going to survive.”
The father of two was so frustrated that he joined the so-called Black Day protest on June 14 organized by local activists. Thousands of island residents wore black in solidarity and posted signs outside their homes that read “Go back Patel.”
More demonstrations have followed, including a hunger strike. The hashtag #SaveLakshadweep has been trending in India. Authorities have responded to the uproar by arresting nearly two dozen demonstrators.
Patel, who could not be reached for comment, has defended his plan by saying the “BJP administration is trying to uplift the lives of coconut growers and fishermen of the island.”
He said the stringent security laws are needed “so that youth are not misguided.”
Residents don’t believe they will benefit from Lakshadweep’s development of luxury hotels. They say they are being pushed aside because of their faith.
Under the Modi government, Muslims have been increasingly marginalized in a country where they make up 14% of the population. They’ve been targeted by police and violent mobs. And in a bid by Modi’s ruling party to make India more of a Hindu nation, many could be rendered stateless by a citizenship law that excludes Muslim migrants.
Human rights activists say Patel epitomizes Modi’s imprint on the world’s largest democracy by suppressing dissent and ignoring the interests of Lakshadweep’s Muslim population to advance his party’s ideology.
“Lakshadweep is an indication of how the Hindu nationalist agenda of the Modi administration has seeped into what should be nonpartisan governance structures,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director for Human Rights Watch. “Political appointments have resulted in arbitrary actions to enforce the governing ideology without consultation or taking into account rights protections and constitutional freedoms.”
The result, Ganguly said, was an avoidable crisis of the government’s own making.
“The biggest problem in Lakshadweep is there was no problem,” she said. “What were they trying to solve?”
Patel’s proposals are awaiting approval by the Home Ministry and Modi’s Cabinet. Opposition lawmakers have criticized the plans, which have also attracted the attention of celebrities, including Aisha Sulthana, a popular filmmaker and native of Lakshadweep, who likened Patel to a “bioweapon” for relaxing COVID-19 travel restrictions and triggering an outbreak. Sulthana has since been charged by police with sedition for the remark.
Residents of Lakshadweep say Patel’s actions suggest he’s trying to purge the islands of their inhabitants. In another unpopular move, the federal government has cited budget constraints after laying off hundreds of employees and contractors on the islands.
Raida C.K., a former office assistant at Lakshadweep’s recreation department, was fired after she spent two weeks in jail for participating in a demonstration against Patel’s relaxed COVID-19 rules. Gone is her $150 monthly salary needed to take care of her mother and brother. The family has been feeding itself thanks to the generosity of neighbors.
“Our freedom is being taken away,” said Raida, 30. “People on these islands are simple, straightforward people. We don't know how to deal with this attack on our culture and traditions.”
Nijamuddin spends his days restless, stuck at home. His nets are dry and he doesn't know when he'll get back to sea. He has trouble sleeping most nights as he lies awake thinking about how to repay his debts and his family's future in Lakshadweep.
"If they take our lands," he said, "we have nowhere else to go."
Times staff writer Pierson reported from Singapore and special correspondent Torgalkar from Pune.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/in ... 50306.html
BBC
Sulli Deals: The Indian Muslim women 'up for sale' on an app
Geeta Pandey - BBC News, Delhi
Fri, July 9, 2021, 6:10 PM·5 min read
Last Sunday, dozens of Muslim women in India found they had been put up for sale online.
Hana Khan, a commercial pilot whose name was on the list, told the BBC she was alerted to it when a friend sent her a tweet.
The tweet took her to "Sulli Deals", an app and website that had taken publicly available pictures of women and created profiles, describing the women as "deals of the day".
The app's landing page had a photo of an unknown woman. On the next two pages Ms Khan saw photos of her friends. On the page after that she saw herself.
"I counted 83 names. There could be more," she told the BBC. "They'd taken my photo from Twitter and it had my user name. This app was running for 20 days and we didn't even know about it. It sent chills down my spine."
The app pretended to offer users the chance to buy a "Sulli" - a derogatory slang term used by right-wing Hindu trolls for Muslim women. There was no real auction of any kind - the purpose of the app was just to degrade and humiliate.
Ms Khan said she had been targeted was because of her religion. "I'm a Muslim woman who's seen and heard," she said. "And they want to silence us."
GitHub - the web platform that hosted the open source app - shut it down quickly following complaints. "We suspended user accounts following the investigation of reports of such activity, all of which violate our policies," the company said in a statement.
But the experience has left women scarred. Those who featured on the app were all vocal Muslims, including journalists, activists, artists or researchers. A few have since deleted their social media accounts and many others said they were afraid of further harassment.
"No matter how strong you are, but if your picture and other personal information is made public, it scares you, it disturbs you," another woman told the BBC Hindi service.
But several of the women whose details were shared on the app have taken to social media to call out the "perverts", and vowed to fight. A dozen have formed a WhatsApp group to seek - and offer - support and some of them, including Ms Khan, have lodged complaints with the police.
Prominent citizens, activists and leaders have also spoken out against the harassment. The police said they had opened an investigation but refused to say who could be behind the app.
The people who made the app used fake identities, but Hasiba Amin, a social media coordinator for the opposition Congress party, blamed several accounts which regularly attack Muslims, especially Muslim women, and claim to support right-wing politics.
This is not the first time, Ms Amin said, that Muslim women have been targeted in this manner. On 13 May, as Muslims celebrated the festival of Eid, a YouTube channel ran an "Eid Special" - a live "auction" of Muslim women from India and Pakistan.
"People were bidding five rupees (67 cents; 48 pence) and 10 rupees, they were rating women based on their body parts and describing sexual acts and threatening rape," Ms Khan said.
Ms Amin told me that later that day, an anonymous account tried to "auction" her on Twitter. Several others - one called @sullideals101, which has since been suspended - joined in, "abusing me, body shaming me and describing gross sexual acts", Ms Khan said.
She believes that those who tried to auction her on Twitter are the same people who are behind the Sulli Deals app and the YouTube channel - which has since been taken down by the platform.
In the past week, Twitter has suspended accounts that claimed they were behind the app and it would be back up soon.
Muslim women in India
Campaigners say women from religious minorities and disadvantaged castes face more online harassment
Campaigners say online abuse has the power to "belittle, demean, intimidate and eventually silence women".
Last week, more than 200 prominent actors, musicians, journalists and government officials from around the world wrote an open letter, urging CEOs of Facebook, Google, TikTok and Twitter to make women's safety "a priority".
"The internet is the town square of the 21st century," they wrote. "It is where debate takes place, communities are built, products are sold and reputations are made. But the scale of online abuse means that, for too many women, these digital town squares are unsafe."
An Amnesty International report on online harassment in India last year showed the more vocal a woman was, the more she was targeted. And just as black women were more likely to be picked on in Britain and the United States, women from religious minorities and disadvantaged castes were harassed more in India.
Nazia Erum, author and former spokesperson of Amnesty in India, said there were few Muslim women on social media and those that were were "hunted and haunted".
"This targeted and planned attack is an attempt to take away the mic from the educated Muslim women who express their opinion and speak out against Islamophobia. It's an attempt to silence them, to shame them, to take away the space they occupy," she said.
Ms Amin said the harassers had "no fear because they know they will get away with it".
She pointed to several recent cases of atrocities against Muslims encouraged by supporters of the ruling BJP party, such as a government minister who garlanded eight Hindus convicted for lynching a Muslim, and the country's new broadcasting minister who was seen last year in a viral video working up a Hindu crowd to "shoot Muslims".
For the women whose identities were taken and used by the "Sulli Deals" app, the fight for justice could be long and tough. But they are determined to have it.
"If police don't find those who put us up for sale, I will go to the courts," Ms Khan said. "I'm going to pursue it till the end."
https://www.yahoo.com/news/sulli-deals- ... p_deeplink
Sulli Deals: The Indian Muslim women 'up for sale' on an app
Geeta Pandey - BBC News, Delhi
Fri, July 9, 2021, 6:10 PM·5 min read
Last Sunday, dozens of Muslim women in India found they had been put up for sale online.
Hana Khan, a commercial pilot whose name was on the list, told the BBC she was alerted to it when a friend sent her a tweet.
The tweet took her to "Sulli Deals", an app and website that had taken publicly available pictures of women and created profiles, describing the women as "deals of the day".
The app's landing page had a photo of an unknown woman. On the next two pages Ms Khan saw photos of her friends. On the page after that she saw herself.
"I counted 83 names. There could be more," she told the BBC. "They'd taken my photo from Twitter and it had my user name. This app was running for 20 days and we didn't even know about it. It sent chills down my spine."
The app pretended to offer users the chance to buy a "Sulli" - a derogatory slang term used by right-wing Hindu trolls for Muslim women. There was no real auction of any kind - the purpose of the app was just to degrade and humiliate.
Ms Khan said she had been targeted was because of her religion. "I'm a Muslim woman who's seen and heard," she said. "And they want to silence us."
GitHub - the web platform that hosted the open source app - shut it down quickly following complaints. "We suspended user accounts following the investigation of reports of such activity, all of which violate our policies," the company said in a statement.
But the experience has left women scarred. Those who featured on the app were all vocal Muslims, including journalists, activists, artists or researchers. A few have since deleted their social media accounts and many others said they were afraid of further harassment.
"No matter how strong you are, but if your picture and other personal information is made public, it scares you, it disturbs you," another woman told the BBC Hindi service.
But several of the women whose details were shared on the app have taken to social media to call out the "perverts", and vowed to fight. A dozen have formed a WhatsApp group to seek - and offer - support and some of them, including Ms Khan, have lodged complaints with the police.
Prominent citizens, activists and leaders have also spoken out against the harassment. The police said they had opened an investigation but refused to say who could be behind the app.
The people who made the app used fake identities, but Hasiba Amin, a social media coordinator for the opposition Congress party, blamed several accounts which regularly attack Muslims, especially Muslim women, and claim to support right-wing politics.
This is not the first time, Ms Amin said, that Muslim women have been targeted in this manner. On 13 May, as Muslims celebrated the festival of Eid, a YouTube channel ran an "Eid Special" - a live "auction" of Muslim women from India and Pakistan.
"People were bidding five rupees (67 cents; 48 pence) and 10 rupees, they were rating women based on their body parts and describing sexual acts and threatening rape," Ms Khan said.
Ms Amin told me that later that day, an anonymous account tried to "auction" her on Twitter. Several others - one called @sullideals101, which has since been suspended - joined in, "abusing me, body shaming me and describing gross sexual acts", Ms Khan said.
She believes that those who tried to auction her on Twitter are the same people who are behind the Sulli Deals app and the YouTube channel - which has since been taken down by the platform.
In the past week, Twitter has suspended accounts that claimed they were behind the app and it would be back up soon.
Muslim women in India
Campaigners say women from religious minorities and disadvantaged castes face more online harassment
Campaigners say online abuse has the power to "belittle, demean, intimidate and eventually silence women".
Last week, more than 200 prominent actors, musicians, journalists and government officials from around the world wrote an open letter, urging CEOs of Facebook, Google, TikTok and Twitter to make women's safety "a priority".
"The internet is the town square of the 21st century," they wrote. "It is where debate takes place, communities are built, products are sold and reputations are made. But the scale of online abuse means that, for too many women, these digital town squares are unsafe."
An Amnesty International report on online harassment in India last year showed the more vocal a woman was, the more she was targeted. And just as black women were more likely to be picked on in Britain and the United States, women from religious minorities and disadvantaged castes were harassed more in India.
Nazia Erum, author and former spokesperson of Amnesty in India, said there were few Muslim women on social media and those that were were "hunted and haunted".
"This targeted and planned attack is an attempt to take away the mic from the educated Muslim women who express their opinion and speak out against Islamophobia. It's an attempt to silence them, to shame them, to take away the space they occupy," she said.
Ms Amin said the harassers had "no fear because they know they will get away with it".
She pointed to several recent cases of atrocities against Muslims encouraged by supporters of the ruling BJP party, such as a government minister who garlanded eight Hindus convicted for lynching a Muslim, and the country's new broadcasting minister who was seen last year in a viral video working up a Hindu crowd to "shoot Muslims".
For the women whose identities were taken and used by the "Sulli Deals" app, the fight for justice could be long and tough. But they are determined to have it.
"If police don't find those who put us up for sale, I will go to the courts," Ms Khan said. "I'm going to pursue it till the end."
https://www.yahoo.com/news/sulli-deals- ... p_deeplink
Christian Science Monitor
Partition’s legacy transcends India-Pakistan border. Can commemoration?
Zehra Abid
Thu, August 12, 2021, 11:16 AM
Salman Rashid and Mohinder Pratab Sehgal had an unlikely friendship. It struck immediately after they met and lasted until Mr. Sehgal died. After all, the two had been looking for each other all their lives.
In 2008, Mr. Rashid set out from his home in Lahore, Pakistan, carrying a photo of his grandfather’s house in Jalandhar, India. The 80-mile journey might seem simple, for an acclaimed travel writer like Mr. Rashid, but this was a deeply personal quest. His father and some other relatives had survived the Partition, the violent end of British India in 1947. But there were no answers as to how his grandparents had died, or what had happened to his aunts. No one had heard from the women since the subcontinent’s division into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan – which led to the largest mass migration the world has ever witnessed.
There was complete silence in his house about Partition. Nobody ever talked about it. All that was passed on to Mr. Rashid was that the family must have died, because there were no Muslims left in Jalandhar. So he set off to find the answers himself.
As the British left India, after 200 years of rule, they left a territory divided in two, and pain that has lasted generations. How to divide this land was a decision made in five weeks by British lawyer Cyril Radcliffe on his first – and only – visit to India. Almost immediately, communal riots broke out among Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims who had lived together for centuries. Perhaps 1 million people died, and up to 20 million were displaced, though estimates vary. Women paid the highest price, with mass abductions, forced conversions, and rape.
This month marks 74 years since the Partition few imagined would last forever. Fleeing across the brand-new borders seemed temporary, survivors say – it was incomprehensible that they could never go home. But not only did it last; a quarter century later, the region was further divided, with further bloodshed, when East Pakistan became independent Bangladesh.
Like Mr. Rashid’s, many families tried to put the pain of Partition behind them. But the crisis is ever-present, its legacy everywhere from India and Pakistan’s constant tensions, to last year’s mob violence against Muslims in New Delhi. And now, digital spaces offer what was previously unimaginable: a place to collectively commemorate the shared pain and intrinsically connected histories of the people of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, who are geographically close, yet so far apart that to visit each other’s countries is a dream many die with.
“It may take a lifetime – or several lifetimes – to really engage with these stories, but remembrance is vital to deal with the communal issues across South Asia,” says Guneeta Singh Bhalla, founder of the 1947 Partition Archives, a digital collection of crowdsourced stories about Partition’s legacy.
“I have to ask forgiveness”
Unlike the Holocaust or world wars, the millions of dead and displaced of the Partition have no memorial that is accessible to the people of the three affected countries. There is no remembrance day, and it took 70 years for the first museum to open up in Amritsar, India.
Ms. Bhalla, who lives in the United States, is a third-generation survivor herself. It was at a Hiroshima memorial in Japan that she realized there was nothing to document the stories of Partition survivors, her grandmother among them, and she started her journey to record oral histories. Today, the 1947 Partition Archives has more than 10,000 stories from survivors in more than 700 cities around the world.
As much of the world went into lockdown, the archives launched Facebook Live sessions titled “Sunday Stories,” where academics, writers, and historians from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh discussed the myriad ways Partition shaped South Asia. Last month, during the series’ second season, Mr. Rashid spoke of going “home” to Jalandhar, a city he had never seen but always felt was his. Here he found his ancestral house, where six decades later, the neighborhood still remembered his grandfather with reverence, as “our doctor sahib.”
Like picking up clues left on a trail, Mr. Rashid made his way from person to person, looking for someone who would have the answers he was looking for. One day, the shopkeeper working below his grandfather’s house explained there was someone in the neighborhood who wanted to see Mr. Rashid, too – Mr. Sehgal, who had been just 13 at Partition. But as soon as the men met, Mr. Rashid recalls, the stranger erupted into an apology: “First of all, I have to ask forgiveness, for it was my father’s mistake.”
It took 61 years for Mr. Rashid to know that his aunts had been killed, and that it was Mr. Sehgal’s father who killed them. Twelve family members had died, shot in the room where they were hiding, their bodies eventually piled up on a pushcart and cremated.
For all his life, Mr. Sehgal had carried his father’s guilt, and Mr. Rashid, his father’s pain. There was no real explanation, except, as he remembers Mr. Sehgal telling him, “It was a time of great madness.”
Mr. Sehgal died several years ago, but not before the two men’s tragic connection grew into a genuine friendship. The killings were almost a shared loss – a bond. Mr. Rashid and his wife made several more trips to India, meeting their new friend each time with presents from Pakistan in tow. Both men, in Mr. Rashid’s eyes, were victims of Partition.
Past is present
Despite the nationalism that rages in all three countries today, comments below the “Sunday Stories” videos mostly show similar warmth, connection, and acknowledgment of shared pain. Viewership has grown from 150,000 last year, Ms. Bhalla says, to more than 400,000.
“What I find in Partition survivors is that they were so preoccupied in the day-to-day that processing the psychological trauma was a luxury,” says Shaili Jain, a psychiatrist at Stanford University. “If the original generation didn’t do it, then someone had to do it, that’s my belief as a PTSD specialist.”
The trajectory of Dr. Jain’s life itself has been directly affected by the Partition. Her grandfather too was killed in the riots of ’47, leaving her father orphaned and a refugee at the age of 10. Unable to find enough opportunities in India, he moved to England, where Dr. Jain was born and raised. “Because of the enormity of the event, you would be hard-pressed to find someone from India, Pakistan, or Bangladesh who doesn’t have any connection at all – even if it’s not a direct connection – to the Partition,” she says. “The 1947 Partition really changed the trajectory of my family’s destiny.”
Although it’s been more than seven decades, the Partition is barely an event of the past. Its presence is not only seen in the second and third generation’s quest to know more, but also in the continued acts of religiously motivated violence seen across South Asia.
“With unprocessed trauma, you enter these cycles of reenactment, and this may not even be on a conscious level. But to me, the communal violence in South Asia is historical, generational, deep-rooted trauma that hasn’t been processed,” Dr. Jain adds. “And when trauma is not processed, it manifests as hate, as shame, as rage, as guilt, and those emotions have to go somewhere. Until we fully reconcile with that past, understand it, and heal from it, then such countries are just beholden to repeated cycles of violence.”
While Zoom has helped discussions go beyond borders, the digital space has not been entirely free. Last March, one of Pakistan’s leading universities organized a conference to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan, bringing together scholars from both countries. Within hours of the conference schedule being shared on social media, it was canceled without explanation, widely interpreted as an act of self-censorship.
In spite of these circumstances, activists in Pakistan have carried on. The country’s leading feminist organization, the Women’s Action Forum (WAF), organized an online event on March 25, 2021, the day that marks the Pakistan army’s Operation Searchlight in what was then East Pakistan. The day after – March 26, 1971 – Bangladesh declared its independence.
During the following nine-month military operation by the Pakistan army, nearly 500,000 people were killed. Estimates of rape vary between thousands and a few hundred thousands.
“I don’t want to write or think about those days,” said Amena Mohsin, a professor at Dhaka University, recalling her memories of the time at the WAF event. She was visibly shaken as she read her sister’s letter from their days in an internment camp in Pakistan, where they were prisoners in a state that was once theirs.
“It took me 47 years to write about 1971,” she said.
And it had taken 50 years for Indians, Pakistanis, and Bangladeshis to come together in an inclusive space and share the grief – and guilt – they carried.
Bangladeshi scholars remembered the noise of the crows on the night of March 25, when “rivers of blood flew” and “bodies were strewn everywhere.” In a chat box, meanwhile, Pakistanis were sharing how much they wanted to apologize, with comments of how people had come together even in the worst of times, how a Hindu cook saved his Muslim employer’s life. In many Zoom windows, people just listened and cried.
Living memory
I was sitting in my Zoom window, too, dialing in from Islamabad. This was the closest I’d come to hearing direct accounts of the genocide. Though born more than a decade later, I inherited from my mother the guilt of this war. She first heard about the breakup of her country, Pakistan, through the All India Radio that could be heard from her neighbor’s house. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was addressing the Indian Parliament, which had supported the Bengalis, and declaring victory.
For three days of mourning, no food was cooked at their home. But when recounting better memories, my mother often talks about her uncle’s house, in present-day Bangladesh. This house was by the river in Khulna, and sometimes water would come up to the garden. And then there were nights when one could hear the bansuri player late into the night as the full moon shined over the river. I can picture this house so well that it feels like a reliable memory, as is often the nature of stories we’ve heard all our lives.
That was the Bangladesh on my mind as I listened, along with nearly 200 other people, to stories of the war that in many ways were all our stories.
“I was surprised how few of the Pakistanis knew about the internment camps that we had grown up hearing stories of all our lives. What is forgotten is what we have to tend to,” says Dina Siddqi, a professor at New York University who attended the WAF event.
Later, via NYU’s website, she hosted the conference that had been canceled in Pakistan. “Zoom has really transcended national borders,” said Professor Siddiqi, who studies gender and religion in Bangladesh, sharing how Pakistani and Bangladeshi scholars had come together to make it happen despite the backlash.
The event led to a shift within her, she says. “I would like to think of myself as someone who has transcended nationalist baggage, but it was during the conference that things began to resonate with me that I hadn’t emotionally explored. These conferences are opening up emotional spaces that I didn’t know existed.”
The stories she had grown up with came back like they hadn’t before: a cousin who had escaped an internment camp, making his way from Islamabad to Kabul in the rough winter months; a dear uncle who had died very young, after time as a prisoner of war in Pakistan.
“I had heard these stories all my life, yet during the conference I kept thinking of my uncle,” she says. “My aunt would always say that he died because the Pakistanis made him march in the hot desert sun for 10 hours. That kept coming back for me; I don’t know where it came from but all I could think of was that.”
I was surprised at how raw the wounds of an unwitnessed past felt for me – even in the simple, stark realization that this was the first time I had heard someone speak Bangla, the language of people who were once my own.
My brother and I were both tuned in – he in Berlin, I in Islamabad.
“Isn’t Bangla beautiful?” I texted him.
“Gorgeous,” he said.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/pa ... 54212.html
Partition’s legacy transcends India-Pakistan border. Can commemoration?
Zehra Abid
Thu, August 12, 2021, 11:16 AM
Salman Rashid and Mohinder Pratab Sehgal had an unlikely friendship. It struck immediately after they met and lasted until Mr. Sehgal died. After all, the two had been looking for each other all their lives.
In 2008, Mr. Rashid set out from his home in Lahore, Pakistan, carrying a photo of his grandfather’s house in Jalandhar, India. The 80-mile journey might seem simple, for an acclaimed travel writer like Mr. Rashid, but this was a deeply personal quest. His father and some other relatives had survived the Partition, the violent end of British India in 1947. But there were no answers as to how his grandparents had died, or what had happened to his aunts. No one had heard from the women since the subcontinent’s division into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan – which led to the largest mass migration the world has ever witnessed.
There was complete silence in his house about Partition. Nobody ever talked about it. All that was passed on to Mr. Rashid was that the family must have died, because there were no Muslims left in Jalandhar. So he set off to find the answers himself.
As the British left India, after 200 years of rule, they left a territory divided in two, and pain that has lasted generations. How to divide this land was a decision made in five weeks by British lawyer Cyril Radcliffe on his first – and only – visit to India. Almost immediately, communal riots broke out among Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims who had lived together for centuries. Perhaps 1 million people died, and up to 20 million were displaced, though estimates vary. Women paid the highest price, with mass abductions, forced conversions, and rape.
This month marks 74 years since the Partition few imagined would last forever. Fleeing across the brand-new borders seemed temporary, survivors say – it was incomprehensible that they could never go home. But not only did it last; a quarter century later, the region was further divided, with further bloodshed, when East Pakistan became independent Bangladesh.
Like Mr. Rashid’s, many families tried to put the pain of Partition behind them. But the crisis is ever-present, its legacy everywhere from India and Pakistan’s constant tensions, to last year’s mob violence against Muslims in New Delhi. And now, digital spaces offer what was previously unimaginable: a place to collectively commemorate the shared pain and intrinsically connected histories of the people of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, who are geographically close, yet so far apart that to visit each other’s countries is a dream many die with.
“It may take a lifetime – or several lifetimes – to really engage with these stories, but remembrance is vital to deal with the communal issues across South Asia,” says Guneeta Singh Bhalla, founder of the 1947 Partition Archives, a digital collection of crowdsourced stories about Partition’s legacy.
“I have to ask forgiveness”
Unlike the Holocaust or world wars, the millions of dead and displaced of the Partition have no memorial that is accessible to the people of the three affected countries. There is no remembrance day, and it took 70 years for the first museum to open up in Amritsar, India.
Ms. Bhalla, who lives in the United States, is a third-generation survivor herself. It was at a Hiroshima memorial in Japan that she realized there was nothing to document the stories of Partition survivors, her grandmother among them, and she started her journey to record oral histories. Today, the 1947 Partition Archives has more than 10,000 stories from survivors in more than 700 cities around the world.
As much of the world went into lockdown, the archives launched Facebook Live sessions titled “Sunday Stories,” where academics, writers, and historians from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh discussed the myriad ways Partition shaped South Asia. Last month, during the series’ second season, Mr. Rashid spoke of going “home” to Jalandhar, a city he had never seen but always felt was his. Here he found his ancestral house, where six decades later, the neighborhood still remembered his grandfather with reverence, as “our doctor sahib.”
Like picking up clues left on a trail, Mr. Rashid made his way from person to person, looking for someone who would have the answers he was looking for. One day, the shopkeeper working below his grandfather’s house explained there was someone in the neighborhood who wanted to see Mr. Rashid, too – Mr. Sehgal, who had been just 13 at Partition. But as soon as the men met, Mr. Rashid recalls, the stranger erupted into an apology: “First of all, I have to ask forgiveness, for it was my father’s mistake.”
It took 61 years for Mr. Rashid to know that his aunts had been killed, and that it was Mr. Sehgal’s father who killed them. Twelve family members had died, shot in the room where they were hiding, their bodies eventually piled up on a pushcart and cremated.
For all his life, Mr. Sehgal had carried his father’s guilt, and Mr. Rashid, his father’s pain. There was no real explanation, except, as he remembers Mr. Sehgal telling him, “It was a time of great madness.”
Mr. Sehgal died several years ago, but not before the two men’s tragic connection grew into a genuine friendship. The killings were almost a shared loss – a bond. Mr. Rashid and his wife made several more trips to India, meeting their new friend each time with presents from Pakistan in tow. Both men, in Mr. Rashid’s eyes, were victims of Partition.
Past is present
Despite the nationalism that rages in all three countries today, comments below the “Sunday Stories” videos mostly show similar warmth, connection, and acknowledgment of shared pain. Viewership has grown from 150,000 last year, Ms. Bhalla says, to more than 400,000.
“What I find in Partition survivors is that they were so preoccupied in the day-to-day that processing the psychological trauma was a luxury,” says Shaili Jain, a psychiatrist at Stanford University. “If the original generation didn’t do it, then someone had to do it, that’s my belief as a PTSD specialist.”
The trajectory of Dr. Jain’s life itself has been directly affected by the Partition. Her grandfather too was killed in the riots of ’47, leaving her father orphaned and a refugee at the age of 10. Unable to find enough opportunities in India, he moved to England, where Dr. Jain was born and raised. “Because of the enormity of the event, you would be hard-pressed to find someone from India, Pakistan, or Bangladesh who doesn’t have any connection at all – even if it’s not a direct connection – to the Partition,” she says. “The 1947 Partition really changed the trajectory of my family’s destiny.”
Although it’s been more than seven decades, the Partition is barely an event of the past. Its presence is not only seen in the second and third generation’s quest to know more, but also in the continued acts of religiously motivated violence seen across South Asia.
“With unprocessed trauma, you enter these cycles of reenactment, and this may not even be on a conscious level. But to me, the communal violence in South Asia is historical, generational, deep-rooted trauma that hasn’t been processed,” Dr. Jain adds. “And when trauma is not processed, it manifests as hate, as shame, as rage, as guilt, and those emotions have to go somewhere. Until we fully reconcile with that past, understand it, and heal from it, then such countries are just beholden to repeated cycles of violence.”
While Zoom has helped discussions go beyond borders, the digital space has not been entirely free. Last March, one of Pakistan’s leading universities organized a conference to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan, bringing together scholars from both countries. Within hours of the conference schedule being shared on social media, it was canceled without explanation, widely interpreted as an act of self-censorship.
In spite of these circumstances, activists in Pakistan have carried on. The country’s leading feminist organization, the Women’s Action Forum (WAF), organized an online event on March 25, 2021, the day that marks the Pakistan army’s Operation Searchlight in what was then East Pakistan. The day after – March 26, 1971 – Bangladesh declared its independence.
During the following nine-month military operation by the Pakistan army, nearly 500,000 people were killed. Estimates of rape vary between thousands and a few hundred thousands.
“I don’t want to write or think about those days,” said Amena Mohsin, a professor at Dhaka University, recalling her memories of the time at the WAF event. She was visibly shaken as she read her sister’s letter from their days in an internment camp in Pakistan, where they were prisoners in a state that was once theirs.
“It took me 47 years to write about 1971,” she said.
And it had taken 50 years for Indians, Pakistanis, and Bangladeshis to come together in an inclusive space and share the grief – and guilt – they carried.
Bangladeshi scholars remembered the noise of the crows on the night of March 25, when “rivers of blood flew” and “bodies were strewn everywhere.” In a chat box, meanwhile, Pakistanis were sharing how much they wanted to apologize, with comments of how people had come together even in the worst of times, how a Hindu cook saved his Muslim employer’s life. In many Zoom windows, people just listened and cried.
Living memory
I was sitting in my Zoom window, too, dialing in from Islamabad. This was the closest I’d come to hearing direct accounts of the genocide. Though born more than a decade later, I inherited from my mother the guilt of this war. She first heard about the breakup of her country, Pakistan, through the All India Radio that could be heard from her neighbor’s house. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was addressing the Indian Parliament, which had supported the Bengalis, and declaring victory.
For three days of mourning, no food was cooked at their home. But when recounting better memories, my mother often talks about her uncle’s house, in present-day Bangladesh. This house was by the river in Khulna, and sometimes water would come up to the garden. And then there were nights when one could hear the bansuri player late into the night as the full moon shined over the river. I can picture this house so well that it feels like a reliable memory, as is often the nature of stories we’ve heard all our lives.
That was the Bangladesh on my mind as I listened, along with nearly 200 other people, to stories of the war that in many ways were all our stories.
“I was surprised how few of the Pakistanis knew about the internment camps that we had grown up hearing stories of all our lives. What is forgotten is what we have to tend to,” says Dina Siddqi, a professor at New York University who attended the WAF event.
Later, via NYU’s website, she hosted the conference that had been canceled in Pakistan. “Zoom has really transcended national borders,” said Professor Siddiqi, who studies gender and religion in Bangladesh, sharing how Pakistani and Bangladeshi scholars had come together to make it happen despite the backlash.
The event led to a shift within her, she says. “I would like to think of myself as someone who has transcended nationalist baggage, but it was during the conference that things began to resonate with me that I hadn’t emotionally explored. These conferences are opening up emotional spaces that I didn’t know existed.”
The stories she had grown up with came back like they hadn’t before: a cousin who had escaped an internment camp, making his way from Islamabad to Kabul in the rough winter months; a dear uncle who had died very young, after time as a prisoner of war in Pakistan.
“I had heard these stories all my life, yet during the conference I kept thinking of my uncle,” she says. “My aunt would always say that he died because the Pakistanis made him march in the hot desert sun for 10 hours. That kept coming back for me; I don’t know where it came from but all I could think of was that.”
I was surprised at how raw the wounds of an unwitnessed past felt for me – even in the simple, stark realization that this was the first time I had heard someone speak Bangla, the language of people who were once my own.
My brother and I were both tuned in – he in Berlin, I in Islamabad.
“Isn’t Bangla beautiful?” I texted him.
“Gorgeous,” he said.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/pa ... 54212.html
Published August 23, 2021
The use of advanced technology by the police in India’s capital city may do more harm than good.
The Delhi police have been equipping their control room vehicles with facial recognition systems, and have already made at least 42 arrests with the help of this technology. However, recent research has shown that this technology could make Muslims more likely to be targeted. A key factor that makes the religious group vulnerable is the uneven distribution of police stations across Delhi.
The research was conducted by independent think tank Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy and is based on the populations covered by various police station jurisdictions in Delhi.
Muslim-dominated areas in Delhi have more police stations than others, the research revealed. Police stations are spread unevenly across the city, with central Delhi and old Delhi being the most policed. Barring areas with low civilian populations—the places where important government or diplomatic buildings are located—nearly half of the districts in these localities have a significant Muslim presence. The study defines a “significant” population as more than that of Delhi’s average share of the Muslim population (12.86%).
“There are a few biases inherent in policing, including that policing disproportionately targets some groups of people. Such a bias creates a skewed spatial distribution of policing, which can intensify the disproportionate targeting,” Jai Vipra, senior resident fellow at Centre for Applied Law and Technology Research at Vidhi, noted. “This bias remains when new technology is applied to such a system. The victims of the shortcomings of policing technology will more likely be these disproportionately targeted groups.”
For one, it uses machine learning or other techniques to match or identify faces to a “training database,” which is a compilation of large troves of images of faces. “If the training database of FRT has an over-representation of certain types of faces, the technology tends to be better at identifying such faces,” Vipra wrote. “Even if it does not have a training bias, the technology is rarely completely accurate and can easily misidentify faces.”
Additionally, the bias can be exacerbated by the technologists designing the systems, who may not think to correct for certain errors or may mislabel certain images.
Facial recognition and CCTVs
The researchers aren’t proving that the placement of police stations in Delhi is intentionally designed to over-police Muslim areas. However, “given the fact that Muslims are represented more than the city average in the over-policed areas, and recognising historical systemic biases in policing Muslim communities in India in general and in Delhi in particular, we can reasonably state that any technological intervention that intensifies policing in Delhi will also aggravate this bias,” Vipra noted.
There’s already some proof of this. In the aftermath of the February 2020 Delhi riots, the police force used and misused this tech.
The think tank tried to acquire CCTV placement data to look for additional signs of bias in the region since areas with more cameras will likely be over-surveilled and over-policed, too. While it found CCTV distribution was uneven, there was nothing further to say since data was limited and several CCTV cameras are also lying defunct, distorting whatever data was available.
India against facial recognition
The wider concern is that the divide created by tech-enabled policing will occur not just across religious lines but also on the basis of caste, homelessness, and sex work, among other factors.
And it’s not just the national capital that’s adopting the worrisome tech with little due diligence. Forces in several cities across the country like Delhi, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Mumbai, Coimbatore, and Patiala have experimented with it but remain tight-lipped. When Vidhi filed Right to Information applications with some of these police departments asking for data on CCTV cameras and separately about the procedure used to implement FRT systems, the organisation either received evasive replies or none at all.
“It is also not the case that an equal and unbiased deployment of FRT by the police will necessarily benefit the public,” Vipra wrote. “The use of FRT in policing can impact privacy and liberty of people independently of bias as well.” Critics have raised concerns over privacy, calling the use of FRT an “act of mass surveillance.”
https://qz.com/india/2050652/delhi-poli ... source=YPL
The use of advanced technology by the police in India’s capital city may do more harm than good.
The Delhi police have been equipping their control room vehicles with facial recognition systems, and have already made at least 42 arrests with the help of this technology. However, recent research has shown that this technology could make Muslims more likely to be targeted. A key factor that makes the religious group vulnerable is the uneven distribution of police stations across Delhi.
The research was conducted by independent think tank Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy and is based on the populations covered by various police station jurisdictions in Delhi.
Muslim-dominated areas in Delhi have more police stations than others, the research revealed. Police stations are spread unevenly across the city, with central Delhi and old Delhi being the most policed. Barring areas with low civilian populations—the places where important government or diplomatic buildings are located—nearly half of the districts in these localities have a significant Muslim presence. The study defines a “significant” population as more than that of Delhi’s average share of the Muslim population (12.86%).
“There are a few biases inherent in policing, including that policing disproportionately targets some groups of people. Such a bias creates a skewed spatial distribution of policing, which can intensify the disproportionate targeting,” Jai Vipra, senior resident fellow at Centre for Applied Law and Technology Research at Vidhi, noted. “This bias remains when new technology is applied to such a system. The victims of the shortcomings of policing technology will more likely be these disproportionately targeted groups.”
For one, it uses machine learning or other techniques to match or identify faces to a “training database,” which is a compilation of large troves of images of faces. “If the training database of FRT has an over-representation of certain types of faces, the technology tends to be better at identifying such faces,” Vipra wrote. “Even if it does not have a training bias, the technology is rarely completely accurate and can easily misidentify faces.”
Additionally, the bias can be exacerbated by the technologists designing the systems, who may not think to correct for certain errors or may mislabel certain images.
Facial recognition and CCTVs
The researchers aren’t proving that the placement of police stations in Delhi is intentionally designed to over-police Muslim areas. However, “given the fact that Muslims are represented more than the city average in the over-policed areas, and recognising historical systemic biases in policing Muslim communities in India in general and in Delhi in particular, we can reasonably state that any technological intervention that intensifies policing in Delhi will also aggravate this bias,” Vipra noted.
There’s already some proof of this. In the aftermath of the February 2020 Delhi riots, the police force used and misused this tech.
The think tank tried to acquire CCTV placement data to look for additional signs of bias in the region since areas with more cameras will likely be over-surveilled and over-policed, too. While it found CCTV distribution was uneven, there was nothing further to say since data was limited and several CCTV cameras are also lying defunct, distorting whatever data was available.
India against facial recognition
The wider concern is that the divide created by tech-enabled policing will occur not just across religious lines but also on the basis of caste, homelessness, and sex work, among other factors.
And it’s not just the national capital that’s adopting the worrisome tech with little due diligence. Forces in several cities across the country like Delhi, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Mumbai, Coimbatore, and Patiala have experimented with it but remain tight-lipped. When Vidhi filed Right to Information applications with some of these police departments asking for data on CCTV cameras and separately about the procedure used to implement FRT systems, the organisation either received evasive replies or none at all.
“It is also not the case that an equal and unbiased deployment of FRT by the police will necessarily benefit the public,” Vipra wrote. “The use of FRT in policing can impact privacy and liberty of people independently of bias as well.” Critics have raised concerns over privacy, calling the use of FRT an “act of mass surveillance.”
https://qz.com/india/2050652/delhi-poli ... source=YPL
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Re: Islam and Hinduism's blurred lines
CNN
He’s been dead for more than 300 years. So why is this emperor angering millions today?
Rhea Mogul, CNN
Fri, April 18, 2025 at 4:00 PM CDT·
Despite being dead for more than 300 years, this Indian ruler is still making waves in the nation’s politics.
Aurangzeb Alamgir has become so central to India’s fraught political moment, his memory is leading to sectarian violence across the country.
The sixth emperor of the famed Mughal dynasty, he is considered by many detractors to be a tyrant who brutalized women, razed Hindu temples, forced religious conversions and waged wars against Hindu and Sikh rulers.
And in a nation now almost entirely under the grip of Hindu nationalists, Aurangzeb’s “crimes” have been seized upon by right-wing politicians, turning him into the ultimate Muslim villain whose memory needs to be erased.
Sectarian clashes erupted in the central city of Nagpur last month, with hardline Hindu nationalists calling for the demolition of his tomb, which is about 400 kilometers away.
Seemingly spurred on by a recent Bollywood movie’s portrayal of Aurangzeb’s violent conquests against a revered Hindu king, the violence led to dozens of injuries and arrests, prompting Nagpur authorities to impose a curfew.
As tensions between the two communities continue to mount, many right-wing Hindus are using Aurangzeb’s name to highlight historical injustices against the country’s majority faith.
And they are causing fears among India’s 200 million Muslims.
The Mughals ruled during an era that saw conquest, domination and violent power struggles but also an explosion of art and culture as well as periods of deep religious syncretism – at least until Aurangzeb.
Founded by Babur in 1526, the empire at its height covered an area that stretched from modern-day Afghanistan in central Asia to Bangladesh in the east, coming to an end in 1857 when the British overthrew the final emperor, Bahadur Shah II.
Its most well-known leaders – Humayun, Akbar, Jahangir and Shah Jahan – famously promoted religious harmony and heavily influenced much of Indian culture, building iconic sites such as the Taj Mahal and Delhi’s Red Fort.
But among this more tolerant company, Aurangzeb is considered something of a dark horse – a religious zealot and complex character.
Aurangzeb “evoked a mixture of admiration and aversion right from the moment of his succession to the Mughal throne,” said Abhishek Kaicker, a historian of Persianate South Asia at UC Berkeley.
“He attracted a degree of revulsion because of the way in which he came to the throne by imprisoning his father and killing his brothers… At the same time, he drew admiration and loyalty for his personal unostentatiousness and piety, his unrivaled military power that led to the expansion of the Mughal realm, his political acumen, administrative efficiency, and reputation for justice and impartiality.”
India's Taj Mahal was built by Shah Jahan, Aurangzeb's father, as a mausoleum for his wife Mumtaz Mahal. It was completed in 1648. -
The Red Fort was built by emperor Shah Jahan in the mid 17th Century and remains one of India's most famed tourist attractions.
The Red Fort was built by emperor Shah Jahan in the mid 17th Century and remains one of India's most famed tourist attractions.
Humayun's Tomb was built in the 1560s, with the patronage of Humayun's son, the great Emperor Akbar.
Born in 1618 to Shah Jahan (of Taj Mahal fame) and his wife Mumtaz Mahal (for whom it was built), historians describe the young prince as a devout, solemn figure, who showed early signs of leadership.
He held several appointments from the age of 18, in all of which he established himself as a capable commander. The glory of the Mughal empire reached its zenith under his father, and Aurangzeb scrambled for control of what was then the richest throne in the world.
So when Shah Jahan fell ill in 1657, the stage was set for a bitter war of succession between Aurangzeb and his three siblings in which he would eventually come face-to-face with his eldest brother, Dara Shikoh, a champion of a syncretic Hindu-Muslim culture.
Aurangzeb imprisoned his ailing father in 1658 and defeated his brother the year after, before forcibly parading him in chains on a filthy elephant on the streets of Delhi.
“The favorite and pampered son of the most magnificent of the Great Mughals was now clad in a travel-tainted dress of the coarsest cloth,” wrote Jadunath Sarkar in “A Short History of Aurangzib.”
“With a dark dingy-colored turban, such as only the poorest wear, on his head. No necklace or jewel adorning his person.”
Dara Shikoh was later murdered.
A sudden shift
By now, Aurangzeb’s authority had reached extraordinary heights, and under his leadership the Mughal empire reached its greatest geographical extent.
He commanded a degree of respect and for the first half of his reign, ruled with an iron fist, albeit with relative tolerance for the majority Hindu faith.
Until about 1679, there were no reports of temples being broken, nor any imposition of “jizya” or tax on non-Muslim subjects, according to Nadeem Rezavi, a professor of History at India’s Aligarh University. Aurangzeb behaved, “just like his forefathers,” Rezavi said, explaining how some Hindus even held high rank within his government.
In 1680 however, that all changed, as he embraced a form of religious intolerance that reverberates to this day.
The zealot ruler demoted his Hindu statesmen, turning friends into foes and launching a long and unpopular war in the Deccan, which included the violent suppression of the Marathas, a Hindu kingdom revered to this day by India’s right-wing politicians – including Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Members of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have been quick to point out the cruelties inflicted on Hindus by Aurangzeb – forcing conversions, reinstating the jizya, and murdering non-Muslims.
He also waged war on the Sikhs, executing the religion’s ninth Guru Tegh Bahadur, an act makes Aurangzeb a figure of loathing among many Sikhs to this day.
This brutality was on display in the recently released film “Chhaava,” which depicts Aurangzeb as a barbaric Islamist who killed Sambhaji, the son of the most famous Maratha king, Chhatrapati Shivaji.
“Chhaava has ignited people’s anger against Aurangzeb,” said Devendra Fadnavis, the chief minister of Maharashtra, where Nagpur is located.
Muslims alleged members of the right-wing Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) burned a sheet bearing verses from their holy Quran.
Yajendra Thakur, a member of the VHP group, denied the allegations but restated his desire to have Aurangzeb’s tomb removed.
“Aurangzeb’s grave should not be here,” he told CNN from Nagpur. “It shouldn’t be here because of everything he did to Shambhaji Maharaj. Even our Muslim brothers should issue a statement saying that Aurangzeb’s grave should not be in Nagpur.”
‘Neither praise nor blame’
Modi’s invocation of the man who led India before him is no surprise.
The prime minister, who wears his religion on his sleeve, has been a long-time member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a right-wing paramilitary organization that advocates the establishment of Hindu hegemony within India. It argues the country’s Hindus have been historically oppressed – first by the Mughals, then by the British colonizers who followed.
And many of them want every trace of this history gone.
The Maharashtra district where he is buried, once known as Aurangabad, was renamed after Shivaji’s son in 2023. The triumphs of his forefathers, the great king Akbar and Shah Jahan, have been written out of history textbooks, Rezavi said, or not taught in schools.
“They are trying to revert history and replace it with myth, something of their own imagination,” Rezavi said. “Aurangzeb is being used to demonize a community.”
Modi’s BJP denies using the Mughal emperor’s name to defame India’s Muslims. But his invocation of India’s former rulers is causing fear and anxiety among the religious minority today.
While historians agree that he was a dark, complex figure, and don’t contest his atrocities, Rezavi said it is necessary to recognize that he existed at a time when “India as a concept” didn’t exist.
“We are talking about a time when there was no constitution, there was no parliament, there was no democracy,” Rezavi said.
Kaicker seemingly agrees. Such historical figures “deserve neither praise nor blame,” he said.
“They have to be understood in the context of their own time, which is quite distant from our own.”
Back in Nagpur, demands for the tomb’s removal have gone unanswered, with some members of the Hindu far right even dismissing the calls for demolition.
Local Muslim resident Asif Qureshi said his hometown has never seen violence like that which unfolded last month, condemning the clashes that convulsed the historically peaceful city.
“This is a stain on our city’s history,” he said.
CNN’s Esha Mitra contributed reporting
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/de ... 35168.html
He’s been dead for more than 300 years. So why is this emperor angering millions today?
Rhea Mogul, CNN
Fri, April 18, 2025 at 4:00 PM CDT·
Despite being dead for more than 300 years, this Indian ruler is still making waves in the nation’s politics.
Aurangzeb Alamgir has become so central to India’s fraught political moment, his memory is leading to sectarian violence across the country.
The sixth emperor of the famed Mughal dynasty, he is considered by many detractors to be a tyrant who brutalized women, razed Hindu temples, forced religious conversions and waged wars against Hindu and Sikh rulers.
And in a nation now almost entirely under the grip of Hindu nationalists, Aurangzeb’s “crimes” have been seized upon by right-wing politicians, turning him into the ultimate Muslim villain whose memory needs to be erased.
Sectarian clashes erupted in the central city of Nagpur last month, with hardline Hindu nationalists calling for the demolition of his tomb, which is about 400 kilometers away.
Seemingly spurred on by a recent Bollywood movie’s portrayal of Aurangzeb’s violent conquests against a revered Hindu king, the violence led to dozens of injuries and arrests, prompting Nagpur authorities to impose a curfew.
As tensions between the two communities continue to mount, many right-wing Hindus are using Aurangzeb’s name to highlight historical injustices against the country’s majority faith.
And they are causing fears among India’s 200 million Muslims.
The Mughals ruled during an era that saw conquest, domination and violent power struggles but also an explosion of art and culture as well as periods of deep religious syncretism – at least until Aurangzeb.
Founded by Babur in 1526, the empire at its height covered an area that stretched from modern-day Afghanistan in central Asia to Bangladesh in the east, coming to an end in 1857 when the British overthrew the final emperor, Bahadur Shah II.
Its most well-known leaders – Humayun, Akbar, Jahangir and Shah Jahan – famously promoted religious harmony and heavily influenced much of Indian culture, building iconic sites such as the Taj Mahal and Delhi’s Red Fort.
But among this more tolerant company, Aurangzeb is considered something of a dark horse – a religious zealot and complex character.
Aurangzeb “evoked a mixture of admiration and aversion right from the moment of his succession to the Mughal throne,” said Abhishek Kaicker, a historian of Persianate South Asia at UC Berkeley.
“He attracted a degree of revulsion because of the way in which he came to the throne by imprisoning his father and killing his brothers… At the same time, he drew admiration and loyalty for his personal unostentatiousness and piety, his unrivaled military power that led to the expansion of the Mughal realm, his political acumen, administrative efficiency, and reputation for justice and impartiality.”
India's Taj Mahal was built by Shah Jahan, Aurangzeb's father, as a mausoleum for his wife Mumtaz Mahal. It was completed in 1648. -
The Red Fort was built by emperor Shah Jahan in the mid 17th Century and remains one of India's most famed tourist attractions.
The Red Fort was built by emperor Shah Jahan in the mid 17th Century and remains one of India's most famed tourist attractions.
Humayun's Tomb was built in the 1560s, with the patronage of Humayun's son, the great Emperor Akbar.
Born in 1618 to Shah Jahan (of Taj Mahal fame) and his wife Mumtaz Mahal (for whom it was built), historians describe the young prince as a devout, solemn figure, who showed early signs of leadership.
He held several appointments from the age of 18, in all of which he established himself as a capable commander. The glory of the Mughal empire reached its zenith under his father, and Aurangzeb scrambled for control of what was then the richest throne in the world.
So when Shah Jahan fell ill in 1657, the stage was set for a bitter war of succession between Aurangzeb and his three siblings in which he would eventually come face-to-face with his eldest brother, Dara Shikoh, a champion of a syncretic Hindu-Muslim culture.
Aurangzeb imprisoned his ailing father in 1658 and defeated his brother the year after, before forcibly parading him in chains on a filthy elephant on the streets of Delhi.
“The favorite and pampered son of the most magnificent of the Great Mughals was now clad in a travel-tainted dress of the coarsest cloth,” wrote Jadunath Sarkar in “A Short History of Aurangzib.”
“With a dark dingy-colored turban, such as only the poorest wear, on his head. No necklace or jewel adorning his person.”
Dara Shikoh was later murdered.
A sudden shift
By now, Aurangzeb’s authority had reached extraordinary heights, and under his leadership the Mughal empire reached its greatest geographical extent.
He commanded a degree of respect and for the first half of his reign, ruled with an iron fist, albeit with relative tolerance for the majority Hindu faith.
Until about 1679, there were no reports of temples being broken, nor any imposition of “jizya” or tax on non-Muslim subjects, according to Nadeem Rezavi, a professor of History at India’s Aligarh University. Aurangzeb behaved, “just like his forefathers,” Rezavi said, explaining how some Hindus even held high rank within his government.
In 1680 however, that all changed, as he embraced a form of religious intolerance that reverberates to this day.
The zealot ruler demoted his Hindu statesmen, turning friends into foes and launching a long and unpopular war in the Deccan, which included the violent suppression of the Marathas, a Hindu kingdom revered to this day by India’s right-wing politicians – including Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Members of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have been quick to point out the cruelties inflicted on Hindus by Aurangzeb – forcing conversions, reinstating the jizya, and murdering non-Muslims.
He also waged war on the Sikhs, executing the religion’s ninth Guru Tegh Bahadur, an act makes Aurangzeb a figure of loathing among many Sikhs to this day.
This brutality was on display in the recently released film “Chhaava,” which depicts Aurangzeb as a barbaric Islamist who killed Sambhaji, the son of the most famous Maratha king, Chhatrapati Shivaji.
“Chhaava has ignited people’s anger against Aurangzeb,” said Devendra Fadnavis, the chief minister of Maharashtra, where Nagpur is located.
Muslims alleged members of the right-wing Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) burned a sheet bearing verses from their holy Quran.
Yajendra Thakur, a member of the VHP group, denied the allegations but restated his desire to have Aurangzeb’s tomb removed.
“Aurangzeb’s grave should not be here,” he told CNN from Nagpur. “It shouldn’t be here because of everything he did to Shambhaji Maharaj. Even our Muslim brothers should issue a statement saying that Aurangzeb’s grave should not be in Nagpur.”
‘Neither praise nor blame’
Modi’s invocation of the man who led India before him is no surprise.
The prime minister, who wears his religion on his sleeve, has been a long-time member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a right-wing paramilitary organization that advocates the establishment of Hindu hegemony within India. It argues the country’s Hindus have been historically oppressed – first by the Mughals, then by the British colonizers who followed.
And many of them want every trace of this history gone.
The Maharashtra district where he is buried, once known as Aurangabad, was renamed after Shivaji’s son in 2023. The triumphs of his forefathers, the great king Akbar and Shah Jahan, have been written out of history textbooks, Rezavi said, or not taught in schools.
“They are trying to revert history and replace it with myth, something of their own imagination,” Rezavi said. “Aurangzeb is being used to demonize a community.”
Modi’s BJP denies using the Mughal emperor’s name to defame India’s Muslims. But his invocation of India’s former rulers is causing fear and anxiety among the religious minority today.
While historians agree that he was a dark, complex figure, and don’t contest his atrocities, Rezavi said it is necessary to recognize that he existed at a time when “India as a concept” didn’t exist.
“We are talking about a time when there was no constitution, there was no parliament, there was no democracy,” Rezavi said.
Kaicker seemingly agrees. Such historical figures “deserve neither praise nor blame,” he said.
“They have to be understood in the context of their own time, which is quite distant from our own.”
Back in Nagpur, demands for the tomb’s removal have gone unanswered, with some members of the Hindu far right even dismissing the calls for demolition.
Local Muslim resident Asif Qureshi said his hometown has never seen violence like that which unfolded last month, condemning the clashes that convulsed the historically peaceful city.
“This is a stain on our city’s history,” he said.
CNN’s Esha Mitra contributed reporting
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/de ... 35168.html
Re: Islam and Hinduism's blurred lines
PAKISTAN DISPATCH
200 Miles of Sublime Pain on a Hindu Pilgrimage in Pakistan
In 113-degree heat, thousands of Hindus in Pakistan make a grueling trek that is an act of spiritual devotion and cultural preservation in a Muslim-majority country.
Amar Faqira carrying a ceremonial flag on his journey to the Hinglaj Devi temple in Balochistan Province in Pakistan. His bandaged foot was injured during the seven-day walk.
By Zia ur-RehmanVisuals by Asim Hafeez
Zia ur-Rehman and Asim Hafeez spent days traveling with devotees by foot and by bus to report this story.
May 30, 2025
Updated 7:11 a.m. ET
When Amar Faqira’s 3-year-old son abruptly lost movement in his foot last year, doctors offered little hope, and panic gripped his family.
Mr. Faqira made a vow. If his prayers were answered and the boy recovered, he would make a 200-mile pilgrimage through blistering plains and jagged terrain to the Hinglaj Devi temple, a site sacred to Hindus, a tiny minority in Pakistan.
The child regained strength a year later. And true to his word, Mr. Faqira set off in late April on a seven-day walk to the temple, which is nestled deep in the rust-colored mountains of Balochistan, a remote and restive province in Pakistan’s southwest.
The goddess “heard me and healed my son,” Mr. Faqira said before the trek, as he gathered with friends and family in his neighborhood in Karachi, a metropolis on the coast of the Arabian Sea. “Why shouldn’t I fulfill my vow and endure a little pain for her joy?”
With that sense of gratitude, Mr. Faqira and two companions, wearing saffron head scarves and carrying a ceremonial flag, joined thousands of others on the grueling journey to Hinglaj Devi, where Pakistan’s largest annual Hindu festival is held.
ImageAmar Faqira sitting with a small child in his lap.
Mr. Faqira, wearing a saffron head scarf, sat with his son at home in Karachi before the pilgrimage.
Image
Amar Faqira, carrying a flag, walks in a narrow street. Women and children are gathered on either side of the street.
Mr. Faqira carried a ceremonial flag as he walked through his neighborhood, where family and neighbors gathered to say goodbye before his departure on the pilgrimage.
Image
Two men, with their hands clasped in prayer, seated in front of a small shrine.
Mr. Faqira praying at a Hindu temple in Karachi before the pilgrimage.
Along a winding highway and sun-scorched desert paths, groups of resolute pilgrims — mostly men but also women and children — trudged beneath the unforgiving sky, in heat that reached 113 degrees Fahrenheit, or 45 degrees Celsius. Some bore idols of the deity associated with the temple. All chanted “Jai Mata Di,” a call meaning “Hail the Mother Goddess.”
The pilgrimage is an act of spiritual devotion and cultural preservation. Pakistan’s Hindus number about 4.4 million and make up less than 2 percent of the country’s population, which is more than 96 percent Muslim. Hindus are often treated as second-class citizens, systemically discriminated against in housing, jobs and access to government welfare.
For many, the pilgrimage to Hinglaj Devi is comparable in significance to the hajj in Islam, a once-in-a-lifetime obligation of faith. The yearning to make the journey is also strong among Hindus in India, especially in the states of Gujarat and Rajasthan, though it has long been very difficult for Indians to receive visas to travel to Pakistan. Those states, which border Pakistan, have deep spiritual links to Hinglaj Devi that are rooted in traditions predating the 1947 partition that divided the two countries.
Map locates the Hinglaj Devi temple along the Makran Coastal Highway in Pakistan.
Kabul
AFGHANISTAN
Quetta
PAKISTAN
BALOCHISTAN
IRAN
INDIA
200 MILES
Hinglaj Devi temple
MAKRAN
COASTAL
HGWY.
Mud volcanos
Gwadar Sea Port
Karachi
Arabian Sea
50 MILES
By The New York Times
The three-day festival is traditionally held in mid-April. But it was rescheduled this year to early May because of heightened security concerns, after separatist militants in the region hijacked a passenger train in March. The festival also unfolded amid renewed tensions between Pakistan and India. On April 22, a terrorist attack in Indian-administered Kashmir killed 26 people, all but one of them Hindu tourists.
For much of the 20th century, the Hinglaj Devi temple remained obscure and inaccessible, even to many Pakistani Hindus. The pilgrimage gained momentum only in the 1990s, when efforts by Hindu groups to institutionalize the site began, gradually increasing its visibility.
A transformative shift came in the early 2000s with the construction of the Makran Coastal Highway, which links the rest of Pakistan to the Chinese-operated Gwadar deep-sea port. Cutting through rugged terrain along the Arabian Sea, the highway brought unprecedented access to the temple.
For the first time, it was possible to make the bulk of the journey by car or bus, taking some of the sweat out of the endeavor.
Image
Two women walk along a dirt road. One carries an umbrella, the other carries a baby wrapped in cloth.
Minakshi, with her mother-in-law and infant daughter, walking along the pilgrimage route.
Image
A group of people ride on top of a bus.
Fares are cheaper for pilgrims who ride atop buses.
Image
A man reclines on a hammock as another man bandages his foot.
Kanoo, a fellow pilgrim, bandaged Mr. Faqira’s injured foot at a stop along the Makran Coastal Highway.
“Some of the spiritual intensity has faded — hardship was once central to the sacred experience,” said Jürgen Schaflechner, an academic at Freie Universität Berlin and the author of a book about the temple.
Still, thousands continue to make the journey by foot. They are considered the more spiritually devoted.
“The real pilgrimage is in the pain, the feeling,” Mr. Faqira, the devotee from Karachi, said on the fourth day of his trek. “You cannot find it in a vehicle.”
Video ID 100000010194613
Pilgrims traveling by bus from across Pakistan stopped at Winder, a small town in Balochistan, for a few hours. There, they danced to religious songs, ate, and rested before continuing their journey.
One of his two companions collapsed from heat exhaustion after walking nearly 70 miles and had to return home by bus. Mr. Faqira carried on, his feet blistered and bandaged.
Each pilgrim walks with a personal vow.
Minakshi, who goes by one name, was part of a group of women dressed in yellow and red. She undertook the journey to ask the goddess for a son after bearing three daughters. Holding her 8-month-old, with her mother-in-law by her side, she shielded the child from the dust and heat.
“I believe the goddess will hear me,” she said.
Image
A group of people walk down stairs set into the side of a mud volcano.
Pilgrims descending from the crater of the Chandragup mud volcano.
Image
Parked buses, surrounded by people, with a mud volcano in the distance.
Pilgrims, arriving by bus, camped overnight on the desert plain in front of the volcano.
Image
A man holds up a coconut caked in mud.
At the volcano’s rim, Hira Laal waved a mud-caked coconut, part of an essential ritual during the pilgrimage.
Nearby, 60-year-old Raj Kumari was making her seventh pilgrimage, praying for her grandson’s well-being. Also on the trek was a childless couple, married since 2018, who were hoping for divine intervention in starting a family.
Many pilgrims belong to marginalized lower-caste Hindu groups — landless sharecroppers or daily wage laborers. Those who can afford the $11 fare ride inside a bus. The poorest pay $5 to sit on the roof in the blistering sun.
Maharaj, who goes by one name and is in his 60s, was feeding his grandson beside a river as he recalled making the pilgrimage in the early 1990s — seven punishing weeks across 300 miles of desert, with the “constant fear of bandits and snakes.”
“But every painful step brought us closer to the goddess,” he said.
According to Hindu mythology, the Hinglaj Devi temple is one of the sites where the remains of Sati, a goddess of marital devotion and longevity, fell to earth after her self-immolation.
For many of the faithful, the pilgrimage begins at a sacred mud volcano rising from the barren landscape near the Makran Coastal Highway. Pilgrims disembark from buses to undertake a symbolic trek across rocky terrain, marking the spiritual start of their journey.
Newly built steps and pathways make the volcano site more accessible. At the summit, devotees toss coconuts and rose petals into the bubbling crater to seek divine permission to proceed. Many also smear volcanic clay on their faces and bodies, a ritual of purification and spiritual resolve.
The next stage takes pilgrims to the Hingol River for a ritual bath, often compared to bathing in the sacred Ganges in India. From there, they continue 28 miles to the Hinglaj Devi temple, set within a natural cave.
The complex houses four shrines, the most revered being the Nani Mandir. Inside, flickering lights, marigold garlands and rhythmic chants create an atmosphere of devotion. Adherents believe that participating in the festival absolves them of all sins.
After reaching the shrines, devotees complete the pilgrimage with an arduous, hourslong trek across seven mountains, before returning to the temple to pray. To escape the blistering heat, some walked at night, lighting the path with mobile phones.
Image
A group of men splashing in the Hingol River.
Pilgrims during a ritual bath in the Hingol River.
Image
A group of people walk on a mountain path.
After first visiting the shrine, pilgrims make an arduous trek across seven mountains.
Image
A woman bows in prayer in front of a tree.
Roshni tied a saffron cloth to a holy tree at the temple as part of her prayer for a child.
Many attribute the festival’s growing prominence to the influence of large-scale Hindu gatherings in India, including the Kumbh Mela, which is amplified by the widespread reach of social media and Indian religious television streamed online.
“In Pakistan, many Hindus have long been disconnected from their spiritual roots,” said Mahendra Dev, a Pakistani university student from the Thar Desert near the border with India. “Digital platforms have helped us rediscover our heritage.”
For him, the revival is not just spiritual; it is also an act of cultural resistance against attempts to erase Pakistani Hindus’ identity.
“It will help in pushing back against decades of efforts, starting with British colonial rule, to convert our poor communities to other faiths, whether Islam, Christianity or Sikhism,” he said.
After making the long pilgrimage, Mr. Faqira reunited with his family, including his young son, who arrived at the temple by bus.
“I always dreamed of walking here,” he said. “The pain means nothing. What matters is that the goddess listens to my prayers.”
Image
A father holding his small son in front of a colorful idol.
Mr. Faqira at the temple with his son, who arrived by bus.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/worl ... roid-share
200 Miles of Sublime Pain on a Hindu Pilgrimage in Pakistan
In 113-degree heat, thousands of Hindus in Pakistan make a grueling trek that is an act of spiritual devotion and cultural preservation in a Muslim-majority country.
Amar Faqira carrying a ceremonial flag on his journey to the Hinglaj Devi temple in Balochistan Province in Pakistan. His bandaged foot was injured during the seven-day walk.
By Zia ur-RehmanVisuals by Asim Hafeez
Zia ur-Rehman and Asim Hafeez spent days traveling with devotees by foot and by bus to report this story.
May 30, 2025
Updated 7:11 a.m. ET
When Amar Faqira’s 3-year-old son abruptly lost movement in his foot last year, doctors offered little hope, and panic gripped his family.
Mr. Faqira made a vow. If his prayers were answered and the boy recovered, he would make a 200-mile pilgrimage through blistering plains and jagged terrain to the Hinglaj Devi temple, a site sacred to Hindus, a tiny minority in Pakistan.
The child regained strength a year later. And true to his word, Mr. Faqira set off in late April on a seven-day walk to the temple, which is nestled deep in the rust-colored mountains of Balochistan, a remote and restive province in Pakistan’s southwest.
The goddess “heard me and healed my son,” Mr. Faqira said before the trek, as he gathered with friends and family in his neighborhood in Karachi, a metropolis on the coast of the Arabian Sea. “Why shouldn’t I fulfill my vow and endure a little pain for her joy?”
With that sense of gratitude, Mr. Faqira and two companions, wearing saffron head scarves and carrying a ceremonial flag, joined thousands of others on the grueling journey to Hinglaj Devi, where Pakistan’s largest annual Hindu festival is held.
ImageAmar Faqira sitting with a small child in his lap.
Mr. Faqira, wearing a saffron head scarf, sat with his son at home in Karachi before the pilgrimage.
Image
Amar Faqira, carrying a flag, walks in a narrow street. Women and children are gathered on either side of the street.
Mr. Faqira carried a ceremonial flag as he walked through his neighborhood, where family and neighbors gathered to say goodbye before his departure on the pilgrimage.
Image
Two men, with their hands clasped in prayer, seated in front of a small shrine.
Mr. Faqira praying at a Hindu temple in Karachi before the pilgrimage.
Along a winding highway and sun-scorched desert paths, groups of resolute pilgrims — mostly men but also women and children — trudged beneath the unforgiving sky, in heat that reached 113 degrees Fahrenheit, or 45 degrees Celsius. Some bore idols of the deity associated with the temple. All chanted “Jai Mata Di,” a call meaning “Hail the Mother Goddess.”
The pilgrimage is an act of spiritual devotion and cultural preservation. Pakistan’s Hindus number about 4.4 million and make up less than 2 percent of the country’s population, which is more than 96 percent Muslim. Hindus are often treated as second-class citizens, systemically discriminated against in housing, jobs and access to government welfare.
For many, the pilgrimage to Hinglaj Devi is comparable in significance to the hajj in Islam, a once-in-a-lifetime obligation of faith. The yearning to make the journey is also strong among Hindus in India, especially in the states of Gujarat and Rajasthan, though it has long been very difficult for Indians to receive visas to travel to Pakistan. Those states, which border Pakistan, have deep spiritual links to Hinglaj Devi that are rooted in traditions predating the 1947 partition that divided the two countries.
Map locates the Hinglaj Devi temple along the Makran Coastal Highway in Pakistan.
Kabul
AFGHANISTAN
Quetta
PAKISTAN
BALOCHISTAN
IRAN
INDIA
200 MILES
Hinglaj Devi temple
MAKRAN
COASTAL
HGWY.
Mud volcanos
Gwadar Sea Port
Karachi
Arabian Sea
50 MILES
By The New York Times
The three-day festival is traditionally held in mid-April. But it was rescheduled this year to early May because of heightened security concerns, after separatist militants in the region hijacked a passenger train in March. The festival also unfolded amid renewed tensions between Pakistan and India. On April 22, a terrorist attack in Indian-administered Kashmir killed 26 people, all but one of them Hindu tourists.
For much of the 20th century, the Hinglaj Devi temple remained obscure and inaccessible, even to many Pakistani Hindus. The pilgrimage gained momentum only in the 1990s, when efforts by Hindu groups to institutionalize the site began, gradually increasing its visibility.
A transformative shift came in the early 2000s with the construction of the Makran Coastal Highway, which links the rest of Pakistan to the Chinese-operated Gwadar deep-sea port. Cutting through rugged terrain along the Arabian Sea, the highway brought unprecedented access to the temple.
For the first time, it was possible to make the bulk of the journey by car or bus, taking some of the sweat out of the endeavor.
Image
Two women walk along a dirt road. One carries an umbrella, the other carries a baby wrapped in cloth.
Minakshi, with her mother-in-law and infant daughter, walking along the pilgrimage route.
Image
A group of people ride on top of a bus.
Fares are cheaper for pilgrims who ride atop buses.
Image
A man reclines on a hammock as another man bandages his foot.
Kanoo, a fellow pilgrim, bandaged Mr. Faqira’s injured foot at a stop along the Makran Coastal Highway.
“Some of the spiritual intensity has faded — hardship was once central to the sacred experience,” said Jürgen Schaflechner, an academic at Freie Universität Berlin and the author of a book about the temple.
Still, thousands continue to make the journey by foot. They are considered the more spiritually devoted.
“The real pilgrimage is in the pain, the feeling,” Mr. Faqira, the devotee from Karachi, said on the fourth day of his trek. “You cannot find it in a vehicle.”
Video ID 100000010194613
Pilgrims traveling by bus from across Pakistan stopped at Winder, a small town in Balochistan, for a few hours. There, they danced to religious songs, ate, and rested before continuing their journey.
One of his two companions collapsed from heat exhaustion after walking nearly 70 miles and had to return home by bus. Mr. Faqira carried on, his feet blistered and bandaged.
Each pilgrim walks with a personal vow.
Minakshi, who goes by one name, was part of a group of women dressed in yellow and red. She undertook the journey to ask the goddess for a son after bearing three daughters. Holding her 8-month-old, with her mother-in-law by her side, she shielded the child from the dust and heat.
“I believe the goddess will hear me,” she said.
Image
A group of people walk down stairs set into the side of a mud volcano.
Pilgrims descending from the crater of the Chandragup mud volcano.
Image
Parked buses, surrounded by people, with a mud volcano in the distance.
Pilgrims, arriving by bus, camped overnight on the desert plain in front of the volcano.
Image
A man holds up a coconut caked in mud.
At the volcano’s rim, Hira Laal waved a mud-caked coconut, part of an essential ritual during the pilgrimage.
Nearby, 60-year-old Raj Kumari was making her seventh pilgrimage, praying for her grandson’s well-being. Also on the trek was a childless couple, married since 2018, who were hoping for divine intervention in starting a family.
Many pilgrims belong to marginalized lower-caste Hindu groups — landless sharecroppers or daily wage laborers. Those who can afford the $11 fare ride inside a bus. The poorest pay $5 to sit on the roof in the blistering sun.
Maharaj, who goes by one name and is in his 60s, was feeding his grandson beside a river as he recalled making the pilgrimage in the early 1990s — seven punishing weeks across 300 miles of desert, with the “constant fear of bandits and snakes.”
“But every painful step brought us closer to the goddess,” he said.
According to Hindu mythology, the Hinglaj Devi temple is one of the sites where the remains of Sati, a goddess of marital devotion and longevity, fell to earth after her self-immolation.
For many of the faithful, the pilgrimage begins at a sacred mud volcano rising from the barren landscape near the Makran Coastal Highway. Pilgrims disembark from buses to undertake a symbolic trek across rocky terrain, marking the spiritual start of their journey.
Newly built steps and pathways make the volcano site more accessible. At the summit, devotees toss coconuts and rose petals into the bubbling crater to seek divine permission to proceed. Many also smear volcanic clay on their faces and bodies, a ritual of purification and spiritual resolve.
The next stage takes pilgrims to the Hingol River for a ritual bath, often compared to bathing in the sacred Ganges in India. From there, they continue 28 miles to the Hinglaj Devi temple, set within a natural cave.
The complex houses four shrines, the most revered being the Nani Mandir. Inside, flickering lights, marigold garlands and rhythmic chants create an atmosphere of devotion. Adherents believe that participating in the festival absolves them of all sins.
After reaching the shrines, devotees complete the pilgrimage with an arduous, hourslong trek across seven mountains, before returning to the temple to pray. To escape the blistering heat, some walked at night, lighting the path with mobile phones.
Image
A group of men splashing in the Hingol River.
Pilgrims during a ritual bath in the Hingol River.
Image
A group of people walk on a mountain path.
After first visiting the shrine, pilgrims make an arduous trek across seven mountains.
Image
A woman bows in prayer in front of a tree.
Roshni tied a saffron cloth to a holy tree at the temple as part of her prayer for a child.
Many attribute the festival’s growing prominence to the influence of large-scale Hindu gatherings in India, including the Kumbh Mela, which is amplified by the widespread reach of social media and Indian religious television streamed online.
“In Pakistan, many Hindus have long been disconnected from their spiritual roots,” said Mahendra Dev, a Pakistani university student from the Thar Desert near the border with India. “Digital platforms have helped us rediscover our heritage.”
For him, the revival is not just spiritual; it is also an act of cultural resistance against attempts to erase Pakistani Hindus’ identity.
“It will help in pushing back against decades of efforts, starting with British colonial rule, to convert our poor communities to other faiths, whether Islam, Christianity or Sikhism,” he said.
After making the long pilgrimage, Mr. Faqira reunited with his family, including his young son, who arrived at the temple by bus.
“I always dreamed of walking here,” he said. “The pain means nothing. What matters is that the goddess listens to my prayers.”
Image
A father holding his small son in front of a colorful idol.
Mr. Faqira at the temple with his son, who arrived by bus.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/worl ... roid-share
-
swamidada786
- Posts: 66
- Joined: Tue Apr 29, 2025 8:56 pm
Re: Islam and Hinduism's blurred lines
I was inspired by reading the above article about Hinglaj by Kmaherali. I have collected plenty of Hindu mythologies. Here I am posting the myth mata Sati;
Shri Hinglaj is a Hindu holy place situated at a distance of 120 km north east of Karachi. The area actually is a part of Bilochistan province of Pakistan. Hingol river falls on its way in Makran hills.
MYTH
According to the history given in the Hindu books, Sati a daughter of Raja Daksh was married to Lord Shiva. Once the Raja arranged Brahspati Sav-Yajna at Kankhal near Haridwar. Brahma was the chief guest. Daksh invited all the Devtas but totally ignored Shiva who was known as Supreme among the Devtas. Narad Muni flashed this message to Sati and Shiva. They felt insulted. But even then Sati insisted that they should join the Yajna since there was no harm in going to father’s residence for a daughter even if she had not been invited.
Lord Shiva refused to accompany her but said he won’t mind if Sati insisted on attending Raja Daksh’s Yajna. Sati could not restrain herself and went to Kankhal,. She found that no space had been earmarked for her husband at the Yajna site. No body attended her rather she had to listen derogatory remarks from her father for her husband. Feeling highly insulted , Sati immolated herself in the Yajna-Kund.
When Lord Shiva learnt about the immolation, he sent his messengers to disturb the Yajna. They created panic there and separated Daksh’s head from his body, the same head was later thrown in to the Yajna-Kund. Later Shiva took her wife’s dead body on his shoulders and started wandering in the hilly areas , dancing about like a demented creature. The angles , fearing a premature end of the world, approached Lord Vishnu requesting him to contain lord Shiva so that the living world could be saved. Lord Vishnu converted Sati’s dead body into pieces. Wherever a piece fell down, a Shakti Peeth developed there. This was how 52 Shakti Peeths emerged in undivided Hindustan. Shri Hinglaj is one of them.
Since, according to the myth, Sati’s head with its Hingul (Sindhoor, Vermillion) fell at this place on the hills, it was named as Hingul Parvat and the Peeth was known as Shri Hinglaj Mata Asthan. This Peeth is considered supreme because Sati’s head had fallen here .
It is believed that Lord Rama, Sita and Lakshman visted this peeth during Banvas.
Shri Hinglaj is a Hindu holy place situated at a distance of 120 km north east of Karachi. The area actually is a part of Bilochistan province of Pakistan. Hingol river falls on its way in Makran hills.
MYTH
According to the history given in the Hindu books, Sati a daughter of Raja Daksh was married to Lord Shiva. Once the Raja arranged Brahspati Sav-Yajna at Kankhal near Haridwar. Brahma was the chief guest. Daksh invited all the Devtas but totally ignored Shiva who was known as Supreme among the Devtas. Narad Muni flashed this message to Sati and Shiva. They felt insulted. But even then Sati insisted that they should join the Yajna since there was no harm in going to father’s residence for a daughter even if she had not been invited.
Lord Shiva refused to accompany her but said he won’t mind if Sati insisted on attending Raja Daksh’s Yajna. Sati could not restrain herself and went to Kankhal,. She found that no space had been earmarked for her husband at the Yajna site. No body attended her rather she had to listen derogatory remarks from her father for her husband. Feeling highly insulted , Sati immolated herself in the Yajna-Kund.
When Lord Shiva learnt about the immolation, he sent his messengers to disturb the Yajna. They created panic there and separated Daksh’s head from his body, the same head was later thrown in to the Yajna-Kund. Later Shiva took her wife’s dead body on his shoulders and started wandering in the hilly areas , dancing about like a demented creature. The angles , fearing a premature end of the world, approached Lord Vishnu requesting him to contain lord Shiva so that the living world could be saved. Lord Vishnu converted Sati’s dead body into pieces. Wherever a piece fell down, a Shakti Peeth developed there. This was how 52 Shakti Peeths emerged in undivided Hindustan. Shri Hinglaj is one of them.
Since, according to the myth, Sati’s head with its Hingul (Sindhoor, Vermillion) fell at this place on the hills, it was named as Hingul Parvat and the Peeth was known as Shri Hinglaj Mata Asthan. This Peeth is considered supreme because Sati’s head had fallen here .
It is believed that Lord Rama, Sita and Lakshman visted this peeth during Banvas.