A REPORT YS DA 365Democracy & Secularism Under The Modi Regime Edited by John Dayal - Shabnam Hashmi About ANHAD Anhad (Act Now for Harmony and Democracy) was formed in the rst weed of March 2003. Anhad is registered as a trust. ANHAD was conceived less as an organization and more as a platform and a very loose movement, which is absolutely action oriented. ANHAD tries to combine the elements of a structural organisation as well as that of a large scale movement by collaborating with existing organisations and movements and by undertaking local level activities. It enables ANHAD to develop creative co-operation with people's organisations and social movements working in different areas of social and cultural concerns. ANHAD actively works on issues related to democracy, secularism, communal harmony, gender equality, women empowerment and justice. It ghts for human rights and rights of the marginalised communities. Anhad is involved in relief, rehabilitation, livelihood, women empowerment, vocational training, literacy and education. Anhad celebrates cultural diversity and pluralism. It intervenes at the policy level and is a strong advocacy group at the national level. Contact: C-5, Basement, Nizamuddin West, New Delhi-110013 Phone : +91-11-41670722 E-mail : [email protected] Anhad has working ofces : Delhi, Ahmedabad, Baramula, J&K and Purnia, Bihar YS DA 365Democracy & Secularism Under The Modi Regime Edited by John Dayal Shabnam Hashmi 3 6 5 DAYS DEMOCRACY & SECULARISM UNDER THE MODI REGIME 365 Days Democracy & Secularism Under The Modi Regime Edited by : John Dayal & Shabnam Hashmi ISBN : 978-81-88833-36-8 Published by Anhad C-5, Basement Nizamuddin West New Delhi-110013 Phone : +91-11-41670722 E-mail : [email protected] www.anhadin.net Printed at Pullshoppe 2 3 6 5 DAYS DEMOCRACY & SECULARISM UNDER THE MODI REGIME Contents Introduction 5 Executive Summary 7 List of Contributors 11 India's Majoritarian Summer 13 -Harsh Mander Communal Trends Reported by the Media since May 2014 17 One Year of Modi Sarkar : Hate Speech Galore 40 -Prof Ram Puniyani Hate Speech and Campaigns in Media since May 16, 2014 43 Attack on Civil Society Activism 64 -Fr. Cedric Prakash S J Attack on Civil Society Activism in India 68 Fighting for our Soul : Education under the Modi Regime 74 -Karen Gabriel and P K Vijayan Reports of Saffronisation in Education in Modi's First Year 80 Paralysing the Science 86 -PVS Kumar Critical Appraisal of Legal Developments in the Year 2014-2015 93 -Kriti Sharma List of Events 98 Silencing South Asia 104 -Prof. Apoorvanand Attack on Freedom of Expression 106 Can the Idea of India withstand the Cultural Chauvinism of the Sangh Parivar? 108 -Dhruv Sangari Indian Media : Embedded not Free 114 -Seema Mustafa Their Cross to Bear? The Christian situation under Mr. Narendra Modi 118 -John Dayal Hate Crimes & Targeted Violence against Christians since May 2014 127 A Year of Intimidations of Minorities and their Defenders 165 -Vidya Bhushan Rawat Communal Disturbance & Violence against Muslims since May 2014 171 Over 600 Communal Incidents in UP : A Report from Indian Express 186 3 3 6 5 DAYS DEMOCRACY & SECULARISM UNDER THE MODI REGIME Introduction This report is an attempt to document intense and multi-pronged attack unleashed on the democratic rights of citizens and secular values enshrined in the constitution of India. Since the present regime came to power we have witnessed that the citizens rights and secular ethos, secured during the past sixty years, have been trampled upon with impunity. Riding on the high-tide of promised development, created by PR agencies and corporate controlled media, the present regime 'conquered' the hearts and the minds of India with the promised ‘Achche Din’ (Better Days). The experiments perfected in the laboratory of Hindutva are being very successfully exported from Gujarat to various states of India. Many of us, who have closely watched the developments and modus operandi of communal forces in Gujarat and elsewhere, have been deeply disturbed but not surprised at the developments of the past year. It has been the dream of the Sangh Parivar to convert this diverse, plural, composite India into a Hindu Rashtra. For the rst time in 90 years they have come so close to fullling their dream. The Sangh both within and outside the formal apparatus is working round the clock to achieve their objective. The purpose of documenting this multi faceted attack on our diversity and pluralism is to make the damage visible. We could document only a fraction of what has happened during the past year due to paucity of resources, both human and nancial. This report however clearly breaks the myth that there have been no riots under the present regime. The strategy has changed, Sangh has realized that large-scale violence attracts international media attention, and therefore now, meticulously planned high-intensity localized violence coupled with high-pitched hate campaigns is used across India to polarize the people and further marginalise the minorities. In order to weaken the India democracy, the administrative, legal, scientic and educational, structures created during the past sixty year have either been demolished or tempered. The onslaught has left these institutions permanently damaged and show the direction in which the present regime is likely to push the country. The report has been made possible due to the cooperation and remarkable efforts of many individuals and fraternal organizations working in various states. Although not documented in this report but the past year has also seen strong resistance to the nefarious designs of the Sangh, across India. We hope that this report will help in further strengthening the people’s resistance against these divisive forces. -Shabnam Hashmi 5 3 6 5 DAYS DEMOCRACY & SECULARISM UNDER THE MODI REGIME Executive Summary On 26thMay 2014, Mr. Narendra Damodardas Modi, the Chief Minister of Gujarat, was sworn in as the Prime Minister of India at the head of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic alliance. Riding the crest of a popular wave of revulsion against the rampant corruption in national life recent years, Mr. Modi promised “development” to the young aspirational generation of voters. But most of all, he marshaled a strong army of activists of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the many organisations of the Sangh Parivar to unleash an election campaign that polarized the electorate through selective targeting of Muslims and Christians. A year later, the government admits the development process has not yet commenced despite huge concessions to the corporate sector. The new jobs are yet to materialize. The photo opportunities are of projects started by the previous government, now nearing completion. But several major projects designed to provide a social safety net to the rural poor and other poor have, on the other hand, been toned down, their names changed in symbolic contempt for previous Prime Ministers. Suicides by debt- burdened farmers continue apace. And there is nothing to show for the promise of ending corruption and brining back the “black money” stowed away in Swiss and other foreign banks. Something critical to the nation has changed, for the worse. It is India's social landscape. There has been no massacre of the nature of the Muzaffarnagar rape and killings of Muslims in the run-up to the 2014 general sections.The period May 2014-May 2015 has seen a seamlessness between the government of Mr. Modi at the Centre, the state governments ruled by the BJP, and the cadres of the Sangh Parivar. The results are visible from what is called the saffronisation of governance at the Centre to the implementation of the Sangh's agenda of coercion and isolation of religious minority groups, to inltration of administrative structures, police and education. The incitement to violence and coercion is one facet of it. The other is enforcing the Sangh dictat through orders such as the compulsory Surya Namashkar at mass Yoga camps, the restructuring of national academic institutions and the ban, for instance, on eggs in the children's nutrition programme by Madhya Pradesh are indicative. The hate of the election campaign has also mutated to a more coercive and threatening, phenomenon that has percolated to the Universities and colleges on the one hand and the villages and small towns over much of the country. One group even set up a “Hindu Helpline” to assist anyone from the majority community who is being harassed by Muslims, announcing its cadres will come to the help of any Hindu parent who suspects his or her daughter is seeing a Muslim youth. Former administrator, Member of the National Advisory Council of the Government of India and renowned activist Harsh Mander says “There is indeed no ambiguity in Modi's politics, no recourse to poetry and equivocality, unlike the last prime minister to be elected from the BJP, Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Vajpayee himself was not above articulating anti-Muslim or anti-Christian rhetoric from time to time. Yet many still regarded him to be a leader of relative moderation. However, his communal pointers would always be cloaked in a garb of moderation. Never in free India has the public discourse been so poisoned 7 3 6 5 DAYS DEMOCRACY & SECULARISM UNDER THE MODI REGIME by MPs and ministers of the elected ruling alliance. BJP MP Sakshi Maharaj labels madrassas as 'hubs of terror' fostering 'love jihad' and 'education of terrorism'. He exhorts Hindu women to bear four children, declaring that in the Modi yug(era), the alleged Muslim practice of having four wives and 40 kids – a ction of majoritarian paranoia - should be forcefully halted. He further describes Nathuram Godse, Gandhi's assassin, as a 'patriot' and 'martyr'. Another BJP MP Yogi Adityanath declares that an India without Ram cannot be imagined, and that those who allegedly torment Hindus with riots will have to pay dearly.