I will later have an introductory post on the elements of “incitement to genocide” in international criminal law. “An extreme form of hate speech [although legally distinguishable from same], incitement to genocide is considered an inchoate offense and is theoretically subject to prosecution even if genocide does not occur, although charges have never been brought in an international court without mass violence having occurred. ‘Direct and public incitement to commit genocide’ was forbidden by the Genocide Convention in 1948. Incitement to genocide is often cloaked in metaphor and euphemism and may take many forms beyond direct advocacy, including dehumanization and ‘accusation in a mirror’ [i.e., ‘falsely imputing to your adversaries the intentions that you have yourself and/or the action that you are in the process of enacting,’ what in psychology is termed ‘projection’]. Historically, incitement to genocide has played a significant role in the commission of genocide, including the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide.”
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The following is from a piece posted a couple days ago at Just Security, “Hijab Bans, Hindutva, and the Burden of Hindsight: Why Global Leaders Must Act to Prevent Genocide in India.” See the original for the entire article, including the many embedded links.
“In the nearly four months since the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide released its report ranking India as being at the second-highest risk of a new mass killing, the systematic targeting of Muslims in the country has only escalated to greater extremes.
On Mar. 15, the Karnataka High Court upheld a hijab ban imposed by some educational institutions in the southern Indian state, a stronghold of the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The ruling followed the High Court’s interim order prohibiting religious attire in schools, issued in February after weeks of escalating religious tensions in Karnataka. In early January, a government-run women’s college in the city of Udupi banned students from wearing hijab in classrooms; Muslim students who attempted to attend their classes while wearing hijab were denied entry. Other colleges in the state soon imposed similar bans, and the government of Karnataka subsequently issued an order in support of those bans. Protests decrying the hijab prohibition and counter-protests by male students in saffron scarves (saffron being traditionally associated with Hinduism, but today largely associated with the BJP and right-wing Hindu ideology) sparked violence, resulting in the closure of all high schools and colleges throughout the state for three days. Five Muslim women students filed a constitutional challenge to the state government’s order, calling on the High Court to restore their rights. In finding that the order did not violate Muslim women’s constitutional rights, the High Court—arguably reaching far beyond its expertise and jurisdiction—undertook, in its opinion this past Tuesday, a reading and interpretation of the Quran and books on Islam to argue that hijab is not religiously mandated.
The hijab controversy comes on the heels of what has been perhaps the most direct call yet for the genocide of Muslims, in order to transform India into a Hindu nation, at a religious convening in the northern city of Haridwar in December. Emboldened with a sense of impunity resulting from ongoing complicity by law enforcement officials and political leaders turning a blind eye to, or even participating in, attacks on Muslims, Hindutva (right-wing Hindu-nationalist) leaders called on Hindus to take decisive action towards the establishment of a Hindu nation.
During the three-day gathering in Haridwar, prominent Hindu supremacist Yati Narsinghanand Giri, told the crowds, ‘You need to update your weapons . . . More and more offsprings and better weapons, only they can protect you.’ Another speaker said, ‘Even if just a hundred of us become soldiers and kill two million of them, we will be victorious . . . If you stand with this attitude only then will you able to protect “sanatana dharma” [Hinduism].”’
Another outspoken Hindutva leader, Swami Prabodhananda Giri, who has close connections to BJP leadership, cited the genocide of the Rohingya in Myanmar as an illustrative example for Hindus to follow. Two weeks later, during an appearance in the city of Ghaziabad, he followed up his remarks with the statement, ‘We will stand up against every jihadi in India and clean the country of their presence,’ defining a jihadi as those who have read and understood the Quran.
Although Yati Narsinghanand Giri and another speaker were arrested (under Sections 153 and 298 of the Indian Penal Code) for their comments at the Haridwar event, the question has been raised as to why the explicit calls for violence against Muslims were not met with charges under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act or the National Security Act, even while provisions of these acts have been used to target Muslims, such as in the case of journalist Siddique Kappan. Meanwhile, similar events to the Haridwar convening are slated to be held all over the country.
The hijab ban and the Hindutva convenings inciting violence are part of a broader and ongoing targeting of Muslims in India, which has manifested in numerous ways, including the creation of online apps to ‘auction’ Muslim women; the 2019 Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) which offered a path to citizenship for individuals from persecuted religious minority groups, with the exception of Muslims; incitement of violence by BJP leaders against Muslims in the 2020 Delhi riots, which stemmed from protests against the CAA; vigilante attacks on Muslims in the name of protecting cows; ‘love jihad’ laws that aim to prevent Muslim men from marrying Hindu women and ban ‘unlawful’ religious conversions in the context of interfaith marriage (seen most recently in a bill tabled in the Haryana Assembly in early March); and the disenfranchisement and persecution of Muslims in Assam. [….]
Hindutva rhetoric targeting Muslims, including at the Haridwar gathering, has included the exaltation of Nathuram Godse, who assassinated Mahatma Gandhi based on a perception that Gandhi was too pro-Muslim and betraying Hindus. Demonstrating similar sentiment, the Indian Ministry of Culture last year tweeted a birthday tribute to M.S. Golwarkar. From 1940 to 1973, Golwarkar led the right-wing, Hindu-nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)—of which Godse had also been a part—and was initially arrested for Gandhi’s assassination. Golwalkar in his book, Bunch of Thoughts, glorified Hitler and cited Nazi Germany as a model for eliminating minorities.
Through the steady proliferation of hateful, anti-Muslim rhetoric, the weaponization of religious identity for political gain, and the literal call to arms against their own citizens, there has been pindrop silence from Modi and other top BJP leaders. Undoubtedly, much of the recent escalation in the fueling of religious tensions and reassertion of the narrative of a Hindu India is directly tied to the Uttar Pradesh elections—seen as a barometer for national elections to be held in 2024—which just concluded and saw a retention of BJP power under the divisive Hindu-nationalist monk and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. However, the tacit endorsement by BJP leadership of using any means necessary for political gain—including mobilizing concrete action to make India a Hindu nation—may have consequences that far outlast the elections. The Haridwar convening showcased layers within the Hindutva machinery, with what are known as the ‘Trads’ being more extreme and direct in their calls for extermination of minorities, and the ‘Raitas,’ who include diehard BJP supporters who engage in other forms of hate speech. The flames that are stoked now under the watch of the Raitas, by currently BJP-aligned Trads, may become impossible to extinguish later.
In addition to India’s own leadership, the United States has also been notably silent. Before U.S. relations with India began devolving as a result of India’s mulishness in refusing to join other democratic nations in condemning Russia, the Biden administration looked the other way—failing to acknowledge India’s crackdowns on free expression and dissent, persecution of religious minorities, and overall shift towards authoritarianism—and continued to bolster India as its key ally and partner in the Indo-Pacific region. In a Congressional briefing in January, the founding president of Genocide Watch, Gregory Stanton, urged ‘the U.S. Congress to pass a resolution that warns genocide should not be allowed to occur in India,’ and for President Biden to warn Modi of the potential implications of a genocide on U.S.-India relations. The obligation on the United States to intervene diplomatically is not only a moral one; a genocide in India would cause political upheaval with potentially disastrous and long-lasting consequences for the security of the region.” [….]
Further Reading
- Berenschot, Ward. Riot Politics: Hindu-Muslim Violence and the Indian State. New York: Columbia University Press, 2011.
- Bilgrami, Akeel. Secularism, Identity, and Enchantment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014.
- Choudhry, Sujit, Madhav Khosla, and Pratap Bhanu Mehta, eds. The Oxford Handbook of the Indian Constitution. Oxford University Press, 2016.
- Desai, Radhika. Slouching Towards Ayodhya: From Congress to Hindutva in Indian Politics. New Delhi: Three Essays Press, 2004.
- Dhar, P.N. Indira Gandhi, the ‘Emergency’, and Indian Democracy. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000.
- Doniger, Wendy. The Hindus: An Alternative History. New York: Penguin Press, 2009.
- Drèze Jean and Amartya Sen. An Uncertain Glory: India and Its Contradictions. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013.
- Hansen, Thomas Blom. The Saffron Wave: Democracy and Hindu Nationalism in Modern India. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999.
- Jaffrelot, Christophe. The Hindu Nationalist Movement in India. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996.
- Jaffrelot, Christophe. Religion, Caste and Politics in India. New York: Columbia University Press, 2011.
- Jaffrelot, Christophe, ed. Hindu Nationalism: A Reader. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007.
- Jayal, Niraja Gopal and Pratap Bhanu Mehta, eds. The Oxford Companion to Politics in India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2010.
- Larson, Gerald James. India’s Agony Over Religion. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1995.
- Nussbaum, Martha C. The Clash Within: Democracy, Religious Violence, and India’s Future. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007.
- Sharma, Jyotirmaya. Terrifying Vision: M.S. Golwalkar, the RSS and India. Penguin, 2007.
- Sharma, Jyotirmaya. Hindutva: Exploring the Idea of Hindu Nationalism. New Delhi: Penguin Books India, 2003.
- Sharma, Jyotirmaya. A Restatement of Religion: Swami Vivekananda and the Making of Hindu Nationalism. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013.
Relevant Bibliographies
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