Diaspora Voices Concern Over Anti-Muslim Genocidal Calls in India

New Delhi, 10 Jan 2022 [Fik/News Sources]: Amidst outrage over Haridwar hate assembly Indians in diaspora across the globe ran a robust online campiagn raising their voice against the calls for genocidal violence against Muslims by Hindutva groups in the country.

Activists, community leaders, rights groups, academicians took to Twitter to carry on with the campiagn with hashtag #StopMuslimGenocide to express their solidarity with Indian Muslims in the wake of rising Hindutva hostility targeting Muslims in particular and minorities in general.

The tweets under the hashtag were part of the campaign that also involved signature drivers, letters to local lawmakers in their respective countries seeking accountability from Indian government as to what it is doing to put a check on rising communal violence and hatred against Muslims.

Prominent voices who took to Twitter to raise their concern over the genocidal calls include historian Audrey Truschke, journalist Rana Ayyub, entrepreneur Aamina Kausar, artists T M Krishna, John Cusack and Swara Bhaskar among others.

This is Hindu fascism. A mob humiliating a Muslim in Jharkhand, India. Modi legacy Forcing him to chant Hindu slogans and lick the street https://t.co/BwzvjQqUuA

— John Cusack (@johncusack) January 8, 2022

The activists and diaspora groups said there was a need for a greater global intervention in the wake of the genocidal calls against Muslims.

“India ratified the Geneva convention convention against genocide in August 1959. The convention binds the Indian Government in  a legal obligation to punish ‘direct and public incitements to commit genocide’ by the public as well as private individuals,” director of Stichting London Story, a Europe-based think-tank, said, reminding the Indian government of it’s commitments to the global community.

“India stands on the brink of an impending genocide of Muslims,” said Dr Haroon Kasim, co-founder of The Humanism Project in Australia, a diaspora group that took part in the campiagn.

Sunita Viswanath of a US-based group Hindus for Human Rights urged all Hindus to take a stand against such violent and hate filled calls, saying said, “Indians across the world especially Hindus must wake up to the horrors taking place in India.”

“While the Indian government descends into authoritarianism and Prime Minister Modi remains silent to the calls of genocide, emboldening the forces of hate and bigotry, the Indian progressive diaspora will not merely stand and watch the denial of the humanity of our fellow Indians. The global community too has a legal obligation to prevent genocide and it is absolutely necessary that governments are held accountable when they fail to act according to law,” a joint statement from the diaspora groups asserted.