WASHINGTON - On November 21 Jocelyne Cesari, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs, along with Kalpana Jain, a journalist and editor at The Conversation US, delivered a discussion on the rise of anti-Muslim hate speech and violence in India, writes the Washington Report.
Combining scholarly and journalistic perspectives, the two argued that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have constructed hostile attitudes toward Muslims among the country’s Hindu majority.
After Modi came to power in 2014, India experienced a large increase in anti-Muslim religious violence, with many conflicts centered around allegations of Muslims illegally selling and consuming cow meat.
Modi and many prominent members of the BJP contributed to the hatred through their inflammatory rhetoric and their unwillingness to address or punish instances of violence against Muslims. The BJP has also recently enacted “security” laws that disproportionally target Muslims.
“The moment that the state starts to scrutinize one religious group, they also turn to do it to other religious groups,” Jain warned. Cesari views the current religious tensions as a legacy of British interference in the region.
Historically, religious groups on the Indian subcontinent tended to see themselves first and foremost as members of a local community. This local sense of belonging typically superseded religious differences.