Attacks on Hindus and Hindu Dharma, both in Bharat and overseas, are frequent and unrelenting. In many regions of the world, this persecution is like a genocide slowly unfolding before our eyes. For decades, the true depth and breadth of these attacks, driven by disturbing anti-Hindu bigotry, have been ignored by the world.

From murders, forced conversions, land grabs, assault on festivals, desecration of temples and murtis, hate speech, sexual violence to institutionalized & legal discrimination, Hindus are facing an increasing assault on their very existence along with an unprecedented Hindu hatred.

In this weekly summary for the period from 12 December to 18 December 2021, we hope to provide a snapshot of such crimes and hopefully awaken more people around the world to this human rights crisis:

Bharat

1) A class 4 student of Kendriya Vidyalaya No. 1 school said that he had carried a copy of the Bhagavad Gita and jap mala (prayer beads) in his school bag. Hindi language teacher Sadaf Jahan found the Gita and jap mala in his bag and threw them into the dustbin saying this is where they deserve to go. Grabbing the boy by the hair, she banged his head against the blackboard and threatened to skin him if he ever got the Gita again, or told anyone about the incident.

2) Another case of grooming jihad of a minor has been reported from Kerala. Malappuram native Manaf abducted an underage girl and was arrested from Nagercoil in TN. The young girl was barely conscious and her nose was bleeding when the police found her.

3) Tension prevailed in Karnataka’s Srinivasapura town in Kolar district as Hindu activists stopped Christian missionaries from distributing religious books to the local residents and burnt the religious books and pamphlets, the police said on Sunday.

4) A Congress leader has expressed the desire for Tamil Nadu to become an ‘independent country’. John Ashok Varadarajan tweeted “I think it’s time for Tamil Nadu to become an independent country” in response to a tweet by TV anchor & political commentator Sumanth Raman. Raman’s original tweet was about the BJP’s statement on the arrest of nationalist social media voices like Maridhas by the DMK regime.

5) A grooming jihad case has come to light in the Etmaddulah police station area of Agra, UP. Salman, a married man with two children, groomed a Hindu girl and convinced her to elope with him.

6) A case of a Muslim man named Salman assuming Hindu identity has emerged in UP’s Bareilly. The man who sported Tilak and kalava identified himself as Raj. He has been accused by a Hindu man of trapping his wife in the name of love and subsequently eloping with her. The police initially registered a missing case but eventually, Hindu organizations stepped in to make sure that a case of abduction was registered against Salman.

7) The Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorist Squad (UP ATS) has arrested a key member of a gang involved in the infiltration of Bangladeshis and Rohingyas in Bharat. The gang used to get Indian passports made for the Bangladeshis and Rohingyas using fake Hindu identities and would send them abroad for work.

8) In Ladakh, Buddhist groups are back to protesting against predatory Islamic conversion tactics such as grooming jihad. Having seen their ‘direct action’ plans in J&K receive heavy resistance after the abrogation of Article 370, it is feared that Islamists have gone back to their tried and tested tactics of the gradual demographic shift. 

9) College teacher Mohammed Arshad was booked for sending inappropriate messages to girl students at a private engineering college owned by the family of former SP MLA and BSP candidate from Bijnor assembly segment Ruchi Veera.

10) Missionaries of Charity’s shelter home in Vadodara has been booked for hurting religious sentiments and converting girl children. The orphanage made the girls wear the cross around their necks and the library had Bibles. A complaint was filed by a Social Defence Officer after the NCPCR Chairman had inspected the orphanage a few months ago.

11) West Bengal Police have arrested one Mohammad Sarfaraz Ansari from Bardhaman for carrying 20 bombs while he was traveling in a government bus. The security agencies in the state have issued a high alert since the incident. Reportedly, a major terror plot was in the works but has been thwarted due to this arrest.

12) Stand-up comedy has now become a convenient excuse to denigrate Hindu Dharma and Bharatiya civilization. The latest in a line of such ‘comedians’ is Bengaluru-based P Shravan who made lewd comments against the musical pillars of the Vijaya Vittala Temple complex located in Hampi.

13) Another case of grooming jihad and forced conversion to Islam has been reported, this time from Burari in New Delhi. The victim was assaulted, tied up, and gang-raped on December 9 by three men who had been threatening her to withdraw the case lodged by her on October 29 against her ‘husband’, Danish Rana aka Inam Ali.

14) Another case of grooming jihad using a Hindu identity was reported from Lucknow. To trap the young Hindu girl, Nawazish became Vishal Thakur and befriended the victim. He groomed, sexually exploited, stole INR 2.5 lakh, and is now cooling his heels in jail.

15) The Supreme Court on Friday ruled in favor of a Muslim petitioner and permitted people from all religions to participate in the process of auction of leases of shops in the Sri Bramaramamba Mallikarjuna Swamy Temple at Kurnool Andhra Pradesh and in the shopping complex until the time SC delivers a final judgment on the matter.

16) The Delhi HC (High Court) refused to entertain a PIL (Public Interest Litigation) that sought the removal of misleading claims regarding Mughal rulers Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb found in class 12 NCERT history textbook. The Delhi HC further remarked that the petitioner should file petitions on tax evasion while referring to him as a ‘champion of PILs’. It also stated that PILs were being filed randomly.

17) Within a span of a few days murtis of Hindu deities and the Vel(spear) of Murugan were vandalized in Tamil Nadu. While the culprits who vandalized the murtis aren’t caught yet, police arrested the person who broke the Vel in Palani.

18) A second-year college girl in Alipurduar district was attacked and slashed severely with a blade by one of her batchmates on Monday after she refused his advances. The girl is hospitalized. Police have arrested the youth. He confessed his proposal was rejected by the girl, prompting his act, said Bholanath Pandey, SP, Alipurduar.

Bangladesh

1) The global outrage over the anti-Hindu pogrom that took place in Bangladesh during Durga Puja in October has subsided. But the minority Hindus are now back to facing low-level, scattered, everyday violence, which is behind their gradual exodus from the country. Two such cases have come to light, one of them instigated by a ruling Awami League leader.

2) A woman, Tilottoma Mandal Putul, was stabbed to death by some assailants at village Hatbaria in Khulna district of Bangladesh early Monday. Putul’s sister and her sister’s husband were critically injured in the same attack and are undergoing treatment at the hospital.

Most hate crimes are driven by anti-Hindu bigotry encoded in certain religious teachings and political ideologies. While the anti-Hindu hate in Islamic countries is obvious, there is another subtler form of anti-Hindu sentiment within institutions and the public sphere of ostensibly secular states (like India) that provides an enabling environment for Hinduphobia and hate crimes. This subtle, everyday discrimination can be missed unless one studies prevailing laws and patterns. The gradual ban on firecrackers during Diwali is a good example – it might seem pollution-related on the surface, but the double standards at play become clear when one looks at the larger picture of restrictions on Hindu festivals, and the lack of sound reasoning behind the ban.

References:

hindupost.in - HinduPost Desk