India has turned Muslims into a 'persecuted minority': Noam Chomsky

[Clutch]

India has turned Muslims into a 'persecuted minority': Noam Chomsky​

APPPublished February 12, 2022 - Updated a day ago









45

A file photo of world-renowned scholar, author and activist Noam Chomsky. — APP

Renowned scholar Professor Noam Chomsky on Thursday said that Islamophobia has taken a “most lethal form” in India, turning some 250 million Indian Muslims into a “persecuted minority”.
“The pathology of Islamophobia is growing throughout the West — it is taking its most lethal form in India,” the famed author and activist, who is also Professor Emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said in a video message to a webinar organised by the Indian American Muslim Council, a Washington-based advocacy organisation.
Apart from Chomsky, several other academics and activists took part in the webinar on “Worsening Hate Speech and Violence in India”.
Chomsky also said that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s right-wing Hindu nationalist regime has sharply escalated the “crimes” in Indian-occupied Kashmir (IoK).

“The crimes in Kashmir have a long history,” he said, adding that the state was now a “brutally occupied territory and its military control in some ways is similar to occupied Palestine”.

The situation in South Asia, Chomsky said, was painful in particular not because of what was happening but because of what was not happening. There was, however, hope and opportunities to solve South Asian torment but not for long, he added.
Annapurna Menon, an Indian author and lecturer at the University of Westminster, urged the international community to focus on the status of press freedom in India as, under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, the situation has become a cause of concern.
“The situation on [the] ground is extremely alarming as four journalists have already been killed in 2022, simply for doing their job,” Menon said, adding journalists, especially women, have been exposed to all kinds of reprisals including harassment, illegal detention, police violence and sedition charges.

“The situation in IoK is even dire, where the journalists routinely face police questioning, ban on reporting, suspension of internet services and financial constraints in line with BJP’s recent ‘media policy’. The family of award-winning Srinagar-based photojournalist Masrat Zahra was subjected to harassment and intimidation by the Indian Police as a crackdown on the press in IoK continues to escalate," she said.

Fahad Shah, a renowned Kashmiri journalist who is the founder and editor of ‘‘The Kashmir Walla’’, was arrested recently by the police in Pulwama under terrorism and sedition laws, Menon pointed out. Similarly, Sajad Gul, another journalist of ‘‘The Kashmir Walla’’, was also arrested at the beginning of February 2022.

John Sifton, Asia Advocacy Director at Human Rights Watch (HRW), said the greatest threat to the Indian constitution was the promotion of majority religion by the Indian government at the expense of minorities.
“BJP and its affiliates are making hateful remarks against Muslims to gain Hindu vote around elections,” he said.

The BJP government had adopted laws and policies that systematically discriminate against religious minorities and other groups and it also stigmatises its critics, the HRW official said. He added the government enacted the ‘Citizenship Act’ to target the minorities, particularly Indian Muslims.
Social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and Tiktok, Sifton said, had failed to control hatred spread through their platforms.

The US Congress, he said, must weigh on the Indian government to convey their concerns vis-a-vis the violation of human and minority rights in India.

Angana Chatterji, an Indian anthropologist and scholar at Berkeley University, California, said prejudices embedded in the government of the ruling Hindu nationalist BJP had infiltrated independent institutions, such as the police and the courts, empowering nationalist groups to threaten, harass and attack religious minorities with impunity.
“Hindu spiritual leaders are involved in [the] ethnic cleansing of Muslims,” she said, adding BJP leaders and affiliated groups have long portrayed minority communities, especially Muslims, as a threat to national security and to the Hindu way of life. They had raised the bogey of “love jihad” claiming that Muslim men lure Hindu women into marriages to convert them to Islam, labelled Muslim immigrants as extremists and accused them of hurting Hindu sentiment over cow slaughter.

Since Yogi Adityanath became Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh (UP) in 2017, Chatterji said the culture of violence and impunity had taken root, pointing out that UP police had carried out hundreds of extra-judicial killings of suspected criminals belonging to minorities, particularly Muslims.

By the time protests against the Citizenship Amendment Bill spilt out on the streets of UP in December 2019, the police manhandled protesters, behaved in a vulgar manner with women, arrested whomsoever it wanted and framed prominent activists in criminal cases, she said.

As hundreds of thousands of farmers of various faiths began protesting against the government’s new farm laws in November 2020, senior BJP leaders, their supporters on social media, and pro-government media blamed the Sikhs as ‘Khalistani terrorists’, Chatterji said.

February 23, 2022, marks the two year anniversary of the communal violence in Delhi that killed 53 people, 40 of them Muslim.
Harsh Mander, a former Indian civil servant and human rights activist, said that while Mahatma Gandhi upheld the principles of non-violence, the Hindu supremacist ideology was currently being propagated by Indian leaders.

“Hate crimes have increased by a thousandfold during [the] BJP regime,” he said. BJP stigmatises and openly incites crimes against minorities, even Mother Teresa had been vilified, he added.

Muslims, Mander said, were falsely projected as bigots, unpatriotic, Jihadis and oppressors, adding that even Modi followed some of the hate mongers and refused to denounce them.
IoK, he said, was the most militarised region of the world.

 

[Zarrar Alvi]

India has turned Muslims into a 'persecuted minority': Noam Chomsky​

APPPublished February 12, 2022 - Updated a day ago









45

A file photo of world-renowned scholar, author and activist Noam Chomsky. — APP

Renowned scholar Professor Noam Chomsky on Thursday said that Islamophobia has taken a “most lethal form” in India, turning some 250 million Indian Muslims into a “persecuted minority”.
“The pathology of Islamophobia is growing throughout the West — it is taking its most lethal form in India,” the famed author and activist, who is also Professor Emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said in a video message to a webinar organised by the Indian American Muslim Council, a Washington-based advocacy organisation.
Apart from Chomsky, several other academics and activists took part in the webinar on “Worsening Hate Speech and Violence in India”.
Chomsky also said that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s right-wing Hindu nationalist regime has sharply escalated the “crimes” in Indian-occupied Kashmir (IoK).

“The crimes in Kashmir have a long history,” he said, adding that the state was now a “brutally occupied territory and its military control in some ways is similar to occupied Palestine”.

The situation in South Asia, Chomsky said, was painful in particular not because of what was happening but because of what was not happening. There was, however, hope and opportunities to solve South Asian torment but not for long, he added.
Annapurna Menon, an Indian author and lecturer at the University of Westminster, urged the international community to focus on the status of press freedom in India as, under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, the situation has become a cause of concern.
“The situation on [the] ground is extremely alarming as four journalists have already been killed in 2022, simply for doing their job,” Menon said, adding journalists, especially women, have been exposed to all kinds of reprisals including harassment, illegal detention, police violence and sedition charges.

“The situation in IoK is even dire, where the journalists routinely face police questioning, ban on reporting, suspension of internet services and financial constraints in line with BJP’s recent ‘media policy’. The family of award-winning Srinagar-based photojournalist Masrat Zahra was subjected to harassment and intimidation by the Indian Police as a crackdown on the press in IoK continues to escalate," she said.

Fahad Shah, a renowned Kashmiri journalist who is the founder and editor of ‘‘The Kashmir Walla’’, was arrested recently by the police in Pulwama under terrorism and sedition laws, Menon pointed out. Similarly, Sajad Gul, another journalist of ‘‘The Kashmir Walla’’, was also arrested at the beginning of February 2022.

John Sifton, Asia Advocacy Director at Human Rights Watch (HRW), said the greatest threat to the Indian constitution was the promotion of majority religion by the Indian government at the expense of minorities.
“BJP and its affiliates are making hateful remarks against Muslims to gain Hindu vote around elections,” he said.

The BJP government had adopted laws and policies that systematically discriminate against religious minorities and other groups and it also stigmatises its critics, the HRW official said. He added the government enacted the ‘Citizenship Act’ to target the minorities, particularly Indian Muslims.
Social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and Tiktok, Sifton said, had failed to control hatred spread through their platforms.

The US Congress, he said, must weigh on the Indian government to convey their concerns vis-a-vis the violation of human and minority rights in India.

Angana Chatterji, an Indian anthropologist and scholar at Berkeley University, California, said prejudices embedded in the government of the ruling Hindu nationalist BJP had infiltrated independent institutions, such as the police and the courts, empowering nationalist groups to threaten, harass and attack religious minorities with impunity.
“Hindu spiritual leaders are involved in [the] ethnic cleansing of Muslims,” she said, adding BJP leaders and affiliated groups have long portrayed minority communities, especially Muslims, as a threat to national security and to the Hindu way of life. They had raised the bogey of “love jihad” claiming that Muslim men lure Hindu women into marriages to convert them to Islam, labelled Muslim immigrants as extremists and accused them of hurting Hindu sentiment over cow slaughter.

Since Yogi Adityanath became Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh (UP) in 2017, Chatterji said the culture of violence and impunity had taken root, pointing out that UP police had carried out hundreds of extra-judicial killings of suspected criminals belonging to minorities, particularly Muslims.

By the time protests against the Citizenship Amendment Bill spilt out on the streets of UP in December 2019, the police manhandled protesters, behaved in a vulgar manner with women, arrested whomsoever it wanted and framed prominent activists in criminal cases, she said.

As hundreds of thousands of farmers of various faiths began protesting against the government’s new farm laws in November 2020, senior BJP leaders, their supporters on social media, and pro-government media blamed the Sikhs as ‘Khalistani terrorists’, Chatterji said.

February 23, 2022, marks the two year anniversary of the communal violence in Delhi that killed 53 people, 40 of them Muslim.
Harsh Mander, a former Indian civil servant and human rights activist, said that while Mahatma Gandhi upheld the principles of non-violence, the Hindu supremacist ideology was currently being propagated by Indian leaders.

“Hate crimes have increased by a thousandfold during [the] BJP regime,” he said. BJP stigmatises and openly incites crimes against minorities, even Mother Teresa had been vilified, he added.

Muslims, Mander said, were falsely projected as bigots, unpatriotic, Jihadis and oppressors, adding that even Modi followed some of the hate mongers and refused to denounce them.
IoK, he said, was the most militarised region of the world.

Nothing to worry. Weapons business is flourishing for the west. So they will just ignore the facts and carry on with their strategic Blunders.

 

[Turingsage]

"Noted philosopher and political activist Noam Chomsky said Pakistan was a "paradigm example of a failed state" that had undergone an "extremely dangerous form of radical Islamisation."

The country was now in danger of "collapsing" as it grappled with rebellion, militancy and extremism that was "getting worse"
Asked to draw a parallel between the situation in Pakistan and the characteristics of a failed state highlighted in his book "Failed States", Chomsky said, "I am afraid to say Pakistan is the paradigm example of a failed state and has been for a long time. It has had military rule, violence and oppression."

Since the 1980s, the country had undergone an extremely dangerous form of radical Islamisation, which had undermined a good part of the society, under the Zia-ul-Haq tyranny, he said.

"Now it is in danger of collapsing, there is a rebellion in Balochistan, the (Federally Administered Tribal Areas) territories are out of control and always have been -- and it is getting worse.
While pointing out that Pakistan could become a true democracy, Chomsky said the country could move to the level of India. "I mean there is a lot wrong with India, horrible things in India, but it is more or less a functioning democracy. Pakistan could move to that level, but, I think, it has to disentangle itself from the domination from the US.

Buisness Standard

 

[Clutch]

Nothing to worry. Weapons business is flourishing for the west. So they will just ignore the facts and carry on with their strategic Blunders.

I'm worried more about the Pakistani Liberals that support the Indian Hindutva that wish to destroy Pakistan.

"Noted philosopher and political activist Noam Chomsky said Pakistan was a "paradigm example of a failed state" that had undergone an "extremely dangerous form of radical Islamisation."

The country was now in danger of "collapsing" as it grappled with rebellion, militancy and extremism that was "getting worse"
Asked to draw a parallel between the situation in Pakistan and the characteristics of a failed state highlighted in his book "Failed States", Chomsky said, "I am afraid to say Pakistan is the paradigm example of a failed state and has been for a long time. It has had military rule, violence and oppression."

Since the 1980s, the country had undergone an extremely dangerous form of radical Islamisation, which had undermined a good part of the society, under the Zia-ul-Haq tyranny, he said.

"Now it is in danger of collapsing, there is a rebellion in Balochistan, the (Federally Administered Tribal Areas) territories are out of control and always have been -- and it is getting worse.
While pointing out that Pakistan could become a true democracy, Chomsky said the country could move to the level of India. "I mean there is a lot wrong with India, horrible things in India, but it is more or less a functioning democracy. Pakistan could move to that level, but, I think, it has to disentangle itself from the domination from the US.

Buisness Standard

Times have changed.... India has turned into the failed country they were predicting about Pakistan. Pakistan on the other hand has turned the course and is on its way to become the grand inheritance of the Moghal Empire and the Indus Civilization.

 

[Zarrar Alvi]

I'm worried more about the Pakistani Liberals that support the Indian Hindutva that wish to destroy Pakistan.



Times have changed.... India has turned into the failed country they were predicting about Pakistan. Pakistan on the other hand has turned the course and is on its way to become the grand inheritance of the Moghal Empire and the Indus Civilization.

Detroy Pakistan ? Nope mate it's not 2008 when the India RAW chief gave 2012 the date of disintegration of Pakistan to the western masters . And guess what we are in 2022. That RAW chief might now be venting his anger on his wife or a Daughter .

 

[Clutch]

Detroy Pakistan ? Nope mate it's not 2008 when the India RAW chief gave 2012 the date of disintegration of Pakistan to the western masters . And guess what we are in 2022. That RAW chief might now be venting his anger on his wife or a Daughter .

I said they wish to... Not what they can do. Big difference between the two.

 

[xuxu1457]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1493146287121715200

 

[satyamev]

Any Indian here can confirm whether this small kids wearing hijab to school is a new thing from this year or it's been ongoing from many years ?
Because in my part of India, don't see any small kids wearing hijab.

 

[Goritoes]

India is doing fine, I hope they continue to do what they are doing, and I hope MODI is replaced by none other than YOGI

 

[Taimoor Khan]

Why telling the half truths? Why not dissecting America own hand in creating this new version of Hindu terrorist state of India? Few days ago, America state department reiterated their "support" to India leadership role in this region! Laughable.

 

[PradoTLC]

India has turned Muslims into a 'persecuted minority': Noam Chomsky​

APPPublished February 12, 2022 - Updated a day ago









45

A file photo of world-renowned scholar, author and activist Noam Chomsky. — APP

Renowned scholar Professor Noam Chomsky on Thursday said that Islamophobia has taken a “most lethal form” in India, turning some 250 million Indian Muslims into a “persecuted minority”.
“The pathology of Islamophobia is growing throughout the West — it is taking its most lethal form in India,” the famed author and activist, who is also Professor Emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said in a video message to a webinar organised by the Indian American Muslim Council, a Washington-based advocacy organisation.
Apart from Chomsky, several other academics and activists took part in the webinar on “Worsening Hate Speech and Violence in India”.
Chomsky also said that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s right-wing Hindu nationalist regime has sharply escalated the “crimes” in Indian-occupied Kashmir (IoK).

“The crimes in Kashmir have a long history,” he said, adding that the state was now a “brutally occupied territory and its military control in some ways is similar to occupied Palestine”.

The situation in South Asia, Chomsky said, was painful in particular not because of what was happening but because of what was not happening. There was, however, hope and opportunities to solve South Asian torment but not for long, he added.
Annapurna Menon, an Indian author and lecturer at the University of Westminster, urged the international community to focus on the status of press freedom in India as, under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, the situation has become a cause of concern.
“The situation on [the] ground is extremely alarming as four journalists have already been killed in 2022, simply for doing their job,” Menon said, adding journalists, especially women, have been exposed to all kinds of reprisals including harassment, illegal detention, police violence and sedition charges.

“The situation in IoK is even dire, where the journalists routinely face police questioning, ban on reporting, suspension of internet services and financial constraints in line with BJP’s recent ‘media policy’. The family of award-winning Srinagar-based photojournalist Masrat Zahra was subjected to harassment and intimidation by the Indian Police as a crackdown on the press in IoK continues to escalate," she said.

Fahad Shah, a renowned Kashmiri journalist who is the founder and editor of ‘‘The Kashmir Walla’’, was arrested recently by the police in Pulwama under terrorism and sedition laws, Menon pointed out. Similarly, Sajad Gul, another journalist of ‘‘The Kashmir Walla’’, was also arrested at the beginning of February 2022.

John Sifton, Asia Advocacy Director at Human Rights Watch (HRW), said the greatest threat to the Indian constitution was the promotion of majority religion by the Indian government at the expense of minorities.
“BJP and its affiliates are making hateful remarks against Muslims to gain Hindu vote around elections,” he said.

The BJP government had adopted laws and policies that systematically discriminate against religious minorities and other groups and it also stigmatises its critics, the HRW official said. He added the government enacted the ‘Citizenship Act’ to target the minorities, particularly Indian Muslims.
Social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and Tiktok, Sifton said, had failed to control hatred spread through their platforms.

The US Congress, he said, must weigh on the Indian government to convey their concerns vis-a-vis the violation of human and minority rights in India.

Angana Chatterji, an Indian anthropologist and scholar at Berkeley University, California, said prejudices embedded in the government of the ruling Hindu nationalist BJP had infiltrated independent institutions, such as the police and the courts, empowering nationalist groups to threaten, harass and attack religious minorities with impunity.
“Hindu spiritual leaders are involved in [the] ethnic cleansing of Muslims,” she said, adding BJP leaders and affiliated groups have long portrayed minority communities, especially Muslims, as a threat to national security and to the Hindu way of life. They had raised the bogey of “love jihad” claiming that Muslim men lure Hindu women into marriages to convert them to Islam, labelled Muslim immigrants as extremists and accused them of hurting Hindu sentiment over cow slaughter.

Since Yogi Adityanath became Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh (UP) in 2017, Chatterji said the culture of violence and impunity had taken root, pointing out that UP police had carried out hundreds of extra-judicial killings of suspected criminals belonging to minorities, particularly Muslims.

By the time protests against the Citizenship Amendment Bill spilt out on the streets of UP in December 2019, the police manhandled protesters, behaved in a vulgar manner with women, arrested whomsoever it wanted and framed prominent activists in criminal cases, she said.

As hundreds of thousands of farmers of various faiths began protesting against the government’s new farm laws in November 2020, senior BJP leaders, their supporters on social media, and pro-government media blamed the Sikhs as ‘Khalistani terrorists’, Chatterji said.

February 23, 2022, marks the two year anniversary of the communal violence in Delhi that killed 53 people, 40 of them Muslim.
Harsh Mander, a former Indian civil servant and human rights activist, said that while Mahatma Gandhi upheld the principles of non-violence, the Hindu supremacist ideology was currently being propagated by Indian leaders.

“Hate crimes have increased by a thousandfold during [the] BJP regime,” he said. BJP stigmatises and openly incites crimes against minorities, even Mother Teresa had been vilified, he added.

Muslims, Mander said, were falsely projected as bigots, unpatriotic, Jihadis and oppressors, adding that even Modi followed some of the hate mongers and refused to denounce them.
IoK, he said, was the most militarised region of the world.

but RSS minded indians on PDF will of course... defend like donkies..


even Farid Zakria has turned around..

 

[Joe Shearer]

I'm worried more about the Pakistani Liberals that support the Indian Hindutva that wish to destroy Pakistan.

I can't think of a single Pakistani liberal who supports Indian Hindutva. Can you name some?

Times have changed.... India has turned into the failed country they were predicting about Pakistan. Pakistan on the other hand has turned the course and is on its way to become the grand inheritance of the Moghal Empire and the Indus Civilization.

Amazing.

 

[313ghazi]

"Noted philosopher and political activist Noam Chomsky said Pakistan was a "paradigm example of a failed state" that had undergone an "extremely dangerous form of radical Islamisation."

The country was now in danger of "collapsing" as it grappled with rebellion, militancy and extremism that was "getting worse"
Asked to draw a parallel between the situation in Pakistan and the characteristics of a failed state highlighted in his book "Failed States", Chomsky said, "I am afraid to say Pakistan is the paradigm example of a failed state and has been for a long time. It has had military rule, violence and oppression."

Since the 1980s, the country had undergone an extremely dangerous form of radical Islamisation, which had undermined a good part of the society, under the Zia-ul-Haq tyranny, he said.

"Now it is in danger of collapsing, there is a rebellion in Balochistan, the (Federally Administered Tribal Areas) territories are out of control and always have been -- and it is getting worse.
While pointing out that Pakistan could become a true democracy, Chomsky said the country could move to the level of India. "I mean there is a lot wrong with India, horrible things in India, but it is more or less a functioning democracy. Pakistan could move to that level, but, I think, it has to disentangle itself from the domination from the US.

Buisness Standard

He wrote that in 2006. Funny how times change. Since then Pakistan has seen the end of military rule, victory in the war on terror, victory in Afghanistan, 3 successful and consecutive transfers of civilian governments.

Meanwhile today he is writing about India becoming a failed state.

Pakistan has had 4 different political parties win power in the last 4 elections. We had three major political parties each capable of winning the next election. It shows the plurality and vibrancy of Pakistani democracy. Meanwhile India has changed into a 1 party facist state, where the government in power is under the influence of the Hindu equivalent of Al Queda.

 

[Vapnope]

Why telling the half truths? Why not dissecting America own hand in creating this new version of Hindu terrorist state of India? Few days ago, America state department reiterated their "support" to India leadership role in this region! Laughable.

Noam Chomsky writes a lot about US. His lectures and books are treasure trove.
@jamahir

 

[jamahir]

Any Indian here can confirm whether this small kids wearing hijab to school is a new thing from this year or it's been ongoing from many years ?
Because in my part of India, don't see any small kids wearing hijab.

A Muslim from India here. During my school and two years of college there was no "hijab" and burqa wearing. All of this is relatively recent.

Noam Chomsky writes a lot about US. His lectures and books are treasure trove.
@jamahir

Though I haven't read a lot by him I will accept what you are saying. I vaguely remember reading one or two articles by him criticizing the Western governments' way of looking at how human society operates.