End Casteism. End hatred against Dalits, Muslims and Christians.
A Government that does not stop the spread of violence is the source of violence.
An invisible fence surrounds India within which concentrated and targeted violence – a holocaust – is happening right now in 2023 in the world’s largest democracy and the US has chosen to honor its leader.
We at Dalit Solidarity Forum in the USA stand today in Washington DC on June 22nd, 2023 with all supporters of a true democracy and ask that President Biden declare that the United States does not support the violence based policies enacted by the Government led by Mr. Modi. He should be questioned on the politically motivated state sponsored genocide happening in India not just under his watch, but under his orchestration.
There is no possibility of Democracy in India without demolishing casteism, violence and hatred against minority communities that the BJP government continues to incite and perpetrate. Even a stray dog enjoys the freedom to walk freely and fearlessly in India, but not Dalits, Muslims, and Christians—whether dead or alive. Our very bodies are considered non-human in India. Minority rights does not exist and our right to live is dead.
Violence has become the order of this democracy. 200 million Muslims, 200 million Dalits, 28 million Christians and over 100 million Adivasis live in fear in India. When millions are targeted for murder, is it not genocide? An invisible fence surrounds India within which concentrated targeted violence is happening right now in 2023 in the world’s largest democracy and the US has chosen to honor its leader. Violence against women and girls has reached the alarming rate of 86 cases daily and in 2021 alone 31, 677 registered cases of rape – unregistered are hundreds. In India, National Crime Records Bureau statistics show that violence against Dalits is on the rise: 139,045 crimes against Dalits in just between 2018 and 2021!! NCRB recorded 46 percent more incidents in 2019 than five years previously. The increase in registered rape cases was even higher at 56 percent. Institutionalized routine hate speech has normalized rape, murder, beatings, public flogging, and lynching of Muslims. As IAMC reports, there have been over 2,900 religious violence cases in the five 5 years. There has been an appalling uptick on attack on Christians between 2016 and 2022 when over 5,000 attacks against Christians were reported. Over 80% of Christians are Dalits as well.
The desire for modesty of Muslim women is weaponized against their dignity and education. Since BJP came to power demolition trucks have been let loose targeting homes and faith spaces of our minority groups, especially Muslims, Dalits and Christians. Rapes, murders, and demolitions are distinctly punitive in nature. India is an environmental disaster zone as well. The government’s Hindutva majoritarian RSS ideology is now a lifestyle that teaches normalization of violating individuals, families, communities, education institutions, justice system and constitutional authorities. Authorities have intensified efforts to silence civil society activists, human rights defenders, and independent journalists by fabricating politicalcriminal charges to jail and murder those on the side of what is right. The BJP government enforces restrictions on foreign funding regulations and harasses human rights groups, and political opponents.
The UN Special rapporteur on Minority Issues 2022, reported the forced evictions, housing and property demolitions directed against the Muslim minority communities in the past months. It is named as “collective and arbitrary punishment against the Muslim minority and low-income communities. UN reports that Dalits have been “the target of choice for the poison of hate and violence propagated by social media platforms.” The international Dalit Solidarity Network states that violence against Dalit women remains unreported and that there is a higher prevalence of gang-rape against Dalit women and girls than in rape cases against women in general.
Mr. Modi holds the torch for Hindutva which is a coercive state of mind that seeks a body host towards a concretization of hate by perpetrating fundamentalist views that some people areborn polluted and therefore their lives do not matter. Hating, murdering, raping a non-Hindutva Hindu, Muslims, Christians, Tribals, Dalits, LGBTQI individuals, women who speak, women, bold women, are all targets of a sociality of hate cheered on as Dharma – one’s religious duty, in the Hindutva tunnel view. Collective work is the need of the hour, and we are all here to show our disapproval of this invitation and honor extended to Mr. Modi by the US government and to demand a public statement by President Biden’s administration condemning the ritualization of genocide happening in India under the Indian Prime Minister’s leadership. A government that does not stop the violence is the source of violence.
We are here today reclaiming the rights of all those being massacred in India. We demand protection for women, children, Dalits, Muslims, Christians, tribals, non-Hindutva Hindus, human rights defenders, scholars, journalists speaking the truth, LGBTQI, and our transgender friends in India. We want the right to live, and to live peacefully. We demand that social, political and economic equality that Dr. Ambedkar fought forand inscribed in the Indian constitution. We stand on a single platform today to build solidarity for a better world where the Hindutva lifestyle of hate and murder has no place.
Dalit Solidarity Forum in the USA works to end casteism, religion and gender-based oppression, and to promote the human rights of Dalits and all peoples.
Statement press Release June 22, 2023