Against Indian Constitution, Gujarat Makes Hindu Prayers, Holy Text Mandatory Learning For Grades 6-12; Muslims Object
Further drawing India away from the secularist values of the Constitution, Gujarat state’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government has made the Bhagavad Gita, a Hindu holy text, a part of school curriculums for grades 6-12. This includes teaching the Bhagavad Gita through having students recite Hindu devotional poems and take part in Hindu prayers, leading Muslim leaders to object.
Jamiat Ulama-E-Hind, an organization of Indian Muslim scholars, has filed a petition in the Gujarat High Court challenging the Hinducentric agenda of the resolution.
“Indian culture comprises a vast array of what it comprises. The submission before the court is that there is no question of giving primacy to the religious book of one religion for stating that the values and principles as prescribed in that book alone shall be taught,” said lawyer Mihir Joshi, representing Jamiat Ulama-E-Hind.
Joshi also stated that Articles 25 and 28 of the Constitution “provide for the freedom of conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of religion, and directives that no religious instructions shall be provided in a state-run educational institution.”
While Supreme Court Grants Fact-Checker & Journalist Mohammed Zubair’s Interim Bail, Zubair Remains In Police Custody
The Supreme Court has granted interim bail for Mohammed Zubair, a Muslim journalist who is the co-founder of the fact-checking news site AltNews, in a case registered against him by a Hindu extremist who took issue with Zubair calling vocal and violent Hindu supremacist leaders “hate mongers.”
However, this does not impact Zubair’s freedom, as he remains imprisoned by Delhi police in yet another case in which he was accused of “hurting religious sentiments” over a 2018 tweet of a Bollywood movie screenshot.
The Court has also listed a plea filed by Zubair challenging the Uttar Pradesh state High Court’s refusal to quash the case against him, despite the fact that Zubair had correctly attached the label of hate-monger to Bajrang Muni Udasin, who threatened to drag Muslim women out of their homes and rape them in public; Yati Narsinghanand, who called upon Hindus to wage war against Muslims; and Swami Anand Swarup, who urged Hindus to boycott and “pick up swords and guns” against Muslims.
Zubair is currently battling four sets of frivolous charges filed by Hindu extremists in retaliation for his fact-checking and vocal stance against Modi: One for tweeting a Bollywood screenshot, one for false money laundering allegations, one for naming Hindu extremist leaders as hate-mongers, and one for exposing fake news.
Hindu Extremists Assault Muslim Man, Force Him To Chant Hindu Nationalist Slogans
Hindu extremists in Uttar Pradesh state physically and verbally assaulted Mubeen Qureshi, a Muslim man, and then uploaded a video of the attack to social media. Qureshi reported that a group of extremists grabbed him by his beard, called him anti-national, and forced him to chant nationalistic slogans.
The Hindu extremists also used genocidal threats, saying, “We won’t let you [Muslims] live in this country now. We will erase you from here now.”
“I had gone to the fields when a group of men stopped me and started hurling slurs and manhandling me. They made me chant slogans and recorded the video…. They uploaded the video later and the whole village saw it,” Mubeen said.
“Why were they behaving like this with me? We are from the same village. We know each other,” he added.
According to the police report, the Hindu extremists attacked because they blamed the entire Muslim community for the brutal murder of Kanhaiya Lal, a tailor who was beheaded by Muslim extremists for supporting former BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma’s blasphemous comments about Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).
Two of the attackers have been arrested following Qureshi’s complaint.
