Crushing Dissent: 2021 Status Report on Human Rights in India
Prepared and released by Indian American Muslim Council Compendium- Crushing Dissent: 2021 Status Report on Human Rights in India Download Report https://issuu.com/iamc.com/docs/compendium-crushing_dissent_-_final_pdf?fr=sMWZhZjI2NzM2ODE
Leading Indian American Organizations, Activists Urge Indian Supreme Court to Give Bail to Sanjiv Bhatt
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 18, 2021 The Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC), an advocacy group dedicated to safeguarding India’s pluralist and tolerant ethos, and Hindus for Human Rights (HfHR), which is committed to the ideals of multi-religious pluralism in the United States, India and beyond, along with leading politicians, civil rights activists and organizations from India and the US today urged India’s Supreme Court in an online press conference to grant immediate bail to former police officer Sanjiv Bhatt, calling his conviction in a murder case
India’s experience has lessons for U.S. democracy
Just as in the Babri Masjid situation, initially it appears as if the shock of the Capitol assaults may reverse the trend of white supremacy that President-elect Joseph Biden and others have called domestic terrorism. But when Congress reconvened, more than half the Republican members of Congress and eight senators voted not to certify the electoral college vote, thus perpetuating a canard. The National Republican Convention reelected the same folks who have been carrying water for Trump, amplifying and perpetuating his half-truths and outright
Gandhi, History, and the Lessons of the Events at the Capitol
The rapid decline of American newspapers is robbing us of, among many other things, classic headlines. It took the Times of India—in what remains the world’s great newspaper nation—to really capture the events at the U.S. Capitol last week: “Coup Klux Klan,” it blazed across its front page, communicating the sense of giddy white entitlement, like a picnic at a lynching, that gave the event its distinctive and disgusting tone. Maybe it’s just easier to see reality from a distance. We’re so used to the background noise of
The Trials and Tribulations of Being a Muslim in Today’s India – By N.C. Asthana
….As the communal divide deepens with every passing day, Muslims in today's India have a lot to despair about and much more to be afraid of. …. I lament that the venom of hatred has become the lifeblood coursing through the veins of our body politic…. It is much easier to hate and be jealous of someone than to be kind and love them. The 'beast within the collective subconscious of the people' has been awakened and made to unleash all its fury without any
In Assam village, BJP MLAs target Muslims in NRC; label them “illegal settlers,” government demolishes homes – By Mahibul Hoque
On 20 October, the administration of Assam's Sonitpur district demolished the houses of 64 Muslim families in Bharasingri village, rendering more than 500 people homeless amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Residents of Bharasingri said that Assam police, as well as various paramilitaries and the administration entered the village, evicted them from their homes and used JCBs to level their houses. The demolition was preceded by a campaign by the Bharatiya Janata Party accusing the villagers of being "illegal Bangladeshis," despite all of them featuring in
How Official Investigative Agencies in Gujarat Spied on a Young Architect for ‘Saheb’ – By Ashish Khetan
In September 2013,… a source handed me a pen drive. It contained hundreds of recorded telephone conversations between Amit Shah - who was minister of state for home in the Gujarat government, working directly with then home minister [and chief minister Narendra] Modi - and G.L. Singhal, a high-profile Gujarat IPS officer…. The tapes in the pen drive offered a close and unsettling encounter with the paranoid Modi model of governance, in which everyone was being watched, all the time…. It was all methodically
India’s human rights defenders deserve EU support – By Hannah Neumann and Alviina Alametsä
…. The civic space in India has been squeezed tighter from all directions over the past couple of years. Human rights defenders, religious minorities, and government critics have all been under pressure from several vaguely defined laws - including counter terrorism legislations - that are used to suppress them. India's recently amended Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) is expected to become another nail in the coffin of advocacy-based human rights organisations in the country. Most recently, Amnesty International had to close its operations in
In the Cold and Rain, India’s Farmers Press Their Stand Against Modi – By Mujib Mashal and Karan Deep Singh
….For six weeks now, tens of thousands of farmers have choked the city's four main entry points. They are challenging Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has crushed all other opposition and stands as the country's dominant political force, over his effort to reshape how farming in India has been done for decades. The protests have snarled business across northern India at a time when the country's economy is already ailing. The protesters are demanding that Mr. Modi repeal recent farming laws that would minimize