Mosques along Hindu procession route concealed with cloth sheets
In a bigoted move, authorities in Uttarakhand’s Haridwar hid two mosques and a Muslim shrine along the route of a Hindu procession in Uttarakhand’s Haridwar with large white sheets. The administration claimed that the measure was taken to prevent any hurt to the sentiments of Hindu devotees. The sheets were removed later in the day after widespread backlash.
Earlier this month, authorities directed eateries along the Hindu procession’s route to display their owners’ names outside the establishments as a way to show their religious identity.
Scholar gets university notice for citing Noam Chomsky’s criticism of Modi in PhD proposal
An international university in Delhi issued a notice to an Indian scholar for citing renowned American intellectual Naom Chomsky’s criticism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his doctoral research proposal.
The university also initiated a disciplinary inquiry against the scholar’s supervisor, who has now resigned.
The scholar quoted a 2021 interview of Chomsky, in which he said that Modi came from a “radical Hindutva tradition” and was trying to “dismantle Indian secular democracy” and “impose Hindu technocracy.”
Modi’s critics have accused his party of turning India’s educational institutions into ideological battlegrounds amid concerns about declining academic freedom.
Hindu extremist leader urges Hindu men to convert Muslim women to Hinduism
In Agra, Uttar Pradesh, a Hindu extremist leader urged Hindu men to lure Muslim women into converting to Hinduism, a bigoted and sexist demand that calls on Hindus to act on the conspiracy theory of “love jihad.”
“The answer to love jihad is love jihad. If they convert one Hindu girl to Islam then you have to convert four,” he told the crowd.
Hindus supremacists forcibly disrupt Christian event over baseless allegations
In Vellore, Tamil Nadu, Hindu supremacists disrupted and stopped an event organized by local Christians over baseless allegations that they were forcibly converting Hindus to Christianity.
Attacks on Christians have become common under several Indian states’ draconian anti-conversion laws, which criminalize conversion away from Hinduism. D.C.-based human rights group International Christian Concern has named India among the top 10 countries persecuting Christians in its 2023 Persecutors of the Year Report.
