Marching Towards Murder in Modi’s India
Genocide Watch, having clearly defined the stages to genocide, has called India out for carrying out one against the Muslim minority. With a global organization’s warning of an impending genocide, it is imperative to hold India accountable for its unchecked actions.
Genocide isn’t an event. Members of a nation, race or religion don’t wake up one fine morning and decide to eliminate an entire group of people. No; genocide is a process, and like every process it has certain stages – ten to be exact if we go by the steps listed by an organization known as Genocide Watch (GW) which “exists to predict, prevent, stop, and punish genocide and other forms of mass murder.” Their credentials are impressive: Genocide Watch was founded by Dr. Gregory H. Stanton in 1999. Stanton was a research professor in genocide studies and prevention and was the founder and director of the Cambodian Genocide Project. Apart from having served as the president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, he has also drafted the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions that created the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. This partial, yet lengthy, introduction means that when Stanton and his organization send a warning about an impending genocide, it should be taken seriously.
In January of this year, Stanton spoke before a U.S. Congressional briefing titled ‘Call for genocide of Indian Muslims’, which was organized by the Indian American Muslim Council, and warned that what happened in Rwanda, where Hutu extremists murdered hundreds of thousands of Tutsis, could easily happen in India. This isn’t the first warning he has given; Stanton first warned of an impending genocide in India after the 2002 Gujarat riots and then issued a genocide alert in December 2020 saying that under the rule of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India had ‘worsened anti-muslim violence and caste oppression’ and that India was rapidly progressing through the stages of genocide. As per GW, the ten stages of Genocide are: Classification, in which populations are polarized and divided into ‘us and them’ on the basis of ethnicity, race or religion. We can see that this is certainly the case in India. Then there is Symbolization, in which names or symbols are attached to the classifications and this too is rampant. The third stage is Discrimination, in which ‘A dominant group uses law, customs, and political power to deny the rights of other groups.’ Then comes Dehumanization, in which members of the target group are ‘equated with animals, vermin, insects or diseases’ thus overcoming ‘the normal human revulsion against murder.’ At this stage,’ writes Genocide Watch, hate propaganda in print, on radios, and social media is used to vilify the victim group. It may even be incorporated into school textbooks. Indoctrination prepares the way for incitement. The majority group is taught to regard the other group as less than human, and even alien to their society.’
In January of this year, Stanton spoke before a U.S. Congressional briefing titled ‘Call for genocide of Indian Muslims’, which was organized by the Indian American Muslim Council, and warned that what happened in Rwanda, where Hutu extremists murdered hundreds of thousands of Tutsis, could easily happen in India.
If you see what has been happening in India since Modi came to power – the Gujarat riots were a test case/prelude for the overall strategy now in place on a state level – it becomes clear that nearly all of the stages of genocide are in process. Note that this isn’t the Holocaust, or at least not yet, and there are no death camps or crematoriums in operation. This is more of a slow-motion genocide, one that will be carried out over the years and maybe decades.
Stage five is Organization, without which no genocide is possible, and this is usually done at a state level. In India, GW points out, this is largely the domain of mobs led by the local RSS (and affiliates’) leaders, though of course one must add that such ‘informal’ organizations would not be truly effective without state cover and support as was seen in the Delhi riots where the local police generally turned a blind eye to anti-Muslim pogroms where it did not actually support the attackers.
Then comes Polarisation in which, having progressed through the previous stages, extremists make sure that the target groups and the majority are driven further apart and laws are introduced to forbid intermarriage or social interaction. In this stage “The dominant group passes emergency laws or decrees that grants them total power over the targeted group. The laws erode fundamental civil rights and liberties. Targeted groups are disarmed to make them incapable of self-defense, and to ensure that the dominant group has total control.”
After this, there is Preparation, where the ‘final solution’ is planned. Here euphemisms come into play where murderous goals are ‘sanitized’ by referring to them as ethnic cleansing, defence of culture, or purification. Mobs and militias are armed and the population is indoctrinated. Following this is Persecution and Extermination and then, when its all over, there is Denial. Here the evidence is destroyed and the victims are blamed.
Having read this list, also note that according to GW “The process is not linear. Stages may occur simultaneously. Each stage is itself a process. Logically, later stages are preceded by earlier stages. But all stages continue to operate throughout the process.”
In India we have none other than Amit Shah himself refer to Muslims as ‘termites’ who need to be crushed. The founder of RSS, Dr. Hedgewar, also famously referred to Muslims as ‘snakes’. This is, of course, by design. It is meant to overcome the natural revulsion a human being feels when asked to murder another human being. Thus, you must first rob the target of his or her humanity itself.
When it comes to the outright hate-mongering propaganda channels like OpIndia, this is the actual editorial policy: as per a former employee of OpIndia, “If the accused in an incident belongs to the Muslim community, then you have to mention his name in the heading. The news is to be published in such a way that if the reader is a Hindu, then he starts developing hatred for Muslims.”
And now, if you see what has been happening in India since Modi came to power – the Gujarat riots were a test case/prelude for the overall strategy now in place on a state level – it becomes clear that nearly all of the stages of genocide are in process. Note that this isn’t the Holocaust, or at least not yet, and there are no death camps or crematoriums in operation. This is more of a slow-motion genocide, one that will be carried out over the years and maybe decades. It is a process of cultural elimination, economic marginalization, and constant, continuous demonization from the highest officials of the state, aided by a subservient and equally rabid media. And of course, it will be, and is being, punctuated with sporadic pogroms and massacres. All this is visible: individuals are beaten and lynched on the slightest provocation and the attackers proudly record their crimes to display on social media where they are cheered on by the fellow adherents of this poisonous ideology. The examples of this are already too many to count, and that too is part of the plan: to increase the frequency of atrocity and repression to the extent that it becomes ‘normal’.
Dr. Stanton compared the situation developing in India to the prelude to the Rwandan genocide, and here there are clear parallels not only with Rwanda but also Nazi Germany. One is the campaign of dehumanization: in Nazi Germany, print media was widely used to label Jews as rats and vermin. In Rwanda, the preferred medium was radio, where the targeted Tutsis were called ‘cockroaches.’ In India we have none other than Amit Shah himself refer to Muslims as ‘termites’ who need to be crushed. The founder of RSS, Dr. Hedgewar, also famously referred to Muslims as ‘snakes’. This is, of course, by design. It is meant to overcome the natural revulsion a human being feels when asked to murder another human being.
Thus, you must first rob the target of his or her humanity itself.
The other parallel is the laying of historical blame: In both Nazi Germany and Rwanda, the target populations were made to bear the entire burden of the (often manufactured or exaggerated) misdeed of their ancestors. The same is seen in India where the Mughals are maligned to such an extent that actual historians, who attempt to set the record straight, are hounded and vilified. Then, the entire Muslim population is made answerable for those said misdeeds. This tallies with attempts to paint the target population as ‘foreign’ and ‘alien’ and often part of a conspiracy against the majority. In Germany, the Jews were accused of being behind an international conspiracy to destroy Germany and the White race. In Rwanda, the Tutsis were accused of being proxies of the Belgian colonists. Again, the same is being systematically done in India.
Another common thread is the creation of a constant state of hysteria to convince the majority population that the target group is out to destroy them: this is achieved by highlighting isolated crimes and presenting them as attacks by the target group on the majority. In Rwanda, this was achieved by only highlighting crimes and attacks by Tutsi criminals which were then tested and spun in such a way as to make it seem that the Hutus faced an imminent threat from the Tutsis. In India, this job is done through mainstream and social media, where fake news that is to the detriment of the Muslim population is breathlessly reported with no concern for the veracity of the information. When it comes to the outright hate-mongering propaganda, channels like
OpIndia, this is the actual editorial policy: as per a former employee of
OpIndia, “If the accused in an incident belongs to the Muslim community, then you have to mention his name in the heading. The news is to be published in such a way that if the reader is a Hindu, then he starts developing hatred for Muslims.”
An example of how this is done is when a doctor in Hyderabad was raped and murdered and, while three of the four criminals were Hindu,
OpIndia only named and highlighted the one Muslim killer, Muhammad Pasha.
As for social media, a recent investigation by
The Wire revealed the existence of a ‘secret’ app called Tek Fogg which was used by the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) IT cell to manipulate trends, highlight hateful narratives, and create and spread fake news across many social media platforms. In particular it was also used to target critics of the BJP government’s policies with death and rape threats.
Songs too play a role and in Rwanda; the musical background for the genocide was provided by singers like Simon Bikindi, popularizing lyrics that commanded “Kill the cockroaches if they are against Hutus,” and “the motherland (Rwanda) belongs only to Hutus, everyone else is a parasite”. Again, in India, we also see that similar songs are gaining popularity such as Vuran Bahar’s hate anthem which recently went viral and contains lyrics like “Those who refuse to chant
Jai Sri Ram will be sent to the graveyard”.
And while the immediate and most visible targets of this campaign are Muslims, it is also intended to send a larger signal. Writing on India’s new genocidalist direction, Arjun Appadurai says: “The campaign to terrorise Muslims by calls for their genocide is a signal to the farmers, Dalits and other resisting groups to be careful, lest they also become objects of genocidalism. The other prong is a recruitment strategy, to draw members of these groups into the Hindutva umbrella by giving them active roles in the new genocidalism. This dual strategy is intended to regulate the speed with which the genocidal machinery needs to be ratcheted up, while also providing some of the labour needs for the genocidal project wherever possible.”
One can still hope that better sense prevails, but if history is any guide then this can only end in blood and slaughter. And, before the rest of the world wrings its hands and says there was no way they could have known what was going to happen, let it be stated on the record that they were warned repeatedly and did nothing.
The writer has worked extensively in Pakistan's print and electronic media and is currently hosting a talk show on a private TV channel.
E-mail:
zarrar.khuhro@gmail.com
Genocide Watch, having clearly defined the stages to genocide, has called India out for carrying out one against the Muslim minority. With a global organization’s warning of an impending genocide, it is imperative to hold India accountable for its unchecked actions. Genocide isn’t an event...
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