Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
People gathered and protested against anti-Muslim amendment bill.
BY ADITI PARASHAR ’22
In the wake of months of protesting after the passage of the Citizenship Amendment bill on Dec. 8, 2019, Delhi, the capital of India, saw communal unrest and anti-Muslim riots from Feb. 23 to Feb. 26. The death toll went up to 46 with more than 250 injured. The Delhi Police arrested or detained up to 630 people. The unrest was centered around northeast Muslim-majority neighborhoods in Delhi, such as Mustafabad and Jaffrabad, among others.
The New York Times reported that Kapil Mishra — a legislator for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party — made a speech on Feb. 23 to a group of female activists who were protesting against the new Citizenship Amendment Bill, which is seen as discriminatory towards Muslims. Mishra directed his speech to the Delhi Police and gave them an ultimatum: either the police would clear out the demonstrators who were blocking a main road or he and his followers would handle it.
The next day, the violence began. A month-long sit-in protest was tear-gassed by the Delhi Police. Mobs carrying iron rods, stones and saffron flags entered Muslim-majority neighborhoods and started setting fire to Muslim owned shops and homes.
The violence continued on Feb. 25. Journalists shared their experiences on Twitter, including one journalist who was shot during an attack. Others reported that they were asked to demonstrate whether or not they were circumcised, in order to determine their religious identity. A minaret was desecrated at a mosque in Ashok Nagar and a Hanuman flag was placed at the top. Mobs burnt the mosque and could be heard parading and shouting, according to India Today.
“Many news reports are calling the recent riots in Delhi ‘clashes,’ but Muslims defending their homes, shops and people from harm is not the same as a clash,” Kusha Chopra ’21 said. “What happened in Delhi was a pogrom. The mob was clearly targeting a single religious identity and causing harm to them in a systematic manner with the police doing nothing to stop them.”
Several reports claimed that, amid the raging violence, police officers either stood on watching or, in some cases, helped the mob. Online videos have shown police officers breaking CCTV cameras and helping the mob collect stones for pelting. In one instance, uniformed officers can be seen attacking five injured men lying on the road and forcing them to sing the national anthem. An investigation by NDTV shows that police received 13,200 distress calls during the four days of violence. However, in the police registers reviewed by the NDTV team, the column for action taken was blank.
Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of the country, did not release statements about the violence. Continued violence coincided with President Donald Trump’s State visit to India. Once Trump left, the Prime Minister tweeted, “peace and harmony are central to our ethos.”
“I think it’s clear that what a foreign State head thinks about our country is more important to our current government than actual Muslim lives,” Shreya Nair ’22 said. “The photos and videos I’ve seen on social media have broken my heart in a way I didn’t think possible. Our government has taken a stand that perfectly aligns with their Hindu Rashtra ideology and I’m not surprised.”