BJP has made it to the ‘State of The World’s Minorities and Indigenous People 2014’ report for all the wrong reasons. The report, released by Minority Rights Group (MRG) International on 3 July, delves into BJP’s role in the Muzaffarnagar riots in UP in the run-up to the polls. According to a case study on the Muzaffarnagar riots that was part of the report, both Muslim and Jat respondents held BJP responsible for the communal violence.
“India has progressive and significant legislation and policies that protect the rights of its minorities, including national- and state-level minority commissions, SC/ST Act, and reservations for minorities in education and politics. India’s neighbours have not quite managed to secure such broad rights protection at the national level. Still, India has problems implementing its own legislation. SC/ST Acts has provisions for special courts…but few states have established such courts…India has provisions in the penal code which can be used to prosecute hate speech crimes. But widespread entrenched discrimination against minorities and gender discrimination result in the lack of will on behalf of authorities to investigate and prosecute hate crimes and hate speech against minorities,” said Nicole Girard, Asia programme coordinator, MRG and co-author of the South Asia chapter of the report.
COMMUNAL CLASHES EMERGE IN UP
The seething communal tension in Uttar Pradesh is again emerging in the form of small clashes. Post Lok Sabha elections, 13 incidents of communal clashes have left five persons dead and over 100 injured in the state. Though of low intensity, these clashes pose a serious law and order concern in the state, which is yet to recover from the scars of last year’s Muzaffarnagar riots.
Nearly half of these clashes occurred over petty disputes on use of loudspeakers in a religious place or playing of drums and use of firecrackers in processions. A series of similar incidents, after SP government came to power in 2012, had surcharged communal atmosphere which snowballed in the form of large scale riots in Muzaffarnagar.