In an open letter, IIM students and faculty members request PM Narendra Modi to speak up against hate and caste-based violence in India.
The IIM students and faculty wrote the letter in light of the recent virulent Haridwar Dharam Sansad event where some Hindu religious leaders urged people to take up arms against Muslims and called for genocide by asking the people that 100 Hindus should kill 20 million Muslims.
They wrote: “Hate speeches and calls for violence against communities based on religion/caste identities are unacceptable,” the letter said.
“There is a sense of fear in our country now – places of worship, including churches in recent days, are being vandalised, and there have been calls to take arms against our Muslim brothers and sisters. All of this is carried out with impunity and without any fear of the due process,” they wrote.
“Your silence, Honourable Prime Minister, emboldens the hate-filled voices and threatens the unity and integrity of our country. We request you, Honourable Prime Minister, to stand firm against forces that seek to divide us,” the students and the faculty said in their letter.
The signatories said that the PM’s silence on these issues was emboldening the hate-filled voices.
The letter was signed by 183 signatories, including 13 faculty members, students and faculty members of IIM-Ahmedabad and IIM-Bangalore (Indian Institute of Management).
At the Haridwar event, a Hindu religious leader – Sant Kalicharan Maharaj – said that the aim of Islam was to capture the nation through politics.
In the controversial speech, clips of which have gone viral, Kalicharan Maharaj also urged people to elect a “staunch Hindu leader” to “protect” Hinduism.
More alarming was some of the members in the event are seen linked to the political ruling party, BJP, and the prime minister’s silence through all this set an eerie note through the nation. Nothing has stopped and there is daily violence on the streets with most of the right-wing Hindu nationalists denying anything is wrong.
What makes it more sinister is India is declared one of the world’s biggest democracies yet all these anti-democratic moves are happening against minorities with over 500 attacks on Christians in the year 2021, Christians beaten and even killed, and churches vandalized and regular lynching of Muslims, the situation is very grim.