Researchers Express Concern Over Islamophobic Wave in India

Researchers, activists, and former top bureaucrats have expressed concern at the growing wave of Islamophobia in India, which is home to 10.9% of the world’s Muslim population.

According to Pew Research Center, India hosts 213 million Muslims, which make up 15.5% of its 1.38 billion population.

Asim Ali, a political researcher at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR), a New Delhi-based think tank, said that the rise in anti-Muslim mobilization, hate speeches, communal agitations, mob violence, is an outcome of a facilitative atmosphere created by the ruling Hindu rightist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

He said that it was not a question of silence by the ruling class but at times its complicity in this anti-Muslim mobilization by Hindu extremist groups.

Recently a group of 108 former top bureaucrats sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s intervention to stop the anti-Muslim mobilization.

Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also cautioned against the rising hate politics in the country.

“India can be the fulcrum of this new global order, as a peaceful democracy with economic prosperity. But this requires India to first stem the raging communal divisions within,” said Singh.