As India draws growing international scrutiny over treatment of Muslims, American scholar Noam Chomsky has said Islamophobia has taken a “most lethal form” in the South Asian country, turning some 250 million Indian Muslims into a “persecuted minority.
Chomsky, known for his incisive criticism of human rights violations around the world, also took a swipe at the Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, holding it responsible for escalating the crimes in the disputed Kashmir region.
“The pathology of Islamophobia is growing throughout the West — It is taking its most lethal form in India,” the 92-year-old Professor Emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) said.
He recorded his remarks in a video message for a webinar organized by Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC), a Washington-based advocacy organization.
This week radical Hindu activists’ opposition to the Muslim girl’s wearing hijab in educational institutions has also rocked India, the second largest population with a diversity of communities. But since 2014, when Modi took over, the country has alienated its minorities, particularly Muslims and Sikhs, with a series of policy decisions including abrogation of Kashmir’s independent status and a hardline attitude toward Punjab’s protesting farmers.
In the video message, Chomsky noted that the “crimes in Kashmir have a long history,” but added that the state was now a “brutally occupied territory and its military control in some ways is similar to occupied Palestine.”
Indian ruling party BJP officials openly court views against Muslims but the government has rejected the charges that it discriminates against any minority.
Meanwhile, a U.S. official, Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Rashad Hussain has reminded India that religious freedom includes the ability to choose one’s religious attire.
“The Indian state of Karnataka should not determine permissibility of religious clothing. Hijab bans in schools violate religious freedom and stigmatize and marginalize women and girls,” the U.S. official said.
In New Delhi, the Indian External Affairs Ministry called the U.S. official’s remarks as “motivated comments” and that such comments on internal matters was not welcome.
“Our constitutional framework and mechanisms, as well as our democratic ethos and polity, are the context in which issues are considered and resolved,” added Arindam Bagchi, the spokesperson of Union external affairs ministry. “Those who know India well would have a proper appreciation of these realities.”
