India: Is politics fueling attacks on Muslims?

On Tuesday, April 26 at 19:30GMT:
A wave of violent attacks on India’s Muslim population has the community on edge. In recent weeks, hundreds of people have been injured and a handful killed as part of a rise in communal violence across the country.

Last week a number of Muslim-owned shops were razed in New Delhi before bulldozers were ordered to stop by India’s Supreme Court. Officials say they were targeting illegal buildings and not any particular religious group.

But critics say it is the latest attempt to harass India’s Muslim minority, which makes up roughly 14 percent of the country’s 1.4 billion population. The Hindu majority accounts for 80 percent.

Human Rights observers say recent incendiary rhetoric by politicians from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is helping fuel the country’s growing religious polarisation. However, India’s Minority Affairs Minister has tried to play down the recent upheaval by saying religious intolerance isn’t worsening in the country.

On this episode of The Stream we discuss what’s causing the violence and what can be done to bring about peace.

In this episode of The Stream, we are joined by:
Arfa Khanum Sherwani, @khanumarfa
Senior Editor, The Wire

Kavita Krishnan, @kavita_krishnan
Secretary, All India Progressive Women’s Association