Burning Their Mosques and Homes: Why Do Hindus Attack Muslims During Ramadan?

Using common tactics seen in the Israeli Occupation of provoking Muslims during Ramadan and restricting their prayer, fanatical Hindus loyal to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) attacked Muslims during Friday prayers and Taraweeh.

Every year, Hindus celebrate what is known as “Rama Navami” on March 30th, a 9-day Hindu festival to celebrate one of their pagan holidays, deliberately passing their religious processions through Muslim-majority areas.

They also deliberately stand in front of mosques, and Hindu nationalist extremists, known as “Hindutva,” demand the expulsion of Muslims and raise their orange flags on the domes of mosques while shouting provocative slogans, leading to violence.

This year, the same scenario was repeated in several villages in the Sasaram region of Bihar state in eastern India, in the deliberate absence of the police. They marched through Muslim areas during Friday prayers on March 31, 2023, performed the same rituals, and shouted racist slogans.

They also attacked Muslims while they were praying taraweeh and chanted Hindu and pagan songs at them. When the Muslims confronted them, they threw incendiary bombs that destroyed their mosques, homes, and shops.

Because they are accustomed to attacking Muslims without any response to their crimes except from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the latter was attacked by the Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

New Delhi strongly criticized the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on April 4, 2023, for criticizing the attacks on Muslims during Hindu processions.

The foreign ministry claimed that the organization showed “an anti-India agenda” because it stated that the violent clashes that erupted during the Hindu religious festival targeted the Muslim community.

The OIC called on the Indian authorities to take firm action against the instigators and perpetrators of these acts.

It also condemned “provocative acts of violence and vandalism,” which were a “vivid manifestation of mounting Islamophobia and systemic targeting of the Muslim community in India.”

 

What Is Happening?

This religious procession, usually led by extremist members of the ruling party and extremist Hindutva youth, seems to be planned to harass Muslims, kill them, and drive them out of India.

Muslims have reported that during the Ram Navami procession, T. Raja Singh, a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party, deliberately stopped the procession in front of the Telangana mosque in Hyderabad and gave a fiery anti-Muslim speech, threatening to kill them, which was documented in a video.

Before that, on March 31, 2023, during Friday prayers, Hindu nationalists stormed the Murarpur mosque, carrying swords and torches, throwing stones at worshipers, and setting it on fire amidst racist chants calling for the expulsion of Muslims from India.

As usual, the complicit police did not intervene and arrived at 11 p.m., although the violence started during Friday prayers, according to Muslim accounts on social media.

Despite Indian social media platforms being filled with videos documenting the barbaric violence of the Hindus, who were carrying swords and torches to burn Muslims and their mosques, Indian newspapers claimed that it was Muslims who attacked the procession when it passed through their areas.

An Imam confirmed that the Hindu thugs also burned down an Islamic Madrasa in Bihar Sharif and killed a Muslim, as well as a historical library containing Quran copies and more than 4,500 books on Islamic literature during their sectarian violence, according to The Hindu newspaper on April 3, 2023.

Mohammad Shahabuddin, the mosque’s imam and head of the Madrasa, confirmed that an armed mob of about a thousand people (Hindus) set fire to the Madrasa’s library, which is 110 years old and contains more than 4,500 books.

Many of the Islamic shops, houses, cars, and cemeteries in India were burned and looted, according to local residents’ testimony, who accused the governor and deputy governor of supporting extremists in the presence of the police.

Muslims in the Nainital area of Uttarakhand state also protested against the Indian police due to four attacks on them during Ramadan so far while they were praying Taraweeh prayers. The protesters accused the police of being complicit in the attacks.

 

Official Recognition

To indicate that violence is directed against Muslims, the Prime Minister of the state of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee, urged Hindus to “protect the safety of Muslims” after the sectarian clashes against them escalated, according to the Indian Maktoob Media website on April 3, 2023.

Banerjee urged Hindus to “ensure that minorities are not tortured,” referring to Muslims, and not to attack them during another Hindu festival (Hanuman Jayanti), which started on April 6, amid fears of a new wave of violence against Muslims.

Also, the President of the Congress Party (Mahatma Gandhi’s Party) accused “some individuals carrying weapons and bombs of deliberately leading the Ram Navami procession in Muslim areas to incite violence” even after the festival had ended, according to Maktoob Media website.

The violence against Muslims spread to several places on April 3, 2023, including the Hooghly area in West Bengal, and several pockets in the Rishra area turned into battlefields after clashes during the Ram Navami procession there.

The Hindustan Times newspaper reported that the clashes had spread to Maharashtra, West Bengal, Delhi, Gujarat, Telangana, and Uttar Pradesh, and dozens were injured during the Ram Navami processions on March 30 and 31, 2023, and 54 people were arrested.

The Indian website Scroll.in confirmed on March 31, 2023, that this year’s violence is a copy of every year’s incidents in several states against Muslims during the Ram Navami festival.

It confirmed that following the events of 2022, the authorities demolished commercial shops and buildings owned by those “accused” of violence (most of whom are Muslims who were falsely charged by the police despite being attacked).

The Himalayan Post newspaper on April 2, 2023, stated that sectarian violence against Muslims in India during Ramadan is a continuation of the same violence for the second year in a row during the passage of Hindu religious processions near mosques.

It referred to accusations by Muslim residents against the extremist Hindu gang Hindutva of targeting Muslim properties and mosques in the city, and the police claimed that both groups were involved in the clashes.

She stated that Hindu violence involves playing loud music outside mosques (to disrupt Muslim prayers), burning cars, delivering inciting speeches, throwing stones, raising the saffron-colored Hindu flag on mosque domes, brandishing swords and guns, and chanting collective slogans calling for killing.

She also pointed to the repetition of the same scenario during Ramadan 2022, when the police refused permission for Friday prayers while the “Ram Navami” procession passed through the Jahangirpuri area in north-west Delhi, resulting in severe sectarian violence at the time.

 

Advocates of Islamic Supremacy!

Despite this, Hindu newspapers and channels tried to portray that it was the Muslims, whom they described as “advocates of Islamic supremacy,” who attacked Hindus during their religious procession and then burned their shops, according to the OpIndia newspaper on April 4, 2023.

Following the first day of Hindu attacks, on March 31, the newspaper claimed that “Islamist advocates of Islamic supremacy” led the attacks on Ram Navami processions because it has become a symbol of modern Hindu resistance. They alleged that the procession was attacked because it was a celebration of Rama, one of the most revered gods in Hinduism, as the strongest symbol of modern Hindu revival against Islamic supremacy, Western decadence, and Eastern orthodoxy, according to the newspaper.

They accused “Islamists” of attacking Ram Navami processions as they passed through Muslim-majority areas in seven locations, pelting them with stones.

The newspaper claimed that after “Christian colonization and centuries of tyranny under Islamic thieves, many Indian thinkers and reformers sought to revive Hinduism, leading to the emergence of the concept of modern Hindu revival, with Rama as its symbol. Therefore, Muslims attack his procession.”

It claimed that “the ultimate motive of Islamic extremists is to remove India from its Hindu roots that date back thousands of years and turn it into a house of Islam.”

For more than two years, India has been witnessing widespread persecution and violence against Muslims, behind which are extremist Hindu militias following the racist Hindutva ideology, according to Indian human rights organizations.

These organizations said that this ideology, embraced by the country’s leadership represented by the Bharatiya Janata Party, aims to discriminate against Hindus from the rest of the minorities in India.

Throughout the holy month, extremist Hindu groups carry out well-prepared attacks against mosques, Muslim homes, and shops, chanting saffron songs that call for their killing and expulsion from the country.

This came in simulation and application of a nationality law issued by the government in 2019, which undermined the secular Indian constitution by allowing the exclusion of Muslims from citizenship.

 

Festivals of Violence

On April 5, 2023, the organization Human Rights Watch accused the ruling Hindu nationalist party, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), of using Hindu festivals to incite violence against Muslims. The organization stated that the ruling party is increasingly exploiting religious festivals to rally its supporters to engage in violence and incitement against Muslims, calling on authorities to investigate the violations and hold the perpetrators accountable.

Human Rights Watch affirmed that what encourages Hindu protesters to commit violence against Muslims is their sense of political protection that grants them impunity, referring to the BJP’s role in the ongoing violations. The human rights organization further noted that records have shown that Muslims are usually unjustly targeted by the authorities.

The organization cited the BJP’s failure to deter Hindu incitement and attacks, and instead punished targeted Muslims by demolishing their properties, arresting them, or publicly flogging them.

Human Rights Watch condemned the Hindu’s brandishing of weapons and chanting anti-Muslim slogans when passing through Muslim neighborhoods during Hindu religious festivals. The latest was the Ram Navami festival, which coincided with the holy month of Ramadan this year.

Human Rights Watch further described the recent sectarian violence that broke out in the eastern state of Bihar, which resulted in the injury and arrest of dozens, as Hindu mobs set fire to the more than century-old Madrasa Azizia.

Human Rights Watch described India as a country with a “dictatorial rule” due to the increasing violence against minorities and the suppression of Muslim civilians.