India has been hit by waves of growing religious and social intolerance since Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party was elected 18 months ago. This has flushed out some of the Hindu nationalist party’s most stridently anti-Muslim voices, and has also sharply increased liberal concern about where a Modi-led India is heading.
For the most part, Modi and his fellow ministers have done little to restrain the extremists though, facing the possibility of failing to win the state of Bihar’s current assembly elections, they have been trying to defuse a row over eating beef that has escalated into a national issue.
“Muslims can continue to live in this country, but they will have to give up eating beef,” said Manohar Lal Khattar, who was personally picked by Modi to be chief minister of the BJP-run state of Haryana adjacent to Delhi, last week in the latest of a series of such remarks. He later said he regretted his words, but then the Panchjanya weekly newspaper published by the RSS, the BJP’s ideology-driven parent organization, said that Vedic scriptures ordered the killing of “sinners” who slaughtered cows that are regarded as sacred by Hindus. The agriculture minister has described cow slaughter as a “mortal sin.” Full story...
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For the most part, Modi and his fellow ministers have done little to restrain the extremists though, facing the possibility of failing to win the state of Bihar’s current assembly elections, they have been trying to defuse a row over eating beef that has escalated into a national issue.
“Muslims can continue to live in this country, but they will have to give up eating beef,” said Manohar Lal Khattar, who was personally picked by Modi to be chief minister of the BJP-run state of Haryana adjacent to Delhi, last week in the latest of a series of such remarks. He later said he regretted his words, but then the Panchjanya weekly newspaper published by the RSS, the BJP’s ideology-driven parent organization, said that Vedic scriptures ordered the killing of “sinners” who slaughtered cows that are regarded as sacred by Hindus. The agriculture minister has described cow slaughter as a “mortal sin.” Full story...
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- Near Delhi, mob kills 50-year-old, injures son over ‘rumours’ they ate beef
- We can’t kill cows (in India), but globally lead in beef exports...
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