The ordeal did not take long. The quiet of the evening in Bisara, India, was replaced by the clamor of a vicious mob and the screams of a terrified family. The mob came through the door into the home of Mohammad Akhlaq, a Muslim man rumored to have killed a cow and eaten the beef. The crazed mob terrorized and battered the family and then proceeded to drag Mohammad Akhlaq out in the street where they continued their violence by beating him with bricks. The 52-year-old man was murdered by his own neighbors.
A Questionable and Equivocal Response
It has been over two weeks since the murder of Mohammad Akhlaq on September 28th. Several of the individuals directly involved in Akhlaq’s murder have been arrested, but the question remains: To what degree is the Indian government concerned about such incidents?
Over a week passed before Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi made any statements regarding his position on the murder of Mohammad Akhlaq. As if his silence did not speak loudly enough, Prime Minister Modi’s comments lacked substance and arguably framed the incident in a worrisome context. While at an election rally, Modi stated that Hindus and Muslims should seek to fight poverty and not each other, indicating that Akhlaq’s rumored consumption of beef constituted some form of relatively equal grievance against the Hindu population. Modi later went on to call the lynching an “unfortunate and undesirable” incident.
Modi’s delayed and equivocal response to Akhlaq’s murder has drawn criticism at home and abroad. David Saperstein, U.S Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, has urged Modi to work to maintain India’s pluralistic religious culture and “take those ideals and turn them into reality across the whole country.”
Concerns Over the Future of Religious Freedom
The murder of Ahklaq, in conjunction with Modi’s failure to unequivocally condemn it, raises legitimate concerns over the future of religious freedom and communal harmony in India. The 2015 Annual Report by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom reports that persecution and violence against religious minorities, specifically the Muslim, Christian, and Sikh minorities, in India has increased in the last year, since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power. While the violence and persecution has largely been carried out by communities and non-state actors such as those involved in Akhlaq’s murder, the report asserts that the political atmosphere surrounding the BJP’s rise to power has emboldened Hindu fanatics.
Several senior BJP politicians have been either silent about Akhlaq’s murder or made statements which have avoided placing blame on his killers. According to Reuters, Mahesh Sharma, Bisara’s local Member of Parliament and India’s Culture Minister, has called the lynching an “accident.” For religious minorities in India, these events paint a frightening picture about the future of religious freedom in India.
The Need for Religious Freedom
According to Heritage Senior Fellow Lisa Curtis, “India is an important strategic partner and PM [Prime Minister] Modi just completed a highly successful and productive visit to the U.S. However, if PM Modi fails to rein in Hindu fanatics that are disrupting communal harmony in India, he will lose luster with the international community.”
Maintaining good relations with India is of great importance for the U.S. Yet for this partnership to reach its full potential, India needs to maintain communal harmony and enact legal policies and social reforms that support the religious freedom of the Indian people.
