"BJP leader Giriraj Singh landed in a fresh controversy today with his remarks that terrorists belong to a particular community and termed it as "naked example of pseudo secularism" when secular leaders remain silent on the issue, drawing sharp retorts from political parties..." See also Terror data give the lie to Giriraj Singh’s slur (The Hindu, 15 May 2014).
"Why is the support of upper castes for the BJP secular, but that of Muslims for any party communal?... it isn't just the Muslims who are subjected to vacuous media representations. You hear of Dalit consolidation, OBC consolidation , and, occasionally, even Jat consolidation. But you never read about upper caste consolidation, presumably because their wisdom is nonpareil, inevitably inclining them to choose the nation over their selfserving group interests. In this narrative, only upper castes make rational voting decisions...
Many myths about Muslims are circulating widely in social media as part of the attempt at increasing communal tension and polarisation. For example "The government favours Muslims and pampers them", "The Muslim population is increasing faster than the Hindu population", "Not all Muslims may be terrorists, but most terrorists are Muslims", "Hindus cannot buy land in Jammu and Kashmir", "Muslims are united and act together, while Hindus are divided and weak", "Hindus do not kill based on their religion.
"For someone who speaks a lot, Narendra Modi reveals very little about his actual views. He has preferred not to be interviewed by the press to the extent that a leader of his position should be open to doing, though he isn’t alone here... This is why, an interview he gave to the editor of Urdu Nai Duniya around the same time is so important... The news from this interview centered around Modi’s dramatic statement that he should be hanged if found guilty of the riots (since when do the accused decide their own punishment?).
"...After the destruction of the Babri Masjid and a myriad speculative conversations around how many temples Muslim rulers had destroyed in India, Eaton decided to count. That became a book titled Temple Desecration and Muslim States in Medieval India. In other words, he is the best myth-buster there is and that’s precisely what he did to the audiences at THiNK. Eaton explains why it’s crucial today for us to get our history right. Especially on the period he writes about..."
"The systematic use of gang-rape as a weapon occurred in the Surat riots after the Babri Masjid demolition, and an ugly innovation was the videotaping of the gang-rapes. This was not a case of some random bystander filming the attacks, but a meticulously-planned spectacle with the venues flood-lit despite the fact that electric wires to the rest of the neighbourhood had been cut [1]. According to Praful Bidwai, Modi was the mastermind of the unspeakable atrocities against women in the 1992 Surat riots [2]. Modi is pictured there with Advani in their wake [3].
The country is yet to recover from the aftermath of Muzaffranagar violence (October 2013). This violence was engineered over a period of time in the areas of Western UP, where Jats and Muslims had thick social interaction, despite belonging to different economic strata. Communal violence has been instigated, engineered earlier on various issues like Cow slaughter, Babri demolition, ‘sexual assault on ‘our women’ amongst others. The primary weapon used to communalize this region was the community honor. ‘Muslim youth teasing and luring Hindu girls’ was made the central part of propaganda.
"One of the most remarkable campaigns by Right-wing forces over the last few years in India goes under the startling name of “Love-Jihad”. Love Jihad crudely but effectively argues that Muslim men are waging jihad in India through so-called love- marriages. The young men apparently waging war through love – through the capture of innocent Hindu women – are also referred to as “Love Romeos”.
"From the label of “Master Divider” in India Today in January 2003 to the tag of “The Great Polariser” in the Outlook in July 2012 — Narendra Modi’s image remained static: self-declared champion of one community of people. But the strain Gujarat faced in the course of his tenure has increased manifold. Wherever I travelled in Gujarat, there was a clear distinction between “us” and “them”. This difference was articulated by several Hindus every time the conversation veered in this direction. In contrast, counterparts among Muslims denied this.
'Making a pitch for women’s empowerment before an audience of women entrepreneurs in New Delhi on Monday, Narendra Modi tacitly employed some Hindutva themes and voiced social conservatism in an otherwise largely business-oriented speech. Pointing out that the role of the mother was highest in Indian civilization, Modi rued that “1000-1200 years of slavery” led to social evils creeping in, diminishing respect for women and leading to female infanticide and eventually foeticide...
