Bharatiya Janata Party-A Balatkari (Rapist) Janata Party

By Sajjad Shaukat

Since the fundamentalist government of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power, various extremist policies have continued unabated by the Indian rulers. In this respect, rising number of crime against women, especially rapes are attributable to religious fanaticism and lack of law enforcement.

In this recent past, the brutal gang rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl Asifa Bano in the Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK) sparked protests in the State of Jammu and Kashmir and inside India, including criticism of the human rights organizations.

Investigations disclosed that Hindu officials, legislatures, police officers and even the persons of Hindu Temple were involved in this cruel act of rape and murder. Details revealed: “Sanji Ram, a 60-year-old retired government officer planned the crime with the help of police officers Surender Verma, Anand Dutta, Tilak Raj and Mr Khajuria.”

According to the BBC, “Mr Pujwala…told the BBC, His wife, Naseema Bibi, sat beside him, faintly crying while repeatedly murmuring Asifa…Mr Pujwala belongs to a community of Muslim nomadic shepherds…The crime has shocked the community, exposing the fault lines between Hindu-majority Jammu and the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley in a sharply divided state. Police have arrested eight men, including a retired government official, four police officers and a juvenile in connection with Asifa’s death. However, the arrests sparked protests in Jammu-lawyers tried to stop police entering the court to file a charge sheet and two ministers from the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) attended a rally in support of the accused. The BJP rules the state in a coalition with the regional People’s Democratic Party (PDP).”

Even, Maharashtrad Navnirman Sena (MNS) Chief Raj Thackeray condemned the BJP again when he claimed that the party was a party that supported rapists. He elaborated: “The BJP was creating an atmosphere of poison in the country…this girl Asifa was such a small child…she did not know anything about religion, and she was assaulted and the BJP is publicly backing the rapists in the crime… the BJP was trying to engineer riots between Hindus and Muslims to create riots to benefit in the elections.”

After Asifa’s tragedy, in Unnao district, Uttar Pradesh, a 16-year-old girl has pointed out on April 10, this year that BJP lawmaker Kuldeep Singh Sengar and his brother Atul Singh Sengar raped her, last year. The father of the minor girl, who was fighting for justice was arrested and died while in custody. The postmortem report of her father listed multiple abrasions near abdomen, buttocks, thighs, above and below knee joints and arms. It can also be caused by blunt trauma to the abdomen or a knife or gunshot wound.

It is of particular attention that under the caption, “BJP ideology believes in raping Muslim women”, The Guardian reported: “Indian activist and writer whose article in The Guardian calling India “republic of fear” has been shared thousands of times has said that rape culture under Narendra Modi’s government is celebrated by ministers and activists belonging to extremist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Amrit Wilson, a writer on race wrote for The Guardian as Modi arrived in Britain to take part in the Commonwealth summit…crimes against women in India, including two violent rapes in Kathua in the Indian Held Jammu and Kashmir (IHK) and Unnao in Uttar Pradesh. The twin rape cases have particularly rocked India and Modi was greeted by thousands of protestors in London who condemned his government for doing nothing about the culture of rape.”

It is notable that since 1989 when new Intifada (Uprising) started in the Indian Held Kashmir, Indian security forces have been using rape as a weapon against the Kashmiri women of all ages. Under the BJP rule of Modi, these shameful acts against the Kashmir ladies have been accelerated.

Nevertheless, thousands of rape cases of Kashmiri women in the Indian Controlled have reported not only by foreign media, but also by Indian media. Reliable sources suggest that there are 500-600 individual rape cases occur in the Indian Occupied state of Jammu and Kashmir per year. Most of these cases have not been mentioned by India media, police and court.

The raped women and teenager girls and their families cannot afford this social stigma, despite the fact that these incidents are forced upon, while mostly, such rapes are committed on gun point by the Indian occupying forces which have impunity through black laws such as the Armed Forces Special Power Act and the Public Safety Act.

Amnesty International and other global rights groups have said that since Indian Army and Para-Military Forces have the unlimited power and authority to do anything against the poor people of Kashmir, during raids and house searching operations in the Indian Occupied Kashmir, they also take out women for interrogation-purposes and then rape them at gun point.

Notably, in the decade of 1990, the Indian Army and other forces committed rapes in a record number. Kashmir Media Service and Kashmir Liberation cell disclosed, “There are over 11000 reported rape cases in IOK at the hands of Indian Army and Central Reserve Police from 1990 to 2016.”

It is, surprisingly, mentionable that India claims itself a secular state and the largest democracy of the world. But, in reality, the ideology of Hindutva (Hindu nationalism) is the genesis of Hindu terrorism, having co-relationship with it, the main fault lines of India’s politics is based upon the discriminatory system of caste and religion. Since the leader of the ruling party BJP Modi became Prime Minister of India, various developments like, persecution of minorities even of lower cast-Hindus, forced conversions of other religious minorities into Hindus, ban on beef and cow slaughter, inclusion of Hindu religious books in curriculum, creation of war-like situation with Pakistan etc. clearly show that encouraged by the Hindu fundamentalist outfits such as BJP, RSS VHP, Bajrang Dal and Shiv Sena, including other similar parties have been promoting religious and ethnic chauvinism in India by propagating ideology of Hindutva. Rape and assault on women are also part of the Hindutva.

However, rape is becoming one of fastest growing social evils in India. Besides, Indian women, foreigners, tourists and Hindu pilgrims from other countries also faced such a plight. In January, last year, five men were arrested in Kolkata and charged for raping a Japanese tourist lady.
In the recent past, a German tourist claimed that two men confined her in a room and raped her, just weeks after the rape and murder of an Irish woman in Goa. And few weeks ago, a 28-year-old Irish woman was raped and murdered in the popular tourist state of Goa.
In its report, published on August 30, 2016, Indian’s National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) reported the highest number of crimes against women in 2015. It said, “As many as 2,016 cases of gang-rape were reported in 2015 from all the states and Union Territories. A total of 34,651 rape cases (Section 376 of IPC) were reported in 2015…a total of 2,199 rape cases were reported from Delhi last year…and over 130,000 cases of sexual assault in 2015…crimes against women reported every two minutes in India…a woman is raped after every 29 minutes. The rape victims included women across all age groups, from under six years of age to over 60.”
The issue of rape cases against women gained global attention with the 2012 Delhi gang rape case. The cases have been growing ever since.
Besides, in a number of rape cases, targeting foreign women have come to the surface in India in 2013. In March 2013, a 38 year old Swiss woman was gang-raped in a forest near Datia town by six Indians. In January 2013 a South Korean student was drugged and raped by the son of owner of the hotel where she was staying.
Regrettably, a British holidaymaker in the northern city of Agra suffered a leg injury when she jumped out of the hotel window to save her honour, as two men entered her hotel room with the intent to molest her. In February 2013, a Chinese woman working in Gurgaon, was raped by an Indian acquaintance. In May 31, 2013, a young Irish woman was raped by a man in a house in Kalighat area.
In a notorious case, five years ago, 15-year old British schoolgirl Scarlett Keeling was raped and left to die on a beach in the tourist resort of Goa. In another shameful case, in June 3, 2013, a US national was gang-raped by three men in a truck in Manali.
Taking cognizance of sexual assaults on ladies, British and Swiss governments including those of other countries have already issued instructions to women tourists to refrain from going to India due to growing risks of insecurity by the Indian officials.
In this connection, The New York wrote in June 10, 2013, “Visits to India by female tourists dropped 35 percent in the first three months of this year compared with the same period last year. That three-month period came after the fatal gang rape of a 23-year-old student in New Delhi in December…every day women face the harassment and intimidation in India.”
Nonetheless, taking note of the rape cases under the BJP-led government, many bloggers on Social Media and WhatsSapp remarked that name of the Bharatiya Janata Party must be changed, calling it Balatkari (Rapist) Party.