Amnesty International India’s interactive tracker has recorded the steepest rise in alleged hate crimes in six months of 2019 since 2016. The website called ‘Halt the Hate’ says that from January to June 2019, 181 incidents of alleged hate crimes have been recorded.
“From September, 2015 to June, 2019, Halt the Hate has recorded a total of 902 reported hate crimes in India. A total of 181 incidents of alleged hate crimes were recorded between the months of January and June this year. In 37 reported incidents, the victims were killed,” a media release by Amnesty said.
Halt the Hate was launched in 2015 to fill the lacuna in publicly available disaggregated data (data broken down by subcategories), after Mohammad Akhlaq, a 52-year-old Muslim resident of Dadri, Uttar Pradesh, was murdered on the suspicion of eating beef. The tracker scours English and Hindi media for reports of hate crimes and collates this on the platform. The classification depends on how violent the crimes were, who they were directed at and what the alleged motive behind the committing of such a crime was.
Amnesty found that in just the first six months of 2019, most number of hate crimes reported were on account of the victims’ Dalit identity (121), followed by Muslim (40), Adivasi (12), Christian (4) and their actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity (6).
By comparison, in 2018 and 2017, a total of 142 and 140 instances of reported hate crimes against Dalits were recorded. The number was higher in 2016 at 182. Hate crimes against Muslims were 40, 53, and 50 for 2016, 2017 and 2018 respectively, according to Halt the Hate.
Amnesty said that especially in BJP-led states like Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana, and AIADMK-led Tamil Nadu, the incidence of hate crimes was found to be higher. “With 216 reports of alleged hate crimes spanning September 2015-June 2019, Uttar Pradesh stands out with the highest number of alleged hate crimes in the country.”
72 of the hate crimes recorded in the six-month time period in 2019 were mob attacks, over half of which (37) were directed at Muslims. “In all the incidents, the victims were forced to either say ‘Vande Mataram’ or ‘Jai Sri Ram’ or Jai Hanuman’ or ‘Pakistan Murdabad’ and/or were demanded to remove their skullcaps. In 5 such incidents, the victims were lynched to death,” Amnesty found.
Incidentally in July, a group of 49 artists and intellectuals had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi about their concern on rising communal violence. One of the things they said in the letter was that “Jai Shri Ram!” had become a provocative war cry and appealed that something be done to stop the use of Ram’s name in such a manner. These 49 celebrities, who included notable names like filmmakers Mani Ratnam and Adoor Gopalakrishnan, actor-director Revathy and others, have now reportedly been booked for sedition for undermining “the impressive performance of the Prime Minister" besides "supporting secessionist tendencies". The FIR was reportedly was filed in Muzzafarpur in Bihar on Wednesday.
The Halt the Hate tracker also recorded how those who were at the intersections of these minority identities were vulnerable to further violence.
“To illustrate, 58 reported hate crimes were directed at women who identified themselves as either Dalit, Muslim, Christian, Adivasi or LBT (Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender) persons. In 30 of these incidents, women were either raped or sexually assaulted. Similarly, in the aftermath of the suicide bomb attack in February 2019 in Pulwama where 42 members of the security forces were killed, 14 incidents of mob attacks on Kashmiri Muslims were reported, mostly targeting small-time traders from Kashmir across the country. With 37 alleged hate crimes, the month of February also saw the highest incidence of hate crime reports in 2019 followed by 36 in March,” the media release said.
“Unfortunately, the true extent of hate crimes in India is unknown because the law – with some exceptions – does not recognise hate crimes as separate offences. As a result, government data on discriminatory motives behind crimes remains missing. The alarming rise of the alleged hate crimes clearly indicates that lack of implementation of the Supreme Court guidelines begets lack of accountability and rising impunity,” said Aakar Patel of Amnesty International India.
The Supreme Court had last year emphasised the need for a concrete definition of ‘lynching’ as a form of vigilantism, and directed states to enact preventive, remedial and punitive measures against mob violence. However, only Manipur and Rajasthan have passed a legislation to address the same so far.
Without a dedicated legislation, the gravity of the crimes is often diluted as the accused are booked under various other laws such as those against rioting, unlawful assembly, intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace, murder and so on.
“It is imperative that the authorities investigate suspected hate crimes promptly, impartially and thoroughly. The prosecuting authorities must consistently bring alleged discriminatory motives to the attention of the court when there is sufficient evidence to do so. Importantly, there must be public denouncement of hate and hate crimes, starting with our political leaders,” said Aakar Patel.