Attacks on Hindus and Hindu Dharma, both in Bharat and overseas, are frequent and unrelenting. In many regions of the world, this persecution is like a genocide slowly unfolding before our eyes. For decades, the true depth and breadth of these attacks, driven by disturbing anti-Hindu bigotry, have been ignored by the world. From murders, forced conversions, land grabs, assault on festivals, desecration of temples and murtis, hate speech, sexual violence to institutionalized & legal discrimination, Hindus are facing an increasing assault on their very existence along with an unprecedented Hindu hatred.

In this weekly summary for the period from 28 November to 4 December 2021, we hope to provide a snapshot of such crimes and hopefully awaken more people around the world to this human rights crisis:

Bharat

1) A Hindu woman from Sultanpur, UP has lodged a complaint against her ‘husband’ Fahim Qureshi for threatening her to convert to Islam and abandoning her when she is 8 months pregnant.

2) Another temple has been demolished in Tamil Nadu on the allegation of encroaching government land. Accusing the government authorities of not giving time to remove the murtis, devotees have vowed to restore the temple and to face the issue through court.

3) Yet another case has emerged from Bareilly in UP where a Muslim man has been accused of stalking a Hindu woman.

4) A Hindu SC woman from Uttar Pradesh’s (UP) capital Lucknow has leveled allegations of grooming saying the Muslim man who posed as a Hindu and exploited her sexually. The Lucknow Police have charged the man with rape and fraud along with invoking sections of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 since the woman belongs to the SC ‘chamar’ caste.

5) A complaint has been lodged by legal rights organization LRPF against St. Mary’s School, Sadasivpet, Sangareddy district, Telangana for punishing a Hindu student who observe Ayyappa Deeksha, the religious observance for 41 days by the devotees of Swamy Ayyappa before visiting the Sabarimala temple in Kerala.

6) 26-year-old Dablu Singh was assaulted and stabbed to death by two men, Farhan and Shah Alam, in west Delhi’s Raghubir Nagar on Tuesday night, said police.

7) The Bihar State Board of Religious Trust (BSBRT) has run a special drive making registration compulsory for temples in addition to levying a tax of four percent on temples that are not private. This decision has upset devotees.  

8) During her three-day Mumbai visit earlier this week, Mamata Banerjee met several political leaders and members from Bollywood. On Wednesday, she held a meeting with several ‘entertainers’ – a few from Bollywood including Swara Bhasker, Javed Akhtar, Mahesh Bhatt, and other alleged comedians who had tried to make a career by deriding Hindu beliefs and using expletives for Hindu deities.

Bangladesh

1) ‘Unidentified’ people went on a rampage and vandalized three temples and desecrated the temple deities in Delduar Upazila, Tangail district, Bangladesh early on November 16.

Most hate crimes are driven by anti-Hindu bigotry encoded in certain religious teachings and political ideologies. While the anti-Hindu hate in Islamic countries is obvious, there is another subtler form of anti-Hindu sentiment within institutions and the public sphere of ostensibly secular states (like India) that provides an enabling environment for Hinduphobia and hate crimes. This subtle, everyday discrimination can be missed unless one studies prevailing laws and patterns. The gradual ban on firecrackers during Diwali is a good example – it might seem pollution-related on the surface, but the double standards at play become clear when one looks at the larger picture of restrictions on Hindu festivals, and the lack of sound reasoning behind the ban.

We request all readers to share other anti-Hindu hate crimes that we might have missed in this period in the comments below or by dropping an email to [email protected]. We also solicit support in the maintenance of the Hindu human rights tracker database started by us.