The trajectory of the recent incidents that have been taking place in quick succession since Rashmi Samant of Oxford University made it to the news, what we see is an escalated attempt to victimise and demonise the Hindus and their identity. Be it Deepawali firecracker ban or the entire Jashn-e-Riwaz episode of FabIndia, the hatred for Hindu symbols, Hindus and everything that is related to Hindu has been both subtle and open.

Recently, the California Chapter of the Democratic Party had specifically mentioned about fighting against “caste discrimination” in its manifesto, without, however, elaborating on the nature of such discrimination in existence in the American society. Earlier, the Seattle City Council had brought out a resolution condemning both the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC). Keeping in mind such events, it would therefore not be an exaggeration to say that there is an explicit propaganda going on against Hindus.

Right from the organisation of the Global Hate Campaign on ‘Dismantling Hindutva’ to the increasing attacks on non-Muslims especially in Kashmir, and the attacks on Hindus of Bangladesh, vandalising of Durga Puja pandals, including the latest incident of attack against ISKCON Temple in Bangladesh, the blind hatred against Hindus is there on the surface. It is now no longer limited to only the political level, but has also penetrated deep into the cultural and social levels. These are all but the symptoms of a larger malaise prevailing not just in India but elsewhere too.

Selective targeting of Hindus must therefore be treated as a stark manifestation of Hindu hatred. Multiple assaults on the Hindu identity in multiple countries and multiple platforms, including social media, all at the same time, have been always been going on so casually and in such a manner that it now seems to have become too normalised. Time and again, we have been fed this false argument of the difference between Hindutva and Hinduism as it was visible during the ‘Dismantling Global Hindutva’ Campaign. No wonder, it is very much espoused and propagated by an elite coterie of Indian “Liberal Intellectuals” and the Indian media too.

These examples are enough to prove that Hindumisia is definitely a problem which is existing everywhere and in all spaces, from the political to the cultural and entertainment. Whereas the common word used throughout the world for expressing hatred towards Hindus and their religion is Hinduphobia, a more suitable and apt term for the same is Hindumisia. Phobia implies fear, whereas the term misia with its origins in the Greek language, means open hatred. Hindumisia therefore means ‘hatred for Hindus’. Phobia has connotations that are milder and gentler in tone compared to misia. E.g., xenophobia is the fear of foreigners, aerophobia is the fear of flying, et.al.

It clearly means that unexplained and illogical hatred towards a certain group/community of people must not be categorised as a phobia. Today, the explicit hatred and violence towards Hindus has engulfed almost every aspect of our daily lives. E.g. the web-series Paatal Lok, the different TV advertisements related to the celebrations of our festivals, the appeal of different celebrities to the common public to avoid the burning of crackers on Deepawali or the flying of kites during Makar-Sankranti, etc. they all indicate towards a pre-planned concerted assault to demonise the Hindu identity. It has now been demonised to such an extent that if an atrocity happens on a Hindu community or a Hindu person, it then becomes a non-issue.

E.g. rapes and murders of Hindu women in Islamic countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh, Hindu genocide in Kashmir at the hands of Islamists, destruction and loot of Hindu Mandirs, violent murders of our Hindu sadhus and gurus, cultural appropriation of our Devis and Devtas by the missionaries in the name of ‘salvation’, etc. are not because of any phobias. All these have been the result of hatred which is very well organised and too dangerous to be ignored anymore. Such hatred is being inflicted with the ultimate objective of annihilating Hindus completely.

In order to achieve this target, the idea at first is to dehumanise the entire Hindu civilisation and the identity associated with it. After dehumanising it, the aim is to kill and eradicate the Hindu population which eventually becomes normal in due course of time. Since Hindutva here is the demon, so Hindus naturally become the demons which then make them easy targets for eradication. This is the strategy which is quite very much visible in nearly all the social media platforms too, India included. In the recent Kashmir violence, people were being killed by asking for their names and their identity cards. The attack on the Hindus of Bangladesh began after the circulation of a fake news of the desecration of the Quran.

There has always been a selective targeting of Hindus, our women, our religious places of worship and our festivals. The banning of firecrackers by the Supreme Court of India is completely one-sided, as if there do not exist any other festival which create a similar kind of pollution or may be much higher levels of pollution than Diwali. These aspects are certainly not to be overlooked, while we talk about Hindumisia. The list doesn’t just end here. The cancellation of Kanwad Yatra and targeting of the Kumbh Mela in the name of COVID-19 may be added. Contrary to this, for three days in Kerala, relaxation was being provided by the Communist Government for Id shopping, following which there was a huge spike in the COVID-19 cases.

But, these are never talked about in the media, while only the mention of organising a Kanwad Yatra by the UP Government led by CM Yogi Adityanath is met with ridicule and scorn by the so-called Left-Liberal “intellectuals”. The most pertinent question that arises here is – in the latest attack on the Hindus of Bangladesh by an Islamist mob, can it be understood as yet another concerted campaign to unleash revenge upon the defenceless community of Hindus because of their identity? Also, can it be seen as a reaction to the eviction of suspected Bangladeshi Muslim infiltrators in Assam, taking into account Assam’s geographical proximity to Bangladesh and as well as the long-term game-plan of Islamists to make Assam a part of Bangladesh?

Another important question that can be raised in this context is with regard to the mindless killings of the Hindus in Kashmir and labelling them as ‘non-natives’ by certain news channels. Does it again not represent a further dehumanisation of the Hindu identity? Because, if Hindus are being killed in Kashmir, they are referred to as ‘non-natives’; while, Rohingya Muslims coming from Myanmar to settle down in J&K become the own kith and kin of the Kashmiri Muslims. This is nothing but selective silence and selective outrage by the media and the so-called Left-liberals. But, more than that, the silence of the Government on these issues has become quite perplexing for many Hindus. Well, these are questions that we need to ponder, because all the incidents described above point towards a very bleak future in store for the Hindus.

There is also an eerie similarity between the attacks on Hindus that took place after the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the post-poll violence that rocked West Bengal after the declaration of the election results on the 2^nd of May, 2021. The current events are reflective of a very well-planned and well-organised attempt to wipe out the dying population of the Hindus in Bangladesh during the Durga Puja celebrations. This again proves that there is not only Hindumisia at work but also an outright assertion to commit a Hindu genocide which is already under progress. Hindumisia only normalises it, because if Hindutva or people who associate themselves with Hindutva are demons, they are naturally to be eliminated.

Such a kind of thinking is being materialised in the recent attacks unleashed upon the Hindus of Kashmir and Bangladesh by frenzy Islamists. Definitely, this is not a new phenomenon as chronicled by Taslima Nasreen in her path-breaking work Lajja, and recently witnessed by us in the post-poll violence in West Bengal. The impact of this book was such that there was not only a fatwa issued against Taslima Nasreen, and which is still there, but she was finally compelled to leave the country for speaking the bitter truth about Muslim atrocities against Hindus. Quite interestingly, we find several references of places like Comilla and Khulna in Lajja, with respect to attacks by Islamists on Hindus in the past. These are also the same places where violence against Hindus has recently taken place in Bangladesh.

All these examples clearly bring home the point that Hindumisia is very much in existence, since the period of the Islamic invasions till the present. The problem is very old and it has become a pestering wound now, creating troubles throughout the world for the Hindus as a society and for all those freedom-loving people who want to live at peace. After the Partition of India, it has manifested itself in a very macabre way in both Pakistan and Bangladesh. Inside India, it has been in demonstration time and again in some of its ugliest ways in Kashmir, Kerala, Assam, and West Bengal. Hindumisia has become shriller in its tone and more aggressive in posture because of the rising consciousness amongst Hindus regarding their Dharma and identity in the present context.

What we need to accept here is that Hindumisia is a multidimensional problem having significant historical, religious and sociological ramifications. They are now revealing themselves in some of the most brutal and violent ways both in India and the West. The antagonism towards Kafirs (non-believers) enshrined in several verses of the so-called ‘Holy Book’ of Islam is plain and distinct. At the educational level, Hindumisia has been practised in India since 1947 largely through the NCERT textbooks, blessed and supported by the successive Education Ministers of post-independent India since the time of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad.

The scornful attitude of the Christian educational institutions towards symbols and marks of identification related to the Hindu identity is also the by-product of a Hindumisiac mindset. E.g., meting out punishment to girl students for putting mehndi on their hands, expelling boys from the schools for sporting a shikha on their head, etc. Hindumisia has now infiltrated into the Indian bureaucracy as well, and it has become all too evident. It was just a few months back that IMA Chief Dr. Johnrose Austin Jayalal was issued summons by a Delhi Court, accusing him of misusing his office for carrying out proselytisation activities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Johnrose later revealed that the pandemic gave him and other proselytisers a chance to preach the Gospel to those who were affected by the virus, even in secular institutions. This includes hospitals and other institutions run by non-Christians and the Government too.

The most important question that now stares at the face of every Hindu at this hour of crisis is how to fight back the blatant Hindumisia around us? Definitely, the first step must be to accept the problem the way it is and then talk about it in the public, defying the absurdity of political correctness. It calls for continuous effort in the way of building a new narrative that would also help to bring to light the Hindumisia inherent in the Constitution of India and the ‘Secular’ credentials of the Indian state on the one hand and the Dharmic civilisation on the other.

Image source: Oneindia