She goes by the handle @sarkar_swati on twitter and koo.
He goes by the handle @maidros78 on twitter.
He goes by the handle @dikgaj on twitter.
Discrimination against Hindus in Indian Public Discourse
In the first article, Saswati Sarkar examined the violation of the most basic of human rights of the Hindus, i.e., the rights to life and the rights to property, in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, etc. She has examined the travails of the Hindus of Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and how they have been systematically persecuted, harassed, and either expelled or killed. Further, the examination of the violation of human rights shows how the Hindus of Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Pakistan have been targeted by the majority religion/ethnicity over their religion/ethnicity and their practices. She also examined the silence of the Indian of these matters, and examined what it bodes for the future.
The Lesser Hindus of India and the Detention Camps of the Indian State
In the second article, we have examined the systematic violation of the human rights of victims, in the detention camps, run by the BJP-RSS government in Assam. The victims are overwhelmingly poor Hindu Bengalis, which indicates an ethnic and classist bias against them. We did also find a few Biharis and even an Asomiya in the detention camps, similarly poor, and often lower caste, which indicates the socio-economic profile of those being harassed in detention camps. The violation is systematic, with the detained refugees often denied proper food, and sanitation, and imprisoned with the criminals, despite specific orders not to do so. Further, the article mentions those who have been imprisoned for more than three years, despite supreme court orders to the contrary. The article chronicles the tragedy of these Indic refugees, who have been expelled from Bangladesh, and are being harassed in India. The BJP-RSS government in Assam has led a brutal attack on the helpless people, inspite of a slew of promises from the highest echelons of the BJP-RSS to the lowest to rehabilitate the Hindu refugees from Bangladesh. The terror of detention camps have been such that those slapped with D voter notices or excluded from NRC are at times committing suicides, and relocating to West Bengal. The atmosphere of terror has spread to West Bengal where particularly those descending from refugees are spending sleepless nights.
The NRC and the Lesser Hindus of India
The Indian state had embarked on implementing a national register of citizens in its North Eastern State of Assam, which was intended to include all those who had arrived before 24 March, 1971, and exclude the rest. The NRC final list has been published on August 31, 2019. It excludes 19 lakh individuals. Using observations by media, activists, politicians of Assam, data released in Assam assembly and Census, the authors show that Hindu Bengalis have been disproportionately excluded. In the first article on the NRC, the authors also provide a socio-economic profile of the Hindus excluded from the NRC. Many of those excluded from NRC had arrived in India before the cut-off date for identifying foreigners, namely 24 March, 1971. They had refugee certificates provided by the government authorities when they arrived, which were not accepted by the NRC coordinator. Many of those excluded had land documents in India predating 1971, which were discounted too. In several cases, some members of a family were included, while the rest were excluded. Most of those excluded were poor and nearly illiterate, are from poor and rural regions, and had to rely on others to even complete the appeal forms. The excluded are by and large the descendants of the refugees of partition, their parents had migrated to the only land in which they believed they could live without having to convert to Islam, and live as free men and women, with human dignity. Creating a new life for themselves had not been easy the first time and was realized only through an intense struggle for existence. But in one generation, the same families are facing statelessness yet again, due to the NRC. It is Sita’s Agnipariksha played all over. Several of those excluded, committed suicide from a sense of humiliation and helplessness associated with the foreigner tag, or because they did not have the financial resources or physical stamina to contest the exclusion, or because of the terror of being confined to a detention camp. The exclusions also include a gender-based discrimination, and a large number of women who had moved to Assam from other Indian states after marriage have been excluded, as documents from other Indian states were not accepted. The exclusions in this category span all socio-economic classes.
The Hindu Bengalis have been at the receiving end of ethnic violence, vigilante actions, harassment throughout the North East. The acts were either perpetrated by the various state governments therein, or facilitated and condoned through the lack of retributive actions. BJP-RSS is running the state governments throughout this region, either directly or in alliance with local parties. Those excluded from NRC now face the prospect of going through tribunals and subsequently courts, which will de-facto levy hefty financial penalties on them. The time the victims need to devote to travel to the courts (which may be far off from where they live) and attend the sessions would put them at a competitive disadvantage in the current economy especially those who are daily wage labour and agrarian labour. If those excluded from the NRC eventually lose at the end of the lengthy legal process, they will lose their jobs and other governmental benefits, to start with, and will face detainment and deportation subsequently. In addition, currently, BJP-RSS government of Assam has formed a high-level committee that is in effect seeking to debar Bengalis from contesting seats in Parliament, legislative assembly and local bodies, and from public and private sector jobs in Assam, by providing reservations for Assamese speakers. No Bengali has been appointed to the committee, and the head of the committee as also several other influential members of the committee are known to have taken strong anti-Bengali positions in the past. Finally, many who have been included in NRC continue to receive “doubtful voter” notices, which is the first step for commitment to detention centers. In effect, Hindu Bengalis are treated as unwanted populace, who the administration would rather have sent elsewhere, either outside Assam or to outside India. We document their plight in this article.