London — IN today’s India, secular liberals face a challenge: how to stay alive.

In August, 77-year-old scholar M. M. Kalburgi, an outspoken critic of Hindu idol worship, was gunned down on his own doorstep. In February, the communist leader Govind Pansare was killed near Mumbai. And in 2013, the activist Narendra Dabholkar was murdered for campaigning against religious superstitions.

These killings should be seen as the canary in the coal mine: Secular voices are being censored and others will follow.

While there have always been episodic attacks on free speech in India, this time feels different. The harassment is front-page news, but the government refuses to acknowledge it. Indeed, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s silence is being interpreted by many people as tacit approval, given that the attacks have gained momentum since he took office in 2014 and are linked to Hindutva groups whose far-right ideology he shares.

Earlier this month, a leader of the Sri Ram Sene, a Hindu extremist group with a history of violence including raiding pubs and beating women they find inside, ratcheted up the tensions. He warned that writers who insulted Hindu gods were in danger of having their tongues sliced off. For those who don’t support the ultimate goal of these extremists — a Hindu nation — Mr. Modi’s silence is ominous.

This is a turning point for India, a country that has taken pride in being a liberal democracy and that often adopts a high-minded tone when neighbors fall short of the same standards.

When the liberal Pakistani politician Salman Taseer was assassinated in 2011, the Indian journalist M. J. Akbar, now the national spokesman for the Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P., chided, “If Salman Taseer had been an Indian Muslim, he would still have been alive.” In the run-up to the 2014 general elections in Bangladesh, India expressed concern over the future of the country’s democratic institutions.

We should be worrying instead about what’s happening in India, and recognize that it could go the way of the very neighbors it criticizes. As Nikhil Wagle, a prominent liberal journalist based in Mumbai, told me, “Without secularism, India is a Hindu Pakistan.”

The murders in India share striking similarities with the killings of four Bangladeshi bloggers this year. But while there was a global outcry over what happened in Bangladesh, India is hiding behind its patina of legitimacy granted by being the world’s largest democracy.

Like the murdered bloggers, the Indian victims held liberal views but were not famous or powerful. Mr. Kalburgi had publicly expressed skepticism toward idol worship in Hinduism, but he didn’t pose a threat to anyone.

While the authorities are pursuing the culprits on a case-by-case basis, the overarching attack on free speech has not been addressed. The threats and killings have created an atmosphere of self-censorship and fear.

Some of the killers are still on the loose, and while in one hand they wield a gun, in the other they wave a list. On Sept. 20, Mr. Wagle, the journalist, learned from a source that intercepted phone calls had revealed that members of yet another right-wing Hindu group, Sanatan Sanstha, had marked him as their next victim. The extremists who celebrated the August murder of Mr. Kalburgi were more direct: They used Twitter to warn K. S. Bhagwan, a retired university professor who is critical of the Hindu caste system, that he would be next.

The goal of transforming India from a secular state to a Hindu nation, which seems to be behind the murders, is abetted not just by the silence of politicians, but also by the Hindu nationalist policies of the ruling B.J.P.

Over the past few months, the government has purged secular voices from high-profile institutions including the National Book Trust and the independent board of Nalanda University. The government is not replacing mediocre individuals: The chancellor of Nalanda was the Nobel laureate Amartya Sen. It is replacing luminaries with people whose greatest qualification is faith in Hindutva ideology. The new appointees are rejecting scientific thought in favor of religious ideas that have no place in secular institutions.

One of the government’s chief targets is the legacy of India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, who laid the foundation for a secular nation. Last month, having nudged out the director of the Nehru Museum and Library in New Delhi, the government announced plans to rename the museum and change its focus to highlight the achievements of Mr. Modi. This is akin to repurposing the Washington Monument as an Obama museum.

In addition to erasing the contributions of long-dead liberals, B.J.P. leaders are busy promoting violent Hindu nationalists. Sakshi Maharaj, a B.J.P. member of Parliament, described Nathuram Godse, the man who assassinated Mahatma Gandhi, as a “patriot.” Although Mr. Maharaj later retracted his statement, his opinion is shared by many of his party colleagues. Gandhi’s assassin was a former member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, an armed Hindu group, with which Mr. Modi has been associated since he was 8 years old.

The B.J.P.’s efforts to reshape institutions that embody secular values — values they dismiss as “Western” — was certainly anticipated. It came as no surprise when the culture and tourism minister, Mahesh Sharma, recentlypromised to “cleanse every area of public discourse that had been westernized.” Mr. Sharma is well aware of the connotations of the word he used.

It’s also not surprising that Hindu fundamentalists would feel empowered in the shadow of a Hindu nationalist government. Still, few expected that freedom of speech would become a contestable commodity and that some who exercised it would lose their lives.

The realization has made for decisions that were once unthinkable.

Last December, the acclaimed author Perumal Murugan informed the police that he’d received threats from Hindu groups angered by a novel he wrote in 2010. Extremists staged burnings of his book and demanded a public apology from him. The police suggested he go into exile. Realizing he was on his own, in January Mr. Murugan announced the withdrawal of his entire literary canon. On Facebook, he swore to give up writing, in essence apologizing for his life’s work out of fear for his family’s safety.

CONTINUE READING THE MAIN ST

It’s hard to accept what is happening in India. It is easier to ignore or dismiss the attacks and the threats as a liberal persecution complex or a phase that will last only as long as the B.J.P. is in power. But the country is undergoing a tectonic shift that will have long-term repercussions.

The attacks in India should not be seen as a problem limited to secular writers or liberal thinkers. They should be recognized as an attack on the heart of what constitutes a democracy — and that concerns everyone who values the idea of India as it was conceived and as it is beloved, rather than an India imagined through the eyes of religious zealots. Indians must protest these attacks and demand accountability from people in power. We must call for all voices to be protected, before we lose our own.

राजधानीमै मानव बलि दिने प्रयास

India Writers Return Awards to Protest Government Silence on Violence

Uday Prakash, a renowned Hindi writer, was the first author to renounce his award from the academy, in September. “I have never seen such hostility before,” he said.

In interviews this week, the writers returned to the same refrain: That Mr. Modi’s failure to confront intolerance by fellow Hindu nationalists is giving tacit permission for more intolerance. “The tide of violence against freedom of speech is rising every day,” Ms. Sahgal said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/world/asia/india-writers-return-awards-to-protest-government-silence-on-violence.html?_r=0

Indian Muslim, Accused of Stealing a Cow, Is Beaten to Death by a Hindu Mob

The recent killings are occurring against a backdrop of intensifying political conflict over laws and policies aimed at protecting cows from slaughter and consumption. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P., has pushed aggressively to pass state beef bans. The Delhi police, controlled by Mr. Modi’s government, recently descended in force on a canteen after it posted beef on its menu. (It turned out to be buffalo meat.) On Wednesday, the B.J.P. ran campaign ads accusing its opponents of “insulting the holy cow.”

Several recent cases of violence have involved Hindu nationalist vigilante groups dedicated to protecting cows. The groups, including some with ties to the B.J.P., mobilize members to confront those suspected of slaughtering, eating or stealing cows, sometimes with catastrophic results.

These and other recent outbreaks of violence by Hindu nationalists have provoked a vigorous cultural and political backlash across India. Dozens of leading authors returned India’s highest literary award in protest. Hundreds of scientists, academics, actors and filmmakers have signed petitions or spoken out. On Tuesday, Sonia Gandhi, the president of the Congress Party and Mr. Modi’s longtime political opponent, led a march in Delhi to condemn “the atmosphere of fear, intolerance and intimidation in the country.”

Mr. Modi’s party has struggled to formulate a response, at one point urging party leaders to temper their remarks, at another point ridiculing the spreading protests as a manufactured controversy. On Sunday, Mr. Modi’s finance minister, Arun Jaitley, went even further, asserting in a Facebook post that Mr. Modi was “the worst victim of ideological intolerance” enforced by “Congress, left thinkers and activists.”

“Their strategy is twofold,” Mr. Jaitley wrote. “Firstly, obstruct Parliament and do not permit reforms which will bring credit to Modi government. Secondly, create, by structured and organized propaganda, an environment that there is a social strife in India.”

The events leading to Mr. Ali’s death are still being pieced together by investigators. But according to Mr. Kanta, the police official, a Hindu man known by a single name, Brajendra, heard dogs barking outside his home early Monday morning.

“Brajendra decided to go out and check,” Mr. Kanta said. “He found Mr. Ali huddled in one corner of his barn, shivering. Brajendra assumed he had come to steal his calf and raised an alarm. A crowd gathered and they started beating Mr. Ali. In the pushing and pulling, and being beaten up, Mr. Ali died.”

Mr. Brajendra has been arrested, and police officials said he had acknowledged his involvement in Mr. Ali’s death and helped identify others in the mob.

In the village of Keirao Makting, where Mr. Ali’s family lives, angry villagers this week staged protests at the local police station, blocked the main road to the city of Imphal and formed a citizens committee to conduct an independent investigation. “How can a man whose family consisted of engineers and doctors, and himself a respected headmaster, steal a calf?” asked Mohammad Raza-ud-din, leader of the citizens committee.

“He never picked a fight with anyone in the village,” Mr. Raza-ud-din said. “The children in the madrasa love the gentle Ali.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/05/world/asia/hindu-mob-kills-another-indian-muslim-accused-of-harming-cows.html?_r=0

JAIPUR, India (AP) — Right-wing Hindu activists have taken down an exhibit of a Styrofoam cow that was suspended in midair using a balloon, organizers of an art fair in western India and police said Sunday.

R.B. Gauttam, an organizer of the Jaipur Art Summit, said that the exhibit was meant to highlight how cows suffer after ingesting plastic waste at India's many garbage dumps. The activists, however, deemed the exhibit offensive and took it down on Saturday.

Cows are revered by India's majority Hindus, and the slaughter of the animals is banned in several Indian states.

"The activists claimed that the cow in the exhibit looked like it was hanging from a noose and that was disrespectful," Gauttam said. "They argued with us and took the cow down and even put a garland around it."

The cow exhibit continued to be a part of the art fair, but on Sunday it was no longer in midair.

Gauttam said the activists were just "looking for any type of publicity." Mahendra Singh, a police official, said the incident was being investigated.

In recent months, violence based on rumors of beef-eating by India's Muslim minority has spiked. A man was beaten to death by a mob over rumors his family had eaten beef, and two others were killed for allegedly transporting cows for slaughter.

Over the last several weeks, dozens of Indian intellectuals, writers, scientists and filmmakers have blamed Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party for not speaking out against such brutal religious attacks. They say the government's silence has encouraged hard-line Hindu fringe groups to terrorize minorities and assert Hindu superiority.

India temple makes sari mandatory for foreign women

A temple in northern India has asked female foreign tourists to use a sari to "cover themselves and look decent" before entering the complex.

The Kashi Vishwanath temple in Varanasi city has opened a new counter to provide saris for women who come in "outfits that end before the knee".

The temple authorities said the new measures had been taken to maintain decency in the temple complex.

But they denied that the temple was imposing a formal dress code on women.

"We get complaints that some foreign tourists come to the temple in indecent clothes. We have arranged saris for women and also dhotis [traditional wrap-around clothing] for men to ensure that they can cover themselves decently," the temple's chief executive officer PN Dwivedi told BBC Hindi.

Image copyrightRoshan Kumar

Mr Dwivedi added that tourists "can simply wrap a sari or a dhoti on top of their clothes" before entering the temple.

"They [tourists] will not be charged for this service. If Indians come in indecent clothes, they too will be helped," he said.

He told Times of India that no tourist will be denied entry in the temple.

"No foreign woman is going to be stopped from offering prayer inside the sanctorum, and we are not enforcing any dress code. This is just a way of motivating foreign women, who come to the temple in short Western attire to avoid such dresses," he said.

Some foreign tourists told BBC Hindi that they don't mind the new measures.

A Hindu religious leader's comment that allowing women into a shrine devoted to Lord Shani (Saturn) will increase rapes has drawn criticism.

Shankaracharya Swaroopanand's comments came two days after the Shani Shingnapur temple in Maharashtra state let women into the inner sanctum.

For centuries, the temple had been open only to men.

Last month, the high court in Mumbai affirmed the right of women to enter and pray inside all temples.

Women's activists had led protests demanding entry specifically to the Lord Shani shrine.

"Women entered Shani temple's inner sanctum," news agency ANI quoted the 94-year-old as saying on Monday.

"The women are worshipping Shani in the temple. By doing so, Shani's eyes would fall on women and this would result in increase of rape incidents."

Women were kept out of the Shani Shingnapur temple for nearly 400 years and temple officials, in the past, had claimed that the ban was actually "to protect women since Shani emits radiation which can harm them and cause deformity in a foetus if a pregnant woman enters the temple".

Last year, temple priests carried out an elaborate ritual cleansing after a woman managed to gain entry inside and offer prayers.

The temple authorities relented after last month's high court ruling that women had a fundamental right to enter temples, and said those trying to prevent them would be handed a six-month jail term.

Several temples in India preserve the tradition of barring entry to women and in recent months, courts have been considering legal challenges to the policy.

Shankaracharya Swaroopanand's statement has caused outrage in India with many taking to social media to criticise him:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-36016648