Dr
Gregory Stanton speaks during a congressional briefing titled 'Call For
Genocide of Indian Muslims', organised by the Indian American Muslim Council. —
Photo courtesy IAMC Youtube
The founder of Genocide Watch, Dr Gregory Stanton, who had predicted a
genocide in Rwanda years before it took place in 1994 has warned of an
impending genocide of Muslims in India, comparing the situation of the country
under the Narendra Modi government to events in Myanmar and Rwanda.
Formed in 1999, Genocide
Watch is a global organisation dedicated to the prevention of genocide. Dr
Stanton is a former research professor in genocide studies and prevention at
the George Mason University in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States.
Dr Stanton made these remarks during a congressional briefing titled 'Call For Genocide
of Indian Muslims', organised by the Indian American Muslim Council. He was
part of a five-member panel invited to speak at the session.
In his video address, Dr Stanton began with
highlighting that Genocide Watch had been warning of a genocide in India since
2002, "when riots and massacres in Gujarat occurred that killed over a
thousand Muslims".
"At that time, the chief minister of Gujarat
was Narendra Modi, and he did nothing. In fact, there is a lot of evidence that
he actually encouraged those massacres," he said, adding that Modi, now
the prime minister of India, had used "anti-Muslim, Islamophobic
rhetoric" to build his political base.
Dr Stanton said the two ways Modi went about this
was by revoking the
special autonomous status of Indian- occupied Kashmir in 2019 and passing the
Citizenship (Amendment) Act the same year.
He explained that the revocation of the of
occupied Kashmir's special autonomy was "largely aimed at restoring Hindu
domination" in the valley, which had Muslim majority. Moreover, he added,
the enactment of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act was especially "aimed at
Muslims".
"It gave [a] specific favourable status to
refugees who had come from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh, who were of
certain religious groups. But the one group that was excluded was
Muslims," he said. "This act was specifically ... aimed at the
Muslims who had fled Bangladesh during the Bangladesh genocide and civil war in
1971 and had settled in Assam," he continued.
Dr Stanton said there were around three million
such people, mostly Muslims, who had fled to India and "has settled
down" as "regular citizens of India".
But the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, he said,
required people to prove through documentation that they had been the citizens
of India before 1971 as part of a census that was to be overseen by the Indian
supreme court.
"Now a lot of people don't have that kind of
documentation, of course," he pointed out, adding that "the idea
[behind the Act] is to essentially declare them (people who had fled to India
from Bangladesh in 1971) foreigners, and therefore, to allow their deportation."
He said this was "exactly was the Myanmar
government did to the Rohingya Muslims" in 2017. The Myanmar government,
he said, first declared Rohingya non-citizens through a legislation and and
then expelled them through violence and genocide.
In this regard, he also highlighted that the UN
Genocide Convention — an international treaty that criminalises genocide — not
just "covers genocides in whole. It also covers genocides in part".
"It is specifically aimed at the destruction,
in whole or in part, of a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, and that
is exactly what the Myanmar government did in Myanmar against Rohingya,"
he said. "What we are now facing is a very similar kind of a plot, if you
will," he added, referring to India.
Dr Stanton said the Indian government's aim was to
extend the census under the Citizenship (Amendment) Act across the country and
the "victims will be 200 milion Muslims in India".
He further said that the "idea of India as a
Hindu nation, which is the Hindutva movement, is contrary to the history of
India and the Indian constitution".
The Indian constitution, he said, was devised
"to make India a secular country", and that the secularity it
promised was secured in the first years of India's existence under the Congress
party.
"What we have now though, an actual member of
the RSS ( Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) — this extremist, Hindutva-oriented
group — Mr Modi as [the] prime minister of India. So what we have here is an
extremist who has taken over the government," he continued.
Dr Stanton then went on to explain that genocide
was not an event but a process, and that there were early "signs and
processes" of genocide in the Indian state of Assam and occupied Kashmir.
He referred to a conclave held
by Hindutva leader Yati Narsinghanand from December 17 to 19 in Uttarakhand's
pilgrimage city of Haridwar, where multiple calls to kill minorities and attack
their religious spaces were made, saying that the event was aimed at inciting
genocide.
He said there were laws in India that could be
enforced against such practices, "but Mr Modi has not spoken out against
that violence".
Dr Stanton said Modi, as the prime minister of
India, had a moral obligation to denounce this kind of hatred and hate-speech,
that specifically calls for the killing of Muslims.
He said the language used against Muslim in the
Haridwar meeting, which was also used by the Indian government, was actually
"polarisation", which led to genocide.
"So we are warning that genocide could very
well happening in India."
He also likened the circumstances in India to the
events in Rwanda, where a genocide had taken place in 1994.
Dr Stanton said he had predicted the genocide in
Rwanda, keeping in view the situation in the country at the time.
He said he had warned the then-Rwandan president
that "if you don't do something to prevent genocide in your country, there
is going to be a genocide here within five years. That was in 1989. The
genocide developed, the hate-speech developed, all the early warning signs
developed. And as we know, 800,000 Tutsis and other Rwandans were murdered in
1994".
"We cannot let that happen in India," he
concluded.
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