Islamophobia in 2020

2020  is  over now and we have entered into a new decade. Most of us have made our resolution for upcoming year and most of them are materialistic and self centred. The year 2020 became one of the most humiliating year for Muslims, with Islamophobia being exponentially rising around India and the World. And here we are left humiliated day by day without introspection, living a hedonistic and ignorant life.

Everyone of us feel the bitterness of the situation but we deliberately turn a blind eye on it thinking " मेरे साथ थोड़ी कुछ बुरा हो रहा है जो होगा देखा जायेगा अपने काम से मतलब रखते हैं।"

The notion of Islam in our mind is just of any other religion prescribing its followers to do mere rituals and utter some prayer formulas to attain eternity. Well in that case we are in utter darkness as Islam is a completely way of life , the truth which is there to transcend every other way of life or ideology.

Let's first talk about Islamophobia in India:

The beginning of this year (2020) was known to the entire world. The RSS backed Hindu Nationalist government made a discriminatory laws ( CAA/NRC ) to satisfy their dream of harassing Muslims of India, which resulted in more than 3 months of continuous nationwide protest without any positive result.

Then in February we have seen one of the worst pogrom against Muslims in the national capital of India by the same hindutva mob. Still nothing happens to the dignity of Muslims.

Now we come in March where the smoke of pogrom is still alive and country faces an unplanned lockdown due to Covid-19. So we remember the episode of blatant lies and slander against Tablighi Jamaat by lapdog media and many others. This episode was there in Indian media till the next episode of Sushant Singh's death. Until then there were many hate crimes aimed at Muslims for allegedly doing "Corona Jihad".

Here are some of the many hate crimes against Muslims:

On June 15 2020, at Mangalore, in Karnataka, a tempo driver Mohd Hanif was brutally beaten up by the cow vigilante lynch mob and damaged the tempo vehicle. Reportedly, the men belonged to Bajrang Dal

On 08 August 2020 at Sikar district in Rajasthan, a 52 year old Gaffar Ahmed was brutally beaten up and forced to chant “Jai Shree Ram” and “Modi Zindabad”. The attackers allegedly pulled the driver’s beard, punched his tooth out, and asked him to go to Pakistan

On 16 August 2020 at Reasi in Jammu and Kashmir, Muhammad Asgar (40) and his nephew Javid Ahmad (26) were beaten with sticks, punches and kicks with “Desh ke gaddron ko, goli maaro salon ko” (Shoot the traitors) and “Bharat Mata ki Jai” chants

On 23 August 2020 at Panipat in Haryana, a 28 year old Akhlaq Salmani was beaten with bricks and clubs and his right arm carrying '786' (Numerology based Muslim believers consider it Holy) was cut off with chainsaw

On 06 September 2020 at NCR, Aftab Alam was lynched to say "Jai Sri Ram"

On September 11, Sudarshan News broadcast its controversial show on Muslim ‘infiltration’ in UPSC popularized as again "UPSC Jihad".
The final result of 2019 UPSC exam was declared on August 4, 2020. Out of the 829 qualifying candidates, 42 were Muslims which is 5%. Only one Muslim candidate was in the top 100.
This was clearly an unsubstantiated and misleading slander against Muslim students.

The bigotry of France gave a fan to the fire here in India and the news media and social media both were flooded with anti Muslim rhetoric and not to mention countless twitter trends in support of France's bigotry.

The region of Kashmir and Kashmiri people are still facing atrocious treatment by Indian armed forces defiling all human rights.
While Kashmir was still under military occupation , it's anniversary was celebrated by performing 'bhoomi poojan' on exactly 5th August.

Now under the conspiracy theory of love jihad Muslims are criminalised on allegedly converting Hindu to marry them. And recent happenings show that genuine Muslim couple are harassed and beaten severely by U.P police for alleged conversion.

These are some of the many anti - Muslim and Islamophobic attackes and rhetorics in 'secular' and 'democratic' India. Keep waiting for more in 2021.

Furthermore, Let's look outside of India and understand the humiliation of Muslims around the world.

Rohingya Muslims are terrorised and driven out of Burma under ethnic cleansing forced to become refugees.

Sri Lanka was no good than blaming the spread of Corona virus on Muslims and now forcing cremation of bodies of Muslims who died due to covid-19, despite the fact that W.H.O ruled that body can be buried or cremated.

The fact that Anti-Muslim prejudice is a huge problem in the UK and US is not hidden from anyone.

Germany reports 188 Islamophobic crimes in 3 months.
At least 15 mosques were attacked between April, June this year.

Now let's come to 2020's most discussed Islamophobia- The episode of France and Emmanuel Macron , the French President.

The murder of high school teacher Samuel Paty after he showed in his class cartoons insulting the Muslim Prophet Muhammad, which Charlie Hebdo had announced that it will republish, gave an opportunity to the French politics.
With the projection of cartoons, under the guise of freedom of speech the French government tried to insult the Prophet, onto the town halls in Montpellier and Toulouse, France had once again as it did many times in history, symbolically declared that it one of the flag bearer of Islamophobia in Europe. The government launched a crackdown against Muslim organisations while vigilante groups have attacked mosques.

A French NGO, The Collective Against Islamophobia in France (CCIF) listed 1,043 Islamophobic incidents that occurred in 2019 

While anti-Semitism is banned, I cannot understand that Islamophobia is considered freedom of opinion.

The state of Israel massacred Palestinians with impunity and continues to violate their most basic human rights today. The Palestinian and Syrian crisis is increasing day by day. Yemen is facing the worst humanitarian crisis which can cause millions of deaths. The so called wealthy Arab world has turned it's back on our own brethren and sold themselves to Israel's cause.

The Chinese government has destroyed tens of thousands of mosques and graveyards in the Xinjiang province and enslaved almost a million Uighur Muslims living in Xianjing province , tormenting them with horrendous inhuman atrocities , violating all human rights. Xi Jinping has only exacerbated it. And more recently,
Barcelona’s star footballer Griezmann cuts ties with Huawei citing China's treatment of Uighur Muslims.

The list is unending but to keep it to the point I have mentioned some of the many crisis which Muslims are facing in India and around the world.

We cannot be a deaf, dumb and blind and pretend to ignore the condition. Ponder and introspect or at least gather some knowledge about the Deen and surrounding so that no one come up and teach you their distorted version of Islam or people associated to it.

The Qur'an summarizes our situation in profound words.
''
Indeed, Allah will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves.
[13 : 11]

Being almost 2 billion in population Muslims are dehumanized, terrorized and are seen as an inferior community. What has caused this? Think! Decisions is yours, keep facing humiliation despite the fact that Muslims make the 24% of world's population or strive for yourself. Muster up some courage and try to leave  the hedonistic and self centered delusionary life because Allah will ask you what you did.