Washington/Brussels/Dhaka: Hundreds of Indian Americans of different faiths rallied outside Indian consulates in major American cities to protest against the recent violence in Delhi that has killed at least 42 people, and injured hundreds.
Outside the Indian consulate in New York protesters gathered chanting “Shame!” at officials as they tried to exit or enter the building.
“We are exhausted,” Sana Qutubuddin, an activist with Alliance for Justice and Accountability – a coalition of South Asian groups that organised rally alongside the Indian American Muslim Council, South Asia Solidarity Initiative, and Equality Labs – said during her speech at the rally.
Other civil society organisations such as the Alliance for South Asians Taking Action, Chicago Against Hindu
Fascism and Bay Area Against Hindu Fascism also protested against the worst violence in Delhi since 1984, when more than 3,000 Sikh minority were killed following the assassination of then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
“I was there to have an opportunity to grieve with a community that understands how egregious the genocidal violence that occurred in Delhi was,” Qutubuddin told an media outlet, “and to be in a space that recognises what this moment means in modern Indian history.”
Organisers estimated nearly 300 people turned up at the New York rally where they chanted slogans to repeal the CAA, and highlight the current BJP government’s “fascist” ideologies that target lower-caste Hindus and other religious minorities.
At the New York rally, protesters played music, and rallied around the block “to let the neighbours of the consulate know that their silence makes them a party to genocide,” said one of the organisers.
For many Indian Americans, showing up at the protest was all they felt they could do.
“I grew up in an idyllic idea of a secular India and I’m completely devastated to see everything that I thought would happen in India is happening under the Modi government,” Ishita Srivastava, who has been living in New York for 12 years, told the media.
“Being here is all that I can do,” she added. “I think it’s a very systematically fuelled bigotry and state-sponsored and supported violence and there’s clearly an appetite for rabid divisiveness and bigotry and it’s exacerbated by the fact that we have a deeply unequal society.”
The protests – from San Francisco to Chicago and Atlanta – were brought together by organisers who identify as multi-faith and/or inter-faith and inter-caste collectives.
Earlier in the week, an estimated 50 people gathered at Harvard University in Boston, immediately after the Delhi violence began.
In Chicago, organisers said teachers, IT professionals, senior citizens were among the hundred protesters who came out on streets.
“Attendees were reminded that this state-sanctioned violence is consistent with Indian history – citing the murders of Muslims in Gujarat [in 2002] and the Sikh genocide in 1984, as well the constant violence enacted on Dalits [the former untouchables] within caste oppression,” Jihan, one of the organisers in San Francisco, told Al Jazeera. They estimated about 100 people showed up for the protest.
Europe
Demonstrations and sit-ins were organised by members of the Indian community in more than 18 cities across Europe to express solidarity with the victims of the clashes in Delhi and to demand immediate action against those responsible.
The protests, attended by around 1,500 people, were held in cities including Brussels, Geneva, Helsinki, Krakow, The Hague, Stockholm, Dublin, Paris, Berlin, Munich, Glasgow and London.
Around 46 people have been killed and more than 200 injured in the Delhi violence, that flared-up between
February 23 to February 26. Hundreds of homes and shops were burnt and vandalised.
The violence had started small as clashes between supporters and opponents of the contentious Citizenship
Amendment Act. It coincided with US President Donald Trump’s two-day visit to India, but rapidly spun out of control, necessitating an urgent, midnight intervention from the Delhi High Court, which sought immediate police action.
The opposition has held Home Minister Amit Shah responsible for the violence and demanded his resignation.
Some of the top politicians of ruling BJP have also been accused of delivering hate-speeches that allegedly led to violence.
In Berlin, the protesters marched towards the Indian embassy, raising slogans against the alleged police atrocities on the victims and inaction by the government.
The protesters also placed flowers in front of the Indian Embassy as a gesture of condolence to the victims.
In Belgium, the Indian diaspora carried out protests despite harsh weather conditions, while the protestors in
Glasgow sang Hum Dekhenge song.
The protestors in Krakow wore black to symbolize mourning and resistance, while Tea was distributed to everyone present to mark symbols of unity that bring Indians from various regions, languages and religious beliefs together.
“The brutality and extent of violence that was witnessed in Delhi recently has shaken us all. It is high time we stand against this hate-filled ideology that has divided India right down the middle,” said an organiser.
The Netherland protests saw slogans in English and Hindi, poetry and speeches, a tribute to Shaheen Bagh and reading of the Preamble the Indian embassy.
In Paris, French citizens joined Indians to observe a minute of silence. They also laid white roses, a symbol of anti- fascist resistance in Europe, near the consular office in Paris.
Bangladesh
D Several thousand Muslims marched from the main mosque in Bangladesh’s capital to denounce India’s
government for allegedly inflaming tensions between Hindus and Muslims, leading to clashes that left at least 40 dead and hundreds injured.
Thousands of Muslims left the Baitul Mokarram Mosque in Dhaka and joined the rally, chanting slogans against Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
They threw shows at posters of Modi and burned a portrait of him. Many of the protesters carried banners saying, “Stop killing Muslims” and “Save Indian Muslims.”
The protesters also demanded that Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina cancel a plan to invite Modi to a commemoration next month of the 100th anniversary of the birth of independence leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
India’s Hindu nationalist government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi says the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) is meant to help persecuted minorities from neighbouring countries, but critics say the law, which makes faith a basis for granting citizenship, is against the country’s secular ethos.
The CAA passed last December has been compared to US President Donald Trump’s Muslim ban as it blocks naturalisation for Muslims, who form nearly 15 percent of India’s 1.3 billion population.
More than 40 people have been killed in a harsh police crackdown on nationwide peaceful sit-ins against the
“anti-Muslim” law.