London: Indian activist and a writer, who is also one of the leaders of South Asia Solidarity Group (UK), Amrit Wilson, in an article published in The Guardian, UK said that ‘rape culture under Narendra Modi government is celebrated by members of BJP and RSS’.
Wilson, calling India ‘republic of fear’ wrote for The Guardian when Modi arrived in Britain to take part in the Commonwealth summit. Referring to the two recent brutal rapes and murder in Kashmir’s Kathua as well as in Unnao of Uttar Pradesh, Wilson said, “It would be wrong to see the incidents as just violence against the women that have been “endemic in India” but that it was planned and executed to terrorise the Muslim Bakarwal community to drive them out from the region.”
“The attempt to lodge the charge sheet against the accused at a local court was followed by violent protests in their defence by a pro-Modi Hindu rightwing outfit, the Hindu Ekta Manch. Two BJP ministers attended the protests and urged the crowd to obstruct the prosecution of the accused,” her article added further.
A member of BJP of UP legislative assembly was arrested on rape charges in Unnao and when the family approached police, victim’s father was brutally thrashed by the accused MLA’s supporters. Due to which, he died in police custody.
The activist while speaking, about rape culture in the country, with The News said “a new phenomenon has emerged under Modi where not only rape culture is rife, it is celebrated and promoted by the perpetrators. This is new. Rapes happened before but there was no celebration of it”.
Wilson said she wrote for The Guardian to tell the world about BJP and its ideology. “Founders and ideologues of the BJP such as Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar and Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, the revered icon of the Hindu right, praised Hitler and his policies. She said that Savarkar said that Muslim women should be raped and ‘it will be suicidal if they are not raped’,” she said.
“Modi is an RSS member since a young age, he is a lifelong member of RSS. Savarkar was its ideologue and Golwalkar was its founder. In a meeting, a BJP leader had spoken about a dead and buried Muslim women, he said that she should be exhumed and raped. Yogi Adityanath chaired that meeting and remained silent,” Wilson said.
According to the activist-writer, Modi’s popularity has gone down and people in India want the change. “If free and fair elections are held today, Modi will lose,” she says.
(Source: The Guardian – India is a ‘republic of fear’. The UK must keep the pressure on Modi by