His Excellency Mr Manpreet VOHRA, High Commissioner of India Electronically 9 June 2022 Dear Your Excellency 1 – AFIC registers its strong protest against highly offensive comments by former BJP representatives Nupur Sharma and Naveen Jindal. 2 – AFIC calls on India to stop the demonisation and persecution of Muslims throughout India. 3 – AFIC calls on India to withdraw its troops from Jammu and Kashmir We write to express our profound concern about the BJP government’s extreme rhetoric towards Islam and Muslims. This extreme rhetoric has caused division between Hindus and Muslims and empowered Hindutva radicals to attack Muslims. This very extreme rhetoric recently escalated to the point where BJP officials insulted the honour of our beloved Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings upon him. This insult has rightly led to a backlash from Muslim nations and representative Muslim bodies throughout the globe. This level of Islamophobia has built up over the years through incessant unfair and unwarranted blame of the Indian Muslim minority. In recent weeks, we’ve seen calls from senior RSS figures demanding that Muslims reject various Islamic teachings, it is not the place of the RSS to dictate the faith practice of any community, their calls are rejected and we warn that this rhetoric will further deteriorate religious tolerance in India. In recent times, Indian diplomatic missions have also become involved in actively promoting a false audio-visual narrative called “The Kashmir Files”. The involvement of diplomatic missions in such incendiary material is a breach of the Geneva Convention which states: “Foreign Diplomatic Officials are to bring friendly relations between their home state and that of the receiving state. Also, under Article 41, “without prejudice to their privileges and immunities, it is the duty of all persons enjoying such privileges and immunities to respect the laws and regulations of the receiving State. They also have a duty not to interfere in the internal affairs of that State.” The Kashmir Files is a distorted false narrative that uses hate and propaganda against Muslims. Nasty clips from the Kashmir Files are being shared on the internet and flagged by Hinduvta Watch where they chant and uphold that there shall be no Muslim any longer in India and that all Hindus should marry Muslim girls as a means of forced conversion to Hinduism. That is the effect that the movie has had on its viewership. AFIC takes this opportunity to remind the High Commission that Hindutva extremism is what led to the murder of Gandhi. It will hurt India economically as more nations join in the calls to boycott Indian products. AFIC demands redress from the BJP government on these matters, AFIC will actively join the boycott movement until this redress is put into effect. Kind regards,
Dr Rateb Jneid President, AFIC |
