Established | April 2021, 01 |
---|---|
Type | Independent research initiative |
Purpose | Monitoring and documenting hate crimes and human rights abuses in India |
Headquarters | Cambridge, USA |
Region | India |
Founder | Raqib Hameed Naik |
Website | www |
Hindutva Watch is an independent research project that documents hate crimes and hate speech against religious minorities in India. Founded by Raqib Hameed Naik, the project focuses on tracking hate crimes and human rights abuses committed by radicalized Hindus and Hindutva militia groups in the country.
Hindutva Watch was established in April 2021 in response to the growing concern over the rise of hate crimes and violence targeting minority groups in India. [1] The organization employs a real-time data collection methodology to track and catalog instances of violent attacks, hate speech, and human rights violations against communities based on their faith, including Muslims, Christians, and members of lower-ranked castes. [2] [3]
Hindutva Watch collects evidence from various sources, including video and picture submissions from Indian activists, news aggregation, social media platforms, and messaging apps. The organization's network of volunteers, which spans across the world, verifies and validates the information before it is documented on their website. Hindutva Watch also holds virtual meetings to discuss and verify reports of hate crimes, ensuring the accuracy of their data. [2] [4]
Since its inception, Hindutva Watch has documented and cataloged over 1,000 instances of violent attacks, hate speech, and other forms of human rights abuses against minority and marginalized communities in India. [5] The organization's work serves as a critical source of evidence for researchers, journalists, lawmakers, and activists who seek to address and combat hate crimes in the country. [2] [4]
The Hindutva Watch initiative operates with an 11-member team of online researchers, situated across the United States, Canada, and Europe. While predominantly volunteers, this team has managed to exert a significant influence on the discourse surrounding Indian politics. Their efforts have not gone unnoticed, with a notable example being the incorporation of nine Hindutva Watch reports into a recent Supreme Court of India petition in August 2023. These reports highlighted cases where the police failed to take action against incidents of communal violence. The Supreme Court petition called for enhanced preventive measures to address such occurrences. [1]
International media outlets like Al Jazeera English, [6] Los Angeles Times, [7] Reuters and more use it as authentic source for tracking attacks on minorities in India. [8]
Hindutva Watch's efforts to document hate crimes have drawn both praise and criticism. Supporters applaud the organization's dedication to preserving evidence of human rights violations, while critics argue that the initiative may be biased or selective in its reporting. [9] [2]
On 16 January 2024, the X account, formerly known as Twitter, associated with Hindutva Watch was withheld within India due to a legal demand. A search for the website's X handle, boasting a substantial following of over 77,000, yielded a blank page accompanied by a notice confirming the regulatory action. [10]
Bajrang Dal is a Hindu nationalist militant organisation that forms the youth wing of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP). It is a member of the right-wing Sangh Parivar. The ideology of the organisation is based on Hindutva. It was founded on 1 October 1984 in Uttar Pradesh, and began spreading more in the 2010s throughout India, although its most significant base remains the northern and central portions of the country.
Freedom of religion in India is a fundamental right guaranteed by Article 25-28 of the Constitution of India. Modern India came into existence in 1947 and the Indian constitution's preamble was amended in 1976 to state that India is a secular state. Supreme Court of India ruled that India was already a secular state from the time it adopted its constitution, what actually was done through this amendment is to state explicitly what was earlier contained implicitly under article 25 to 28. Every citizen of India has a right to practice and promote their religion peacefully. However, there have been numerous incidents of religious intolerance that resulted in riots and violence, notably, the 1984 Anti-Sikh Massacre in Delhi, 1990 Exodus of Kashmiri Hindus from Kashmir, 1992-93 Bombay Riots in Mumbai, the 2008 Anti-Christian riots in Odisha. Some perpetrators of the 1984 Anti-Sikh Massacre in Delhi have not been brought to justice despite widespread condemnation.
The Hindu American Foundation is an American Hindu non-profit advocacy group founded in 2003. The organisation has its roots in the Hindu nationalist organisation Vishwa Hindu Parishad America and its student wing Hindu Students Council.
Human rights in India is an issue complicated by the country's large size and population as well as its diverse culture, despite its status as the world's largest sovereign, secular, socialist democratic republic. The Constitution of India provides for fundamental rights, which include freedom of religion. Clauses also provide for freedom of speech, as well as separation of executive and judiciary and freedom of movement within the country and abroad. The country also has an independent judiciary as well as bodies to look into issues of human rights.
Anti-Hindu sentiment, sometimes also referred to as Hinduphobia, is a negative perception, sentiment or actions against the practitioners or religion of Hinduism. It exists in many contexts in many countries, often due to historical conflict. There is also scholarly debate on what constitutes Hinduphobia in the Western World.
The 2002 Gujarat riots, also known as the 2002 Gujarat violence or the Gujarat pogrom, was a three-day period of inter-communal violence in the western Indian state of Gujarat. The burning of a train in Godhra on 27 February 2002, which caused the deaths of 58 Hindu pilgrims and karsevaks returning from Ayodhya, is cited as having instigated the violence. Following the initial riot incidents, there were further outbreaks of violence in Ahmedabad for three months; statewide, there were further outbreaks of violence against the minority Muslim population of Gujarat for the next year.
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Arjun Singh Sethi is an American civil and political rights writer, human rights lawyer, and adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center and Vanderbilt University Law School.
The Rohingya genocide is a series of ongoing persecutions and killings of the Muslim Rohingya people by the military of Myanmar. The genocide has consisted of two phases to date: the first was a military crackdown that occurred from October 2016 to January 2017, and the second has been occurring since August 2017. The crisis forced over a million Rohingya to flee to other countries. Most fled to Bangladesh, resulting in the creation of the world's largest refugee camp, while others escaped to India, Thailand, Malaysia, and other parts of South and Southeast Asia, where they continue to face persecution. Many other countries consider these events ethnic cleansing.
Cow vigilante violence is a pattern of mob-based collective vigilante violence seen in India. The attacks are perpetuated by Hindu nationalists against non-Hindus to protect cows, which are considered sacred in Hinduism.
DOTO Database is an online portal with data on religious identity based hate-crime against minorities that has happened in India since 2014. The website was launched on 7 March 2018 at Constitution Club of India, New Delhi. The inauguration ceremony was attended by Ram Punyani, Teesta Setalvad, Zafar ul Islam Khan, John Dayal, Ravi Nair. Saba Naqvi and other social activists.
The 2020 Delhi riots, or North East Delhi riots, were multiple waves of bloodshed, property destruction, and rioting in North East Delhi, beginning on 23 February 2020 and brought about chiefly by Hindu mobs attacking Muslims. Of the 53 people killed, two-thirds were Muslims who were shot, slashed with repeated blows, or set on fire. The dead also included over a dozen Hindus, who were shot or assaulted. More than a week after the violence had ended, hundreds of wounded were languishing in inadequately staffed medical facilities and corpses were being found in open drains. By mid-March many Muslims had remained missing.
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Raqib Hameed Naik is a Kashmiri journalist. In 2020, he relocated to the United States. He is the founder of Hindutva Watch, a research project that documents hate crimes and hate speeches against religious minorities in India.