Expert Who Predicted Rwandan Genocide, Warns Same Could Happen in India: Early Signs of Genocide in Assam, Kashmir

‘Genocide Watch’ founder Professor Gregory Stanton, who had predicted the 1994 Rwandan genocide, has now warned of the possible massacre against Muslims in India.

In a briefing aired on Friday, Founder of United States-based non profit organisation Genocide Watch Stanton stated: “Genocide is not an event, it is a process. It develops. Genocide Watch has been speaking out warning of genocide in India since 2002, when riots and massacres that occurred in Gujarat killed over a thousand Muslims. At that time, the chief minister of Gujarat was Narendra Modi, and he did nothing. In fact, there’s actually a lot of evidence that he encouraged those massacres.”

“Under his BJP party’s policies, he has used anti-Muslim, Islamophobic rhetoric to build his political base, and one of those ways has been the revocation of the autonomous status of Kashmir, which is the one state in India which is majority Muslim. The revocation was aimed at restoring Hinduism and Hindu domination in Kashmir,” Stanton said, pointing out two major policies in India that targeted Muslims.

In the briefing organised by the Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC), Dr Stanton further observed that the government’s aim with the widely-protested Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) was “to extend a census across the country whose victims will be 200 million Muslims in India. The primary targets, would be the Muslim population in Assam.”

The conflict studies scholar also noted that there were early “signs and processes” of genocide in Assam and Kashmir.

Referring to the December 2021 ‘Dharam Sansad’ in Haridwar, where multiple calls to kill minorities and attack their religious spaces were made by several Hindutva leaders, Stanton said “Genocide is what the Haridwar meeting was especially aimed at inciting. Incitement of genocide is a crime under the Genocide Convention, and also illegal in India. That law must be enforced.”

He also condemned Modi’s silence on the issue and said, “Modi has not spoken out against that violence. It’s his moral obligation to denounce this kind of hate speech.”

The genocide studies specialist said that the language used against Muslims in the Haridwar Hate meet was meant to dehumanize Muslims and create polarisation, which can lead to genocide.

“So, we are warning that genocide could very well happen in India,” he added.

During his speech, professor Stanton noted, “The idea of India as a Hindu nation, which is the Hindutva movement, is contrary to the history of India and the Indian Constitution. The spirit of secularism espoused by the Constitution had been defended by the Congress-led government during the initial years of India’s independence.”

Alluding to PM Modi, he said that an extremist has taken over the government. “What we have now though, an actual member of the RSS ( Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) – this extremist, Hindutva-oriented group – Mr Modi as India’s prime minister is an extremist who has taken over the government.”

Stanton had warned the then Rwandan President, Juvénal Habyarimana five years before the genocide in Rwanda. “If you don’t do something to prevent genocide in your country, there is going to be a genocide here within five years, that was in 1989. Genocide and hate speech developed, all the early warning signs developed. Therefore, 800,000 Tutsis and other Rwandans were murdered in 1994″.

“We cannot let that happen in India,” the ‘Genocide Watch’ scholar concluded.

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