India's religious militants

In its recent edition of the "World Facebook", America's intelligence agency, CIA, slightly unmasked India's two violent Hindu extremist organizations, the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Bajrang Dal, describing them as "religious militant originations" under the category of "Political Pressure Groups". In fact, they are one and the same thing; the latter is the youth wing of the former. Both belong to an ideology, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), to which Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi pays allegiance. Their aim being to make India a "Hindu rashtra" (nation) they have systematically been targeting the country's religious minorities. In 1992, they demolished the 16th century Babari Mosque, built by the first Mughal emperor of India, with a view to replacing it with a Hindu temple. In 2002, in an anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat state, on the watch of the then state chief minister Modi, more than 1,000 Muslims were brutally hacked to death or burned alive. Western countries, including the US, had refused to issue Modi visas for his role in the massacre until he was elected prime minister of India, running on a Hindutva agenda and making mockery of Indian secularism.
No wonder, Modi's rise to power in Delhi in 2014 further encouraged RSS affiliated militants to actively work for establishing India's Hindu identify. Cow being a sacred animal in the religion, several Muslims have been killed on mere suspicion of eating cow beef, even for transporting cows. Accusing Muslims of waging 'love jehad' Hindu militants have taken upon themselves to prevent inter-faith marriages. Then there is the officially sanctioned line of 'ghar wapsi'(return home) that involves forcible conversions of Muslims, mostly poor, rural-based communities, to Hinduism, using the argument they abandoned Hinduism under the Muslim rule, and hence must return to their original faith. Christians, too, are not spared the conversions campaign. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom highlighted these issues in its 2017 Annual Report, saying, "in 2016, religious tolerance and religious freedom conditions continued to deteriorate in India. Hindu nationalist groups - such as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) Sangh Parivar, and Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) - and their sympathizers perpetrated numerous incidents of intimidation, harassment, and violence against religious minorities, and Hindu Dalits."
The commission also made several recommendations to the State Department, such as that it integrate concern for religious freedom into bilateral contacts with India, including the framework of future Strategic Dialogues, at both federal and provincial levels; urge the Indian government to invite UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief to visit the country; and ask the Indian government to publicly rebuke government officials and religious leaders who make derogatory statements about religious communities. So far there is little sign of these recommendations having been translated into action. Modi may have softened his anti-minorities rhetoric, but has done next to nothing to rein in religious zealots because his own thinking is not any different, and also because he relies on his right wing Hindu nationalist base for winning the next year's general elections. As regards the CIA tagging of VHP and Bajrang Dal as "religious militant organisations" it is meant merely to better inform the policymakers about "political pressure groups". Nonetheless, it can lend strength to saner Indians who are deeply perturbed over their country's deviation from its founding ideal of secularism.