Hundreds of right-wing Hindu activists and monks rose in unison at a conference this week to take an oath: They would turn India, constitutionally a secular republic, into a Hindu nation, even if doing so required dying and killing.
“If 100 of us are ready to kill 2 million of them, then we will win and make India a Hindu nation,” said Pooja Shakun Pandey, a leader of Hindu Mahasabha, a group that espouses militant Hindu nationalism, referring to the country’s Muslims. “Be ready to kill and go to jail.”
Even by the standards of the rising anti-Muslim fury in India, the three-day conference in the city of Haridwar produced the most blatant and alarming call for violence in recent years.
(Published 26 December 2021, 23:52 IST)
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