Amid growing extreme Hindu nationalism in India, dozens of speakers called for concerted action to uphold the country’s constitution and fundamental rights, at a conference on 25–27 May, to mark four years of government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
‘There is a grave threat to plurality,’ Professor Ganesh Narayan Devy, a scholar on India’s religious and linguistic diversity, told the Citizens’ Conclave on ‘Building an Inclusive India’ in New Delhi, attended by over 800 delegates from across the country. ‘We are living at a time when you are branded as anti-national for expressing a different view [contrary to Hindu nationalism],’ said Devy.
‘[Hindu nationalists] demonise and attack us: 2017 saw a 20% increase in the number of atrocities against Christians,’ Tehmina Arora, a lawyer and director of a rights group, told the conference.
