In recent times, a concerted effort has been launched by the ‘intellectual elite’ to paint Hindus as aggressors and Muslims as victims of hate crimes even if the crime was not motivated by religion. IndiaSpend’s faulty ‘hate tracker‘ is one such initiative. The MASUKA was another.
Speculations have been made that ‘civil society’ was laying down the foundations for Communal Violence Bill 2.0. The Congress manifesto, it appears, confirms such speculations.
It says on page 42:
“We will pass a new law in the first session of the 17th Lok Sabha and in the Rajya Sabha to prevent and punish hate crimes such as mob-engineered stripping, burning and lynching. The law will contain provisions to compensate the victims and to hold accountable the police and district administration for proven negligence.”
Although the manifesto does not make any references to religion, the past conduct of the Congress party in this regard is abundant confirmation of where it’s heading. Considering the extremely anti-Hindu nature of the Communal Violence Bill, it appears almost certain that any Violence Bill proposed by the Congress will follow along the same lines.
The MASUKA is a draft legislation that was created to address exactly the issues mentioned in the Congress manifesto. It casts a wide net to cover offences under such Acts, including defining victims as those who have suffered even ‘mental and psychological harm’, the goal is to make it extremely tough to even protect oneself from actual crimes in these scenarios. An excellent critique of MASUKA has been made here.
Considering the fact that the Congress party charged a group of individuals from foreign funded NGOs to draft the Communal Violence Bill and that the grounds for new legislation on the specific issues were laid by these same sections of ‘Civil Society’, it appears certain that the new law will have the same anti-Hindu slant as the previously touted Bill. Moreover, the Congress party has also laid strong emphasis on strengthening ‘Civil Society’ in its manifesto.
Most significantly, the victims of ‘hate crimes’ invariably turn out to be members of the minority community according to ‘civil society‘ even when the motivations aren’t religious. Similarly, Hindus are not called victims of hate crimes even when the motivations are religious.