Reports
Religious Minorities in India Report (2021)
This report is a manifestation of an innocent idea of the oppressed charting their own persecution and lived experiences. The initial idea of this report was to prepare a document charting out the persecution of the Muslim minority in the year 2021, but as some of us started researching and carrying out field travels, we realized the interlinked realities and the shared experiences of oppression with the Sikh and Christian minority of India – both in terms of the policies by the state, public rhetoric used to systemically otherise the three communities by politicians and actions taken by non-state actors.
Members of the research team predominantly constitute first-generation university learners and all the contributors to this report have lived experiences of the themes that have been addressed. Due to these experiences, it was collectively decided that the report will include a chapter which will discuss Islamophobia and mental health, but that could not be materialised due to some unfortunate developments over time. The researchers working on documenting the incidents of hate speeches, unlawful laws, physical violence and mental trauma it causes were more often than not finding themselves in the position of writing about their own families, friends, schoolmates, city and community. In the process, the researchers were challenged with trauma and anxiety. Through that approach, this report places itself in the middle of the conflict it discusses.
Hence, it is imperative that this report is an important endeavour and initiative for the researchers.
Finally, it must be addressed that the findings of this report are not in any way exhaustive of the developments and decline in the status of the membership of Muslim, Sikh and Christian communities in the Indian society. This is purely an attempt to fill the gaps in the conversations circling the communities, and we take complete responsibility for the inaccuracies and flaws, if any. As young individuals who wish to dream and live freely in our country, we draw hope from the words of political activist and thinker, Angela Davis: “You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world… and you have to do it all the time.”