Kathmandu, February 10. Monks in Haridwar, India have been spreading hate speeches. The prime minister reportedly stayed silent when the matter reached him. Vinod Bansal, spokesperson for the World Hindu Council said that all small matters should not reach the prime minister.

The ex-Supreme Court judge has stated that the hate speeches promote genocide and the ruling party members are almost endorsing it by staying silent.

Vigilantes in India has already caused disturbances previously, which included disrespecting cows and dragging couples out of trains, cafes and homes on suspicion that Hindu women might be seduced by Muslim men. Global human rights organizations and local activists have warned that if such hate speeches continue and spread through social media, situations could take a dangerous turn.

Gregory Stanton, the founder of Genocide Watch, a nonprofit group has revealed that the difference between such communal disturbances between Myanmar and India is that in India, the mobs are responsible and not the military. He has said that misinformation on social media could be ground for communal violence, so it must be taken under control immediately.

Indian PM Modi picked Yogi Adityanath to lead Uttar Pradesh in 2017. Yogi Adityanath was a leader a youth group accused of vigilante violence. He has banned inter-faith marriages, terming it ‘love-jihad’ and served as moral police if people found disrespecting cows.

While one of the organizers of the Hindu festival at Haridwar revealed that peaceful ways must be adopted for the Muslims in India to be converted back into Hindus, one of the leading protesting monks, Yati Narsinghanand has revealed that they must choose the opposite way and prepare to die. The monk also took the Talibans and Islamic State as an ideal example.

Narsinghanand was earlier arrested in charges of hate speech. The fellow monks threatened to bomb the Indian assembly if he wasn’t released. They had additional demands of creating India as a Hindu state, late last month.

Swami Amritanand, an organizer of the Haridwar event mentioned that Narsinghanand said nothing wrong and that they are doing what America and Britain are doing.

(With extracts from an article by Saumya Khandelwal for The New York Times)