Jai Shri Ram: The Hindu chant that became a murder cry – By Geeta Pandey

Last month, a video that went viral on social media showed a terrified Muslim man tied to a pole being assaulted by a lynch mob made up of Hindu men in the eastern state of Jharkhand. In the video, 24-year old Tabrez Ansari is seen pleading for his life, blood and tears streaming down his face. His attackers force him to repeatedly chant “Jai Shri Ram”, which translates from Hindi to “hail Lord Ram” or “victory to Lord Ram”.…

Mr Ansari is not the only one to have been singled out in this manner.… Several dozen people have been killed and hundreds injured since 2014 in mob attacks, but there have been convictions in only a handful of cases. In others, the accused remain free, often due to a lack of evidence, and some have been seen being feted by Mr Modi’s party’s colleagues.

BJP leaders often downplay such incidents, calling them “minor” and accusing the press of “maligning the image of the government”. One BJP MP recently told a news website that the popularity of the slogan “Jai Shri Ram” was a sort of protest by Hindus “against a certain bias and tilt of the polity towards minorities”. “They are also asserting that we are Hindus and we count as Hindus,” he said. But critics say that there are other – better – ways of doing that.

https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-asia-india-48882053

SEE ALSO:

• Tabrez Ansari, Jai Shri Ram and Hate Killings – By Ram Puniyani (Jul 9, 2019, News Click)
  https://www.newsclick.in/tabrez-ansari-jai-shri-ram-hate-killings