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The Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office is investigating an incident throughout Edison’s annual India Day Parade on Sunday when a gaggle of males confirmed up allegedly wielding flags symbolizing militant Hinduism.
The Indian American Muslim Council, which participated within the parade, condemned the “hateful display of flags” by the lads, who they are saying appeared beside Muslim marchers to intimidate them. Violence towards Muslims and Christians has been steadily on the rise in India, and plenty of say it’s waved apart by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party authorities.
Indian American households and enterprise teams participated within the parade, which is organized yearly by the Indian Business Association, a gaggle of native retailers within the South Asian enclave.
Edison, notably Oak Tree Road, the place the parade happened, is understood for its number of eating places, theaters and shops, representing the various cultures and spiritual teams within the Indian subcontinent, together with Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
Slogans and flags
It was a good looking Sunday afternoon, and the parade, which included kids, was continuing peacefully, mentioned a Middlesex County resident who mentioned his final title was Ansari however declined to offer his first title. Ansari was within the parade as a part of the Indian American Muslim Council, or IAMC.
Then a gaggle of round 5 or 6 males joined the parade, chanting slogans and waving flags which might be utilized by the Bajrang Dal, a nationalistic outfit with roots in India that espouses a militant and unique Hindu identification.
Participants within the parade had been calling out “Meri Jaan, Hindustan” — a Hindi-language phrase expressing love for India — in a video shared by IAMC member Niyaz Khan.
Ansari mentioned he had famous the group close to Cinder Road, however the males weren’t interfering with the procession, which allows solely the U.S. and Indian nationwide flags, in keeping with the enterprise affiliation’s guidelines on its web site. Ansari mentioned he grew alarmed after they joined the parade close to his group, shouting non secular slogans, in keeping with Khan’s video, and he notified police on the occasion.
Officers intervened, Ansari mentioned, and the group moved away from the parade.
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“IAMC commends local law enforcement for taking swift action to address the hateful display,” the group mentioned in a press launch, noting that the parade was in any other case peaceable and celebrated India’s numerous communities. The Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office declined to remark because the police report is underneath investigation.
A video clip exhibiting the flags was tweeted by Hindutva Watch, a volunteer watchdog group that paperwork threats to spiritual freedoms by militant Hindu teams, a pattern famous by the U.S. authorities. The U.S. State Department criticized the decline of spiritual freedoms in India in a report issued in March, notably legal guidelines in 12 Indian states that prohibit somebody from changing from one faith to a different.
“These flags are not from Bajrang Dal,” mentioned Dhiren Amin, president of the Indian Business Association, and the chants by the group solely praised the Hindu deity Rama, he mentioned, upon reviewing the video. “We are a true community organization and we are working with the community.”
Bulldozer eventually 12 months’s parade
Amin’s affiliation final 12 months publicly apologized after an outcry when nationwide reporting revealed that the parade featured a bulldozer that some mentioned was innocuous however critics mentioned was divisive. Bulldozers have been used to demolish houses of Muslims in components of northern India in recent times, as an intimidation tactic.
In its report “We have no orders to save you,” Human Rights Watch recognized the Bajrang Dal and an affiliated group, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, for “extensive involvement” in a 2002 pogrom towards Muslims within the Indian state of Gujarat. The CIA additionally listed the Dal as a militant non secular group for just a few years in 2018.
The Indian American Muslim Council normally participates in Indian Independence Day celebrations in New York City, nevertheless it joined the Edison parade this 12 months.
The annual parade commemorates India’s independence day, which falls on Aug. 15. Attended by native politicians and mayors of Woodbridge and Edison, it options floats, leisure and efficiency by kids, and is a long-standing custom on the town. Sunday’s incident alarmed Muslim members.
“Religious violence and intimidation are normalized in India today. That is the gist of what happened in Edison on Sunday,” mentioned Central Jersey resident Deepak Kumar, an activist and member of the progressive group Hindus for Human Rights, which advocates towards rising Hindu militancy in India. “These people showed up to say they are still around, and that they call the shots. But New Jersey is not India. Whatever is happening there should not be allowed to be reflected here.”
Bajrang Dal
The incident on the parade reveals that Bajrang Dal “has a support base here in our communities, which should ring an alarm for the local law enforcement, considering the group’s extremist ideology and militant campaign against India’s religious minorities,” mentioned Raqib Hameed Naik, a journalist who has documented the rise of Hindu nationalism in India and the U.S.”It was additionally an try to intimidate and bully the Muslim and Christian members of Indian origin, who know what this flag means and the function this group has performed in upending the lives of their family members again dwelling,” he mentioned.
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