The Hindupobia Tracker database has been designed keeping in mind the complexities and variables of different kinds of religiously motivated crimes against Hindus - Here are some pointers to keep in mind while reading the database
Hindus have been facing prosecution - historical and ongoing - based on their religious identity. The persecution ranges from various forms of hate speech, dehumanisation, delegitimisation, discrimination, and microaggressions to large-scale violence and genocide.
You might have several questions - from why we chose to go with the 'Hinduphobia' and not 'Hindumisia' to why some cases like that of Shraddha Walker are not there in the hate crime database. These FAQs answer some of those questions
The main objective of descriptive research is to describe the data collected on the religiously motivated hate crimes against Hindus and define the characteristics of Hinduphobia which leads to the historic and ongoing persecution of Hindus. The research is undertaken with the aim of observing, recording, describing, and classifying religiously motivated hate crimes against Hindus and describing the serious implications of Hinduphobia.
Cases added as 'undecided' would not reflect in the hate crime database to ensure the authenticity of the database. These cases would appear in a separate database. In the future, if information confirming religious motivations of these crimes emerge, the case would be added to the hate crime database.
These crimes would include a woman belonging to the Hindu faith being denied her right to practice her religion in any manner either by force or coercion after she is in a relationship with a man who belongs to a different religion.
While this category of hate crime for the purpose of the Hinduphobia Tracker would focus only on the religious identity as a characteristic (specifically, Hindu religious identity), the working definition of ‘hate crime’ does not limit speech being categorized as hate speech to only illegal speech, but also encompasses legal speech, if it propagates hate, prejudice, stigmatization, dehumanization etc on the basis of the victim’s Hindu religious identity.
These crimes would include a man belonging to the Hindu faith being denied his right to practice his religion in any manner either by force or coercion after he in is in a relationship with a woman who does not belong to his religion or simply for being associated with a woman
Hostility towards Hinduism in Islam and Christianity is theologically embedded. As such, any conversion by Muslims or Christians of Hindus is a result of hostility towards Hinduism. There are cases in fact where even faiths that don’t inherently harbour animosity towards Hinduism have been militarized to express hatred by a section of the adherents of the faith. Such faiths too indulge in predatory proselytization. For the purpose of this category, we would only focus on those conversions which have a component of coercion, force, threats, harassment, inducement, brainwashing and the like.
