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.
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.
A religiously motivated attack against a Hindu would be considered a hate crime when the underlying motive of the crime (explicit or implicit) is driven by the Hindu identity (actual or perceived) of the victim. This would include the targeting of persons or property associated with Hindu people or communities.
Restricting religious practices by non-Hindu groups harbouring animosity towards Hindus or the State implementing targeted and/or prejudicial policies specifically against Hindus as a hate crime involves actions and/or policies that stop the religious expression in the form of processions, rituals, display of religious symbols, celebration of festivals targeted towards a specific religious group – in this case – the Hindus.
Religious symbols, iconography and sacred spaces are an intrinsic part of the Hindu faith. Religious symbols, whether donned by an individual or displayed for worship or symbolic display of faith, icons and divine spaces, by virtue of worship or presence of the deity, are considered kinetic manifestations of the faith professed by Hindus. Any deliberate and/or malicious attack against a religious symbol, icon or space, temporary or permanent, is a religiously motivated malicious/deliberate attack on the faith itself
A religiously motivated attack against a Hindu would be considered a hate crime when the underlying motive of the crime (explicit or implicit) is driven by the Hindu identity (actual or perceived) of the victim. This would include the targeting of persons or property associated with Hindu people or communities.
