We failed to recognise more virulent anti-Hindu, anti-Buddhist, & anti-Sikh phobias: India at UNSC
India on Tuesday at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) said that the global community has failed to recognise the emerging threats of "more virulent forms of religious phobias, including anti-Hindu, anti-Buddhist, and anti-Sikh," citing violations of gurudwara premises and glorified desecration of Hindu idols in temples in India's neighbourhood.
Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan, speaking at the UNSC High-Level Open Debate on 'Peacebuilding and sustaining peace: Diversity, state-building, and the search for peace,' said that being "selective about criticising such phobias is at our own danger."
“As regards religious identities, we are witnessing how member-states are facing a newer form of religious phobias. While we have condemned antisemitism, Islamophobia and Christianophobia, we fail to recognise that there are more virulent forms of religious phobias emerging and taking roots, including anti-Hindu, anti-Buddhist and anti-Sikh phobias,” he added.
He said that one has been witness to the “destruction of temples, glorification of breaking of idols in temples, violation of gurudwara premises, massacre of Sikh pilgrims in gurudwaras, destruction of Bamyan Buddhas and other religious iconic sites in our own neighbourhood and elsewhere”.
“Our inability to even acknowledge these atrocities and phobias only gives those forces encouragement that phobias against some religions are more acceptable than those against others. If we chose to be selective about criticising such phobias or ignoring them, we do so at our own peril,” he added.
