Global Media’s Kathua Coverage Points at India’s ‘Religion Wars’

Here is a look at how some reputed publications from across the globe covered the crime.

Congress workers participating in a candle light march to protest over governments inaction in Kathua and Unnao rape incidents, near India Gate in New Delhi on Thursday.

(Photo: PTI)

The brutal and heinous rape and murder of an 8-year-old girl from Jammu and Kashmir’s Kathua has not only jolted India, but sent global shockwaves.

While the country is divided over its support for the accused and the victim’s family, foreign media’s reportage of the incident shines the spotlight on the ‘religious frictions’ that fuel tensions across India.

Here is a look at how some of the reputed publications from across the globe covered the crime.

BBC

The BBC, in its detailed timeline of the Kathua incident, notes how the crime is deeply entrenched in religious politics and divisions.

The crime has shocked the community, exposing the fault lines between Hindu-majority Jammu and the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley in a sharply divided state.

Washington Post

Washington Post’s Marwa Eltagouri, in her report of the crime, says that while the 8-year-old girl’s death brought ‘anguish’ to Kathua, ‘it also brought divisions.’

The case is the latest example of India’s religious friction: as some denounce sexual violence and demand justice for [the victim’s] family, others demand justice for the accused men.

The New York Times

Jeffery Gettleman, in his article for The New York Times, writes that what appeared to be yet another gruesome and ‘isolated’ episode of sexual violence in the country, has turned out be a ‘battleground’ on the basis of religious lines.

Hindu nationalists have turned it into a rallying cry — not calling for justice for [the victim], but rushing to the defense of the accused. All of the men arrested are Hindu, and [the victim]’s nomadic people, the Bakarwals, are Muslim.

Mentioning the bandh called upon Kathua by Hindu groups, Gettleman speculates that the call for the case to be transferred to the CBI could be motivated by the fact that the agency is an arm of the central government, which is helmed by the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The Associated Press

The Associated Press, in its article on the Kathua episode, notes that though religious violence has been a sporadic occurrence in India since it gained independence in 1947, daily interactions in the country were largely peaceful, till 2014.

But that polite distance has widened into a schism since 2014, when the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, was swept into power in a decisive election victory. India’s religious minorities, especially the Muslims who form 13 percent of the population, have felt increasingly isolated since then, as attacks by Hindu extremist groups have risen.

Quoting the local police, AP says that the attack on the 8-year-old victim was rooted in religious divisions. Then recounting the 2012 Delhi gang rape, the news agency states that the Kathua episode was reflective of the divisive religious politics that the country is mired in.

The Guardian

Much like the Associated Press article, The Guardian too attributes the increase in religion-based crimes, in part, to the rise of Modi. While observing that religious riots have always existed in the Indian political landscape, The Guardian’s Michael Safi, quoting Modi’s critics says:

Violence between Muslims and Hindus, and between Hindu castes, has been commonplace in the seven decades since Indian independence. Modi’s critics say his rise to power has emboldened extremists who share his Hindu nationalist ideology.