Noted social activist Shabnam Hashmi returned her National Minority Rights Award to the National Commission for Minorities on Tuesday in protest against the recent lynchings and spike in attacks on Muslims, PTI reported. Hashmi, who was given the award in 2008, returned it and the citation to NCM Director TM Skaria.
Hashmi also condemned NCM Chairperson Gayorul Hasan Rizvi’s statements from earlier in June that those cheering for Pakistan’s victory against India in the Champions Trophy should be “deported” to the neighbouring country.
“I return the National Minority Rights Award, which has lost all its credibility, in protest against the consistent attacks and killings of the members of minority communities and total inaction, apathy and tacit support to the violent gangs by the government,” she said in a letter. She added that the commission should have helped uphold the dignity, security and Constitutional rights of minority communities, The Times of India reported.
“The government is behind some of the incidents and outsourced some,” she told ANI. “These people belong to the BJP, and the BJP is controlled by the RSS. The way Talibanisation is happening in society is a matter of concern.”
She recalled the lynching of Mohammed Akhlaq in Uttar Pradesh’s Dadri district in 2015. “While a man was lynched to death by a mob near Delhi on a rumour that he had cow meat in his house, the whole state machinery was busy in getting the meat tested, instead of nabbing the culprits,” she said. “A 16-year-old child is lynched and killed on a train for being Muslim or a techie killed for having a beard.”
The National Minority Rights Award is felicitated every year on December 18 on the United Nations Minorities Rights Day. Hashmi was the founder of NGO Act Now for Harmony and Democracy, but she had stepped down as a trustee earlier in June. “I am leaving Anhad to a younger team, and they will continue to follow the ideology of secularism,” she had said. “They are committed to the same idea of India as I am.”
Hashmi was given the award for her work in Gujarat following the 2002 riots. The citation said her work “invoked the wrath of divisive forces”.
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