ISLAMABAD: India is in the early stages of a genocide, driven by a state-backed agenda to reduce Muslims, Christians, and other non-Hindu minorities to second-class citizens, a prominent global expert has warned.
Dr Gregory H. Stanton, a law and cultural anthropology professor who famously predicted the 1994 Rwandan genocide five years before it occurred, made the assertions in an interview with South Speaks with Saqib.
Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s extremist Hindu nationalist government, India has effectively manifested a regime akin to a "Nazi government," combining exclusionary, religiously based extreme nationalism with systematic structural violence, he said.
"There's persecution widely of Muslims all over India," Dr Stanton stated, adding that this is the dangerous step right before active extermination.
Applying his 10-stage model of genocide, he categorized the escalating state of persecution across the country as a critical warning phase.
The scholar pointed to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s driving ideology, Hindutva, as a highly exclusionary, racist, and religiously biased doctrine that frames Islam and Christianity as foreign threats.
He detailed how this ideology transforms into actionable state policy, citing the Citizenship Amendment Act as a tool to strip minority populations of their Indian residency and subject them to legal displacement.
"They believe that their religion is true and other religions are not," Dr Stanton said, noting that the BJP aims to take away the citizenship of non-Hindus.
According to Stanton, the warning signs are most severe in critical conflict zones like Kashmir and Manipur.
In Muslim-majority Indian Illegally Occupied Kashmir, decades of heavy militarization and widespread political imprisonments have amounted to entrenched state persecution. Dr Stanton described the situation there as "almost legalized murder."
Meanwhile, in Manipur, a targeted campaign by the dominant Hindu population against the predominantly Christian ethnic minority highlights the transition from discrimination to active dehumanization.
Dr Stanton shared that horrific reports have emerged of mass rapes, public humiliation, and victims being burned alive.
"I think it's already happening in Manipur," Dr Stanton warned regarding the high potential for genocide.
Reflecting on his historic 1989 warning to Rwandan leadership, Dr Stanton cautioned that modern democracies are not protected from committing genocide.
While noting that India has not yet arrived at full-scale extermination, he emphasized that the current trajectory will inevitably lead to genocidal massacres if left unchecked.
"We shouldn't assume that genocide is an all-or-none thing that it gradually develops," Dr Stanton said.
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