A mob in Uttar Pradesh’s Fatehpur cornered a Hindu youngster and threatened him with physical harm unless he chanted “Jai Shri Ram”, a slogan the group said he was obligated to recite as a Hindu.
This is the latest incident of religious coercion to be captured on video and circulated on social media.
In the footage, which surfaced online this week, a group of men is seen surrounding the youngster, who was apparently playing cricket at the time. The youngster, who belongs to the Thakur caste, refused to comply. The mob’s response was unambiguous. Under pressure, the youngster chanted the slogan. Despite that, the mob threatened him.
“You will chant Jai Shri Ram till you are alive. If you don’t chant it, your hands and legs won’t be spared,” one of the men is heard saying in the video. The man further forced the youngster to abuse Muslims using derogatory language. Additionally, a man amongst the mob is also seen donning a BJP scarf.
It is not an isolated incident. Uttar Pradesh has seen a string of similar cases in recent years in which individuals, mostly from minority communities, have been targeted and coerced into chanting religious slogans.
In Kanpur, a 16-year-old Dalit boy was assaulted by a group of students who forced him to chant “Jai Shri Ram” after they took objection to an Instagram post he had shared featuring images of BR Ambedkar. In another case from Dumariyaganj, a video showed an elderly Muslim man being coerced into chanting “Jai Shri Ram” at a prasad distribution event held at a BJP office, with a man telling him on camera he would receive prasad only after he complied.
An elderly Muslim cab driver near the Taj Mahal parking area in Agra was also filmed being pressured into chanting the slogan, with his refusal met with a threat that he would be made to say it within three days.
The Fatehpur incident, in which the target is himself Hindu, marks a notable pattern in the use of religious sloganeering to socially police citizens and enforce a particular notion of Hindu identity.
