North India eateries told to display employee names in Hindu holy month

18/7/2024 17:55

        Police in northern
        India have asked owners of restaurants to list the names of
        their workers on display boards during a Hindu holy month that
        begins next week, sparking fears it is an attempt to identify
        Muslims and create a "communal divide".
        
        Hundreds of thousands of devotees of Lord Shiva undertake a
        pilgrimage on foot to holy sites in the northern states of
        Uttarakhand, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh (U.P.) during the period to
        collect water from the river Ganga, which is then offered at
        local Shiva temples.
        
        Devotees also follow dietary restrictions, such as no meat,
        during their journey - a practice that has been cited by police
        officers to justify the directions given earlier this week.
        
        Police in Muzaffarnagar district of U.P. said the order,
        communicated orally, was given every year during the holy month
        and was "nothing new".
        
        "This time one saint requested us that it should be done in
        order to avoid eating anything which might corrupt their efforts
        during this holy month," Inspector Rakesh Kumar, Muzaffarnagar
        police's public relations officer, told Reuters.
        
        Reuters was unable to immediately verify this was an annual
        request.
        
        Leaders of opposition groups fear the move will create a
        "deeper communal divide" and lead to Hindus avoiding eateries
        employing Muslims.
        
        "Such orders are social crimes, which want to spoil the
        peaceful atmosphere of harmony," opposition Samajwadi Party's
        chief Akhilesh Yadav said in a post on X, formerly known as
        Twitter.
        
        Pawan Khera, spokesperson for the main opposition Congress,
        asked in a post on X, whether the direction was "a step towards
        economic boycott of Muslims".
        
        Located in Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state which
        is ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist
        Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Muzaffarnagar witnessed communal
        clashes in 2013 that killed about 65 people, mostly Muslims, and
        displaced thousands.
        
        Although Modi was sworn-in for a rare third straight term
        last month with the support of his allies, his BJP lost 29 seats
        in U.P., where one-fifth of the 240 million population is
        Muslim.
        
        BJP and Modi's federal government have, on multiple
        occasions, been accused by civil society, opposition groups, and
        some foreign governments of making decisions aimed at fanning
        religious discrimination.
        
        Modi, however, says he does not oppose Islam or Muslims and
        is "resolved" to not discriminate between Hindus and Muslims.