'Islamophobia is taking its most lethal form in India', says Noam Chomsky

Renowned scholar and professor emeritus at MIT, Noam Chomsky says 'Islamophobia has taken a most lethal form in India, turning some 250M Indian Muslims into a Persecuted Minority'. He made the remarks while addressing a congressional briefing organised by a US-based diaspora organisation - Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC) on communalism in India.

Hyderabad:Noam Chomsky, a renowned scholar and emeritus MIT in a recorded message to a congressional briefing held recently by US-based diaspora organisations on 'Worsening Hate Speech & Violence in India' said that 'Islamophobia is taking its most lethal form in India'. A video of Chomsky's speech has been shared on Indian American Muslim Council's official Twitter handle.

"Pathology of Islamophobia is taking its most lethal form in India, where Narendra Modi government is systematically dismantling Indian secular democracy and turning the country into a Hinduist democracy, with almost 250 million Muslims becoming a Persecuted Minority. The assault is taking other forms as well, including a general attack on independent thought and the educational system primarily directed against Muslim victims, but by now expanding beyond. That’s apart from India’s terrible crimes in Kashmir, those crimes have a long history. They’ve been sharply escalated by Modi’s rightwing Hindu nationalist regime," Professor Noam Chomsky said.

He further added, "Kashmir is now a brutally occupied territory under harsh military control, similar in some ways to occupied Palestine”.

For those unversed, IAMC is the largest advocacy organization of Indian Muslims in the US.

Who is Noam Chomsky?

Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Hailed as 'the father of modern linguistics', Chomsky is also a major figure in analytic philosophy and one of the founders of the field of cognitive science. He remains a leading critic of US foreign policy, neoliberalism and contemporary state capitalism, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and mainstream news media. Chomsky and his ideas are highly influential in the anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist movements.