Why India should be worried: It already shows some of the 10 stages of Genocide

1. CLASSIFICATION: All cultures have categories to distinguish people into “us” and “them” by ethnicity, race, religion, or nationality: German and Jew, Hutu and Tutsi. Removal or denial of a group’s citizenship is a legal way to deny the group’s civil and human rights. The first step toward the genocide of Jews and Roma in Nazi Germany were the laws to strip them of their German citizenship. Burma’s 1982 citizenship law classified Rohingyas out of national citizenship. In India, the Citizenship Act denies a route to citizenship for Muslim refugees. Native Americans were not granted citizenship in the USA until 1924, after centuries of genocide that decimated their populations.

2. SYMBOLISATION: We name people “Jews” or “Gypsies” or distinguish them by colors or dress. Classification and symbolization do not necessarily result in genocide unless they lead to dehumanization. When combined with hatred, symbols may be forced upon unwilling members of pariah groups: the yellow star for Jews under Nazi rule, the blue scarf for people from the Eastern Zone in Khmer Rouge Cambodia.

3. DISCRIMINATION: A dominant group uses law, custom, and political power to deny the rights of other groups. The powerless group may not be accorded full civil rights, voting rights, or even citizenship. Examples include the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 in Nazi Germany, which stripped Jews of their German citizenship, and prohibited their employment by the government and by universities. Discrimination against native Americans and African-Americans was enshrined in the US Constitution until the post-Civil War Amendments and mid-20th century laws to enforce them.

4. DEHUMANISATION: One group denies the humanity of the other group, equating them with animals, vermin, insects or diseases. Dehumanization overcomes the normal human revulsion against murder. At this stage, hate propaganda in print, on hate radios and in social media is used to vilify the victim group. The majority group is taught to regard the other group as less than human, and even alien to their society. They are indoctrinated to believe that “We are better off without them.”

5. ORGANISATION: Genocide is always organised, usually by the State. Sometimes organisation is informal (Hindu mobs led by local militants) or decentralised (terrorist groups). Special army units or militias are often trained and armed. States organise secret police to spy on, arrest, torture, and murder people suspected of opposition to political leaders.

6. POLARISATION: Hate groups broadcast polarizing propaganda. Laws may forbid inter-marriage or social interaction. Extremist terrorism targets moderates, intimidating and silencing the centre. Moderates from the perpetrators’ own group are most able to stop genocide, so are the first to be arrested and killed. Leaders in targeted groups are the next to be arrested and murdered.

7. PREPARATION: Euphemisms are often used to cloak intentions, such as referring to their goals as “ethnic cleansing,” “purification,” or “counterterrorism”. Leaders often claim that “if we don’t kill them, they will kill us,” disguising genocide as self-defense. There is a sudden increase in inflammatory rhetoric and hate propaganda with the objective of creating fear of the other group.

8. PERSECUTION: Victims are identified and separated out because of their national, ethnic, racial or religious identity. The victim group’s most basic human rights are systematically violated through extrajudicial killings, torture and forced displacement. Their property is often expropriated. Sometimes they are segregated into ghettoes, deported to concentration camps or confined to a famine-struck region and starved. They are deliberately deprived of resources such as water or food in order to slowly destroy the group. Progra-mmes are implemented to prevent procreation through forced sterilisation/abortions.

9. EXTERMINATION: It is “extermination” to the killers because they do not believe their victims to be fully human. When it is sponsored by the state, the armed forces often work with militias to do the killing. All educated members of the targeted group might be murdered (Burundi 1972). All men and boys of fighting age may be murdered (Srebrenica, Bosnia 1995). All women and girls may be raped (Darfur, Myanmar.) Mass rapes of women have become a characteristic of all modern genocides. Rape is used as a means to genetically alter and destroy the victim group.

10. DENIAL: The perpetrators of genocide dig up the mass graves, burn the bodies, try to cover up the evidence and intimidate the witnesses. They deny that they committed any crimes, and often blame what happened on the victims. Acts of genocide are disguised as counterinsurgency if there is an ongoingarmed conflict or civil war.

(Compiled from the website of Genocide Watch)

(This was first published in National Herald on Sunday)