Indian police are being deployed to protect the launch of a book by a former Pakistan foreign minister in Mumbai after a rightwing organisation said it would disrupt the event.
The threat comes only weeks after a Muslim man suspected of eating beef was lynched by a mob on the outskirts of the capital Delhi and is the latest in a series of acts involving real or threats of violence by rightwing groups in recent months.
A leader of Shiv Sena, a Mumbai-based Hindu nationalist political party, told media its supporters would prevent Monday’s launch of Neither a Hawk nor a Dove: an Insider’s Account of Pakistan’s Foreign Policy by Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri, whatever the precautions taken by authorities.
“We will ensure that the function does not take place no matter what the obstacles are before us,” said Ashish Chemburkar, Shiv Sena’s leader.
Earlier on Monday, activists from Shiv Sena doused an organiser of the launch in black ink after hauling him from his car. Sudheendra Kulkarni, who said he had also been roughed up by the activists, condemned the incident as an “attack on democracy”.
“We will not buckle under this coercion, it’s an assault on democracy, an assault on the Indian constitution and assault on Indian culture,” he said.
Events to publicise Neither a Hawk nor a Dove in Delhi last week did not prompt any protests, although tensions are high between India and Pakistan.
Shiv Sena, a junior partner in a ruling coalition with the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) in the local state government, was last week accused of using threats to force the cancellation of an appearance in Mumbai by the Pakistani singer Ghulam Ali.
Shiv Sena has a history of attempting to prevent cultural and sporting exchanges between India and Pakistan taking place in Mumbai, where the party is based.
The neighbouring states have fought four wars, three of them over the divided territory of Kashmir, since the partition of India in 1947.
The Shiv Sena incident takes place amid a growing atmosphere of intolerance in India. Concerns over freedom of speech have been growing after the killing in August of MM Kalburgi, a leading secular scholar who had angered hard-line Hindu groups.
Several Indian winners of the prestigious Sahitya Akademi (National Academy of Letters) award have handed back the prize in recent days in protest at Kalburgi’s murder.
They include respected journalist and author Nayantara Sahgal, a niece of India’s independence leader and former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
In an open letter, Sahgal wrote that “India’s culture of diversity and debate is now under vicious assault”.
“Rationalists who question superstition, anyone who questions any aspect of the ugly and dangerous distortion of Hinduism known as Hindutva – whether in the intellectual or artistic sphere, or whether in terms of food habits and lifestyle – are being marginalised, persecuted, or murdered,” Sahgal said.
Many of the broad principles underpinning Hindutva – a cultural, religious, political and nationalist revivalist project – are shared by the ruling Bharatiya Janata party, led by the prime minister, Narendra Modi, who has been criticised for not speaking out strongly against the attacks.
The writers said they were also protesting at the government’s failure to condemn the lynching in Uttar Pradesh last month.
That killing occurred after a mob heard an announcement from a local temple alleging a local Muslim man had eaten beef. Mohammed Akhlaq, a labourer, was then hauled from his bed and beaten to death.
The cow is sacred in the Hindu religion. A government minister later described the incident as a “misunderstanding”.
