India: Member of the BJP who described Muslim women’s rapists as “cultured” was re-elected to the Gujarat legislature

In Gujarat, a state in western India, a legislator who said that the men who sexually assaulted a Muslim woman were “sanskaari” (cultured or well-mannered) has been re-elected to the local parliament.

Chandrasin Raulji, a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a Hindu nationalist organization, won the Godhra constituency.

He has served in the legislature from this district six times.

In Gujarat, the state where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is from, a horrifying anti-Muslim pogrom occurred in 2002 that resulted in the deaths of 2,000 people, predominantly Muslims.

Raulji was on the controversial commission that decided to free 11 men who had been given life sentences for raping Bilkis Banu and killing her family during the pogrom.

On India’s Independence Day, August 15, 2022, they were let out of jail and given candy and garlands.

They were Brahmins (upper-caste Hindus), and Brahmins are renowned to have strong sanskaar (culture); thus, it might have been someone’s evil purpose to corner and punish them, Raulji explained to a reporter when defending the decision to release the men.

The Modi administration in New Delhi had approved their release.

Narendra Modi’s popularity in his home state of Gujarat, where he is still seen as a mythical figure, helped the BJP win a landslide victory and win 156 of the 182 seats in the state legislature.

The party has been accused of making people hate Indian Muslims and encouraging violence against the Muslim and Christian minorities in the country, either on purpose or unintentionally.