Video footage showing a right-wing Indian MP forcefully feeding a Muslim while he’s fasting.
The footage, aired on national television, shows a group of Shiv Sena MPs confronting a catering supervisor last Thursday in New Delhi.
The MPs were complaining about the quality of food offered at a guest house for officials from the state of Maharashtra, where the Shiv Sena Party is based.
The footage showed MP Rajan Baburao Vichare attempting several times to push the bread into the supervisor’s mouth as a crowd gathered.
Opposition Congress MPs launched raucous protests in the parliament, saying the lawmaker had violated the man’s religious beliefs by aggressively trying to shove a chapatti or piece of bread in his mouth.
Shiv Sena Party
Shiv Sena is a hardline Indian Hindu nationalist party which was founded in 1966 by political cartoonist Bal Thackeray.
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The group originally emerged from a movement in Mumbai demanding preferential treatment for Maharashtrians over migrants to the city.
The party has a powerful hold over the Bollywood film industry and is currently headed by Thackeray’s son, Uddhav Thackeray.
Members of Shiv Sena are referred to as “Shiv Sainiks” and are referred to by many as a terrorist organisation because of its links with the Bhiwandi riots of 1970 and 1984, and Mumbai riots of 1992-1993.
The group now supports a broader Hindu nationalist agenda as it aligned itself with the ruling right wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Shiv Sena is perceived by many of its opponents as racist, fascist and anti-Muslim.
