Hinduism, Weaponised: A Secular India Under Threat | In Bad Faith – Part 1 | CNA Documentary

CNA – Insider 9-4-2022

We investigate the reasons behind the weaponisation of Hinduism by the Rastriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a right-wing, paramilitary volunteer organisation that aims to create a Hindu Rashtra – a subcontinent only for the Hindus.

From supporting cow vigilantes in Rajasthan attacking Muslim cattle traders to spreading Islamophobia across RSS-backed television stations, why understand why India’s secular fabric is under threat.

The RSS has built close ideological connections with the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party, forcing the US Commission on International Religious Freedom recommending India be put on a State Department freedom of religion blacklist. Can secular Indians fight back to revive Gandhi’s ideals of a pluralistic, multi-faith society?

The Birth Of Radical Islam: A Faith Misused | In Bad Faith – Part 2 | CNA Documentary

CNA Insider – 9-4-2022

Funded by the CIA and Saudi Arabia, we unearth the reasons behind the weaponisation of Islam during the cold-war battle between the Mujahideen to fight the invading Soviet Army in the 1980’s. How did the Afghan jihad transform Asia’s pluralistic Sufi Islam into an insular version called Salafism, which continues as the guiding philosophy behind the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan?

We investigate why thousands of religious seminaries in Pakistan continue to spread this radical version by gaining rare access inside the University of Jihad – the ideological nerve-centre of the Taliban to understand how they have linked terrorism with Islam, the price of which is being paid by religious minorities living in the country.

This Salafist ideology has spread to many parts of Muslim world, including Indonesia, where we film with the Islamic Defenders Front, a hard-line Islamist organisation in Aceh, that wants to transform the country’s pluralistic constitution into an ISIS-styled caliphate with weaponised blasphemy laws.

Despite a ban by Indonesia’s government, this ideology continues to fuel terrorism across Asia. We also meet the voices of reason who are battling to win the battle of narratives inside the Islam.

Sri Lanka’s Extremist Monks: When Buddhism Spreads Hate | In Bad Faith – Part 3 | CNA Documentary

CNA Insider – 9-4-2022

We investigate how the scars of Buddhist strongholds like Afghanistan, Pakistan and Indonesia into Muslim-majority countries, has resulted in this pacificist religion becoming weaponised across Sri Lanka.

Backed by politicians and incited by a powerful network of extremist monks, the rise of the Bodu Bala Sena or Buddhist Force aims to sow seeds of religious and ethnic divisions to gain political power. These deep divisions in Sri Lankan society were exploited by ISIS as they radicalised Islamist groups to plot, plan and execute bloodshed on Easter Sunday, spurring the rise of anti-Muslim pogroms, who must defend their faith against an outside force – Islam and Hinduism.

On this journey, we also understand how Sri Lanka’s purist Theravada strain of Buddhism has driven new connections with extremist monks in Myanmar who h ave used Facebook as a radicalising tool in their Islamophobic genocide against Rohingya Muslims.

In this polarised environment, we meet activists trying to bring all faiths in Sri Lanka to a point of co-existing peacefully and if this once pacifist faith be able to regain its lost glory?