India, once the land of diversity and inclusivity under the universal ideas of iconic freedom leaders like Gandhi and Nehru, has been increasingly politically polarized, economically unequal, and religiously divided into the centuries-back equation of Hindu-Muslim rivalry. There is no surprise in witnessing that since the arrival of PM Modi in New Delhi, the Indian political landscape revolves around constant hatred, discrimination and polarized speeches by Modi himself and his counterparts towards the Muslim community of India in the exchange of galvanizing the support of extremist Hindus, especially in Northern India.
Before 2014, the Indian political spectrum was dominated by the Indian National Congress, whose ideology was deeply embedded in a policy of non-violence, diversity, inclusivity, tolerance, secularism, and accommodation of the aspirations of minorities in India. Owing to its geographical and population size, with sizable minorities, including 14pc of the population belonging to the Muslim Community, India largely functions peacefully.
However, with the rise of the BJP, a political mouthpiece of RSS, in the Indian political landscape in the late decade of the 1980s, owing to a controversial decision by then Rajiv Gandhi to undo the Shah bano case(1985), and BJP-led charged procession towards Babri Masjid (1992), which resulted in greater riots across northern India, claiming lives of 2000-3000 of Indians, especially Indian Muslims. If one can analyze the core basis of the mainstream ideology of BJP-RSS “Hindutva”, which has nothing to do with Hinduism in reality, as claimed by Savarkar in his book, “Essentials of Hindutva” (1923). Hinduism is an inclusive ideology based on the philosophy of truth, non-violence and accommodation, whereas Hindutva believes in exclusivity, hatred, discrimination, subjection and suppression of non-Hindus. Unsurprisingly, followers of Hindutva are bent on the goal of stripping out of the secular nature of the Indian constitution, politics and society, making Muslims leave India or remain Indians but as second-class citizens.
PM Modi, an ardent believer and follower of Hindutva ideology, has a history of violence, hatred and discrimination towards Indian Muslims even before assuming the role of Prime Minister. During his tenure as CM of Gujrat, he witnessed the great killing of Muslims in the 2002 riots, where most of his political opponents believed that his administration had a direct role in inciting these killings for political ambition.
India has witnessed hundreds of lynching cases of Muslims where unknown cow vigilantes stormed poor Muslims and took the law beforehand, and in most cases, police even facilitated such a lynching owing to ownership of political support of the BJP government. There are tens of hundreds of recorded videos on the surface where radical Hindus are being inflicted torture and striking poor Muslims, even forcing them to chant the slogans of Hindu gods, are these the teachings of Lord Ram? As expected, PM Modi didn’t utter a word about these incidents for the last ten years while Indian Muslims are being killed, tortured and lynched by fellow citizens. Hence, the chances of violence and killing of Indian Muslims are increasing day by day under the leadership of PM Modi.
Speaking politically, things are even worse, BJP who claims to be the party of all Indians, has no setting MP, and not a single ticket for a Muslim candidate in its party, and ironically largest democracy in the world, having 200 Muslim Population, and only 25 Muslims MP out of 543 seats of Indian parliament while having zero Muslim at government table and Minister level. This underscores the political marginalization of Indian Muslims before BJP-RSS rule where the magic formula of election is to blame “Mughal” and “Muslim” for every wrongdoing in the country. One of the political strategists of the BJP claimed that we made Muslims vulnerable politically because we proved that we could win the majority and form the government without Muslim candidates and voters.
Besides Politically, under the rule of PM Modi, the representation of Indian Muslims is receding increasingly. Despite 14pc of the Indian population, Indian Muslim representation in the higher and lower judiciary, civil service, police, army and civil admiration are barely 2-3pc. Various data and reports indicated that the BJP-RSS nexus is systemically worked to downgrade the size of Indian Muslims in the critical segment of the Indian state, making them vulnerable in making a critical decision on the destiny of the nation whose are suppressed politically in the Indian parliament and outside the parliament.
In addition to that, the religious symbols of Indian Muslims are being targeted by BJP-RSS nexus. It is no surprise that BJP-RSS are aiming at destroying the religious and cultural heritage of Indian Muslims. The anger of Hindutva jingoism is not even boiled down after the establishment of the Ram Temple in the placement of Babri Majid. And now many cases are being filed for an archaeological survey of historic Indian Muslim sites, claiming that these mosques were built on the sites of broken Hindu Temples during Mughal Rule, though independent sources refuted such claims of BJP-RSS. However, with the lower judiciary in the right hand of the BJP, the orders for surveys and demolition of mosques were easily obtained from the court, and the administration quickly followed suit and razed down the structure of mosques in many places. The natural outcome of the hatred business of religious politics is violence and the deaths of many innocent Indians. But one can’t underplay that the equation of Hindu-Muslim rivalry is fully back into the business of India, which already experienced a bloody partition due to such a rivalry in 1947.
Independent observers believed that treatment towards Indian Muslims by the ruling government is unprecedented in recent times as such brutal tactics are being done at the periphery territory of India not in the heartland of Northern Indian states. Talking about the periphery territory of India, one can’t forget how the special status of Kashmir was revoked on 5th Aug 2019 without the consent of the Kashmiri people and its provincial parliament. Making Kashmir a Union territory, issuing domiciles to non-Kashmir, and placing curfew-like situations are another vivid example of heavy tactics and mistreatment of Kashmir Muslims before the central government of India. Even after winning the election and assuming the CM of Omar Abdullah, the leader of the National Conference, who ran the election campaign for the re-establishment of the special status of Kashmir, Modi Sakar is not willing to listen to the pro-Indian elements of Kashmir.
In a nutshell, an ideology whose core belief is based on exclusively, hatred, discrimination and subjection of minorities are not well perceived to the future of India. Indian Muslims constitute 14pc of the population and neither leave India nor accept second-class citizens of India where their honors, pride, religion, art and culture are at stake. The masterstroke of BJP-RSS for winning elections at the cost of dividing Hindu-Muslim rivalry will further polarize and fragment Indian politics and society which adversely affected the future trajectory of the largest democracy and oldest civilization in the world.