Hindu extremism and Muslims in India

India is the largest democracy in the world and it is also considered as a secular state with the most religiously diverse society. Hinduism is the majority religion. Indian National Congress and Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) are the two major political parties, the latter ruling since 2014. It is also a right-wing party and its policy historically reflected a Hindu nationalist position. It is ideologically close to the RSS and the VHP, whose main objective is to organize Hindu society to serve Hindutva. Hindutva is a political ideology to protect and serve Hindu rights. Moreover, The BJP advocates social conservatism and a foreign policy centered on nationalist principles.

Hindu nationalism is in India since Narendra Modi has been in power, as Gujarat CM, and now Prime Minister. Peter Gottschalk in his book Beyond Hindu and Muslim: Multiple identity in Narrative from Village India” has underlined the disturbing evolution of the Indian political scene. He was also concerned by the increasing public rhetoric and violence of communal hatred against Indian Muslims. He also noted the assassination of Indira Gandhi and the destruction of Babari Mosque and other painful incidents associated with the ascent of the Hindu chauvinist parties (BJP and Shiv Sena) to political power. It seemed a reinvigoration of democracy and India was entering into an era of tyranny.

Other political parties have been facing difficulties to give their members a real sense of belonging. In its quest for dominance, Hindu Nationalists picked the Hindu identity card and rely on politics rather than ideology. Hindu nationalism is beyond ethnic or cultural nationalism because the Hindu word represents religion, and that’s why Hindu nationalism is a religious nationalism which excludes other religions. The world has observed that the establishment of A Hindu nationalist radicalized movement is based on religious identity. A combination of nationalist rhetoric, subtle religious polarization, and a slew of welfare programmes helped Hindu nationalists to coast to victory. Although minorities, particularly Muslims, always remained uncomfortable during BJP regimes, the Narendra Modi regime brought the most oppressed era for non-Hindu citizens of India. He created binaries: nationalist (his fans) versus anti-nationals (his political rivals and critics).

Today, the Modi regime is unable to offer any solution for India’s internal and external issues or a real economic programme which may overcome the poverty and unemployment of Indian. It is said that the Indian federation is made up a mixture of different communities and religions, but the Muslim community could not earn the of favour of the government for its development as it is shown in the report “Social Economic and Educational Status of the Muslim Community of India”. Today, the Indian population is 1.35 billion of 80 percent Hindu, 14 percent Muslim, 2.3 percent Christian, 1.7 percent Sikh, and two percent the rest.

Since before Partition, Hindu individuals and organizations had been making violence and calling for a Hindu India, ignoring other communities. One of these organizations, the Sangh Parivar, is part of the Rashtriya Swayamasevek Sangh family and is a more notorious organization with the ideology of extremism. It consists of the Vishva Hindu Parishad, a religious wing, and the BJP, a political wing. The extreme Rashtriya Swayamasevek Sangh is following the philosophy of Nazi Germany. Through this ideology, the Hindus of India want non-Hindus to adopt Hindu culture, Hindi language, and Hindu religion or stay as their subordinates. The BJP follows such thoughts and has a history of violence, rape, and murder of non-Hindus all over India and the perpetrators were not charged with genocide. The destruction of Babri Mosque and murder of innocent Muslims in Gujarat province under the command of the RSS and BJP reveal the extremist mindset of some Hindus of India. Such a situation was observed in India when 700 incidents of communal violence were reported in 2016 alone. The situation of disputed Jammu and Kashmir is more prejudiced and oppressed than the other parts of India.

Indian history is full of intense anti-Muslim discourse and maximum violation of human rights. The United Progressive Alliances (UPA) and Congress established a pre-matriculation minority scholarship in November 2013 but the Modi Administration in Gujarat opposed it and appealed to the Supreme Court with the arguments that the Sachar Committee was unconstitutional and only intended to help Muslims. In 2014, 31 percent of Indians decided to vote for Hindu nationalists and Narendra Modi became Prime Minister of India. On that occasion, Kachan Chandra, a professor of political science in New York University, stated that the Hindus of India not only participated in the Indian election but they also participated in the birth of a Hindu Nation with a state to match.

In the present scenario of instability and uncertainty in India, you can say that Narendra Modi is an extremist Hindu nationalist leader who supports Hindu radicalized ideology to defend Hindustan. Since the beginning of the Modi regime, the ideology of Hindutva started to spread with the support of the government. The BJP leadership made anti-Muslim remarks in their interviews and speeches to encourage non-Muslims. Hindu extremists have beaten, injured, and killed Muslims and other minorities of the country.

The suspicion of Muslims selling beef took place amid an aggressive push by the Hindu militant groups and BJP leaders to create an anti-Muslim sentiment. The violent acts by the militant Hindu groups marginalized the religious minorities in India under the Modi regime. This ferocious phenomenon has spread all over the country now.

Nida Kermani (a researcher of gender and violence) has noted that “although Muslims of India have some important positions in the state and society but their marginalization is hard to deny since the 2014”. She further noted that the BJP government and their partner organizations have started a campaign against religious minorities. The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom reported the continued harassment, violence, accusation, forceful change of religion, and targeted hate campaign against minorities, which is a bone of contention that the community has faced in India.

Muslims all over India have been increasingly at risk since Narendra Modi was elected Prime Minister in 2014. The leadership of BJP also has been making anti-Muslims remarks in speeches and interviews. This situation has encouraged the Hindu nationalists to violate the law and attack minority groups because they believed that they have political approval and protection. BJP- and RSS-affiliated mobs killed and injured Muslims with the accusation that the Muslims have killed cows for beef. Kashmiri Muslim students and businessmen have been beaten to apparently avenge militant attacks on security forces in Kashmir.

In April 2018, an infamous and horrific incident occurred where an eight-year-old Kashmiri girl, Asifa Banu, was abducted, gangraped, and murdered in Khatua. In February 2019, BJP supporters threatened and beat Kashmiri Muslim students, traders, and innocent people. Since the very beginning of the second term of the Modi regime in 2019, the government revoked the constitutional autonomy of the Indian Muslim-majority state of Jammu and Kashmir and then the government deployed military troops against the protesters to arrest them and also cut off internet and telephone connections. In many cases, supporters of the BJP attacked Muslims and police failed to intervene. Police used unnecessary and excessive lethal force against the protesters and 30 innocent people were killed. On February 2020, a video of the brutal murder of five men was captured and of police captured beating innocent people and also forcing them to sing the Indian National Anthem. Two days after, a Muslim young man died due to injuries. Very soon after, at least 52 died in communal violence in Delhi over three days. Over 200 were injured, properties of many were destroyed, and communities were displaced in the targeted attacks by the Hindu extremists who had the support of the ruling party.

On 19 December 2019, Modi had passed the discriminatory Citizenship Act. Under this Act, India grants citizenship on the basis of religion. The law specifically fast-tracks asylum claims of non-Muslim irregular immigrants from the Muslim states of Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan. The amended citizenship law, tied with the governmental push for a countrywide citizenship verification through the NPR (National Population Register) and proposed NRC (National Register of Citizens) intended to identify “illegal immigrants”, has led to fears that millions of Indian Muslims including many families who have been living in the country for generations could be stripped of their citizenship rights and disenfranchised. The Indian people of all faiths protested against this discriminatory law throughout India. The iconic image of these protests and the response from the law enforcement agencies has been observed by international community and human rights organizations but they failed to force India to review its policy against the minorities, particularly Kashmiri Muslims and Muslims of other parts of India.

The Muslims in India have been empirically recognized as a minority facing economic and social apprehensions since 1947. With the rise of the BJP and its slogan of Hindutva, Muslim discourse has deteriorated significantly. Since the advent of the Modi regime in 2014, the minorities of India, particularly Muslims, faced persecution and troubles. Violation and discrimination have increased as has the rhetoric from Hindu nationalists and mainstream BJP politicians. The BJP have emboldened an extremist mindset and embedded it into Indian society. Sometimes secular politicians and agents of the Congress party also have resorted to Hindu domination in this environment to achieve their interests.