A so-called ‘auction’ online, attached to an app since taken down, purported to sell Indian Muslim women, has been taken down, and three persons arrested in Uttarakhand state. Those arrested are engineering students, giving the impression that this was a prank which emerged from a collegiate attempt at humour. However, the mindset that is revealed is horrific, especially if the general Indian context is kept in view. The apparently risible ‘love jihad’ accusations, in which inter-religious marriages were interpreted as attempts to encourage conversions to Islam, was translated into legislation in BJP-controlled statements, with a number of prosecutions showing that the laws are used to persecute inter-religious marriages.
There seems to be a sexual element in the current anti-Muslim sentiment that is being fanned by the Sangh Parivar, which has now got control of the government through the BJP. Apart from the online action and the ‘love jihad’ claims, the fuss over the film Padmavat, which had to have its name changed; the threats made to the Indian cricket team’s captain’s daughter because he defended a Muslim teammate, all indicate a twisted mentality, which in turn shows that Hindutva has just become an excuse for bad behaviour. The recent threats of ethnic cleansing in Haridwar indicate what is planned for Indian Muslims.
This might seem a tragic development in a secular India whose first PM, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, tried to build a secular society. However, now the BJP is busy dismantling the apparatus of secularism. If the previous cases are any indication, there will not be any strong pursuit of the cases against the alleged auctioneers. Instead of pursuing such culprits, the BJP government protects them. There is a strange spirit abroad in India, with Narendra Modi its microcosm, which would like to excise the non-Hindu component of the Indian polity, and make it correspond to the Hindu Rashtra of Vir Savarkar, rather than the Republic of India that Nehru, a Brahmin, envisioned with B.R. Ambedkar, the Dalit (Untouchable) who drafted India’s constitution. Ever since the BJP changed Occupied Kashmir’s status, and saw the international community turn the other way, matters have only got worse.
