The Bharatiya Janata Party won the Indian general elections of 2014 on the basis of anti-Muslim and anti-Pakistan slogans. Since BJP leader Narendra Modi became prime minister, he started implementing the ideology of Hindutva. In the 2019 elections, the BJP won 21 seats more than in 2014. Again, during this election campaign, the Hindu majority has been mobilized especially on ‘hate-Muslim’ slogans.
The BJP launched its large-scale, state-funded election campaign long before the elections of the Lok Sabha to be held between April 19 and June 1.
The government amended the rules for selecting members of the Election Commission, replacing the chief justice in the committee by a minister to be appointed by the PM. What is then left to say about the impartiality of the Election Commission?
Just after the announcement of elections, on March 21, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, the leader of the opposition Aam Aadmi Party, was arrested by India’s financial crime agency, along with other ministers and various entities of the opposition parties.
These arrests are bound to have an impact on the opposition’s election campaign. And these are not the only opposition figures facing threats of incarceration and legal warfare. Many opposition leaders have received notices and arrest warrants in various current and historical cases in the past few months.
India’s main opposition party Congress on May 16, 2024 condemned Modi for anti-Muslim comments in campaign speeches, which has heightened concerns over sectarian tensions.
Modi has stepped up his rhetoric targeting India’s main religious divide in a bid to rally voters. He referred in rallies to Muslims as “infiltrators” and claimed Congress would redistribute the nation’s wealth to Muslims if it won. Modi accused Congress of planning “vote jihad”, that his opponents were rallying Muslims to vote against him.
P Chidambaram, a former Indian finance minister and senior lawmaker for Congress, said on May 16 that Modi was playing “his usual game of dividing Hindus and Muslims.”
While India’s poll code prohibits sectarian campaigning and opposition parties lodged a complaint about an earlier Modi speech last month with the election commission, it has yet to announce any sanctions.
BBC reported on May 7: “opposition leaders and political commentators say PM Modi …other leaders from his Hindu nationalist party are resorting to blatant Islamophobia”.
Undoubtedly, these anti-Muslim developments and moves are part of the Indian saffron politics, which has enveloped Indian key state institutions, especially the judiciary, while other religious minorities are also being targeted.
The Independent reported on May 14: “Indian comedian Shyam Rangeela seeking to take on Narendra Modi as an independent candidate… said his application was rejected by the authorities on a technicality…”.
It reported on May 15: “India grants first citizenships under new law criticised for discriminating against Muslims…The citizenship was granted to 14 people on Wednesday amid the ongoing general elections, even as anxious people living in Bangladesh-bordering states continued to protest the implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act [CAA and National Register of Citizens (NRC]…has been one of the key manifesto promises of Modi and his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party…The law, implemented in March, grants the right to apply for Indian citizenship to refugees from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan who arrived in India before 31 December 2014”.
Modi’s critics say the law violates India’s secular constitution. They have accused the right-wing government of targeting the Muslim community and systematically discriminating against them to further the party’s Hindu-first agenda.
Despite daily mass protests across every state against the CAA and the NRC, which resulted into killing of more than 300 persons, mostly Muslims, by the police and prejudiced Hindus, the Modi-led regime has not withdrawn the CAA/NRC— attacks on Muslims, their shops, burning of their houses and mosques and so on might also be cited examples.
Most of the world media entities, especially Al Jazeera, pointed out: “Most of the Indian media is openly promoting BJP and Narendra Modi. Since the announcement of elections, media platforms have been organizing events featuring the prime minister and other ministers and BJP leaders, giving them every opportunity to promote themselves and their agenda. This courtesy has not been extended to opposition leaders.
Media has also been pushing the narrative that the opposition is weak, the PM remains popular and there is no real alternative to him or the BJP. Any independent media organisation or new media platform that dares to move away from the government narratives is facing attacks and intimidation from the government…who is to police their actions and censure them for making a mockery of Indian democracy? The international community is watching all this with concern”.
Under the Modi regime, other biased parties also started acting upon the Hindutva ideology, as various developments like unprecedented rise of Hindu fanaticism, persecution of religious minorities such as Muslims Christians, Sikhs among others., and even lower-caste Hindus like Dalits have been intensified by prejudiced Hindus. But, Muslims have become a special target of extremist Hindus.
Notably, the Indian Constitution declares India to be a secular and democratic state, which safeguards the rights of religious minorities, but, under the Modi-led regime, discrimination, particularly against the Muslims—assaults on their places of worships and property—ban on beef and cow slaughter, creation of war-like situation with Pakistan and so on, have clearly proved that Hindu fundamentalist outfits such as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) Bajrang Dal and Shiv Sena especially associated with RSS have been promoting religious and ethnic chauvinism in India by propagating the Hindutva ideology.
It is pointed out that in March-April 2022; “Multiple calls by Hindu organisations were made to boycott Muslim- and some Christian-owned businesses in the states of Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh. Particularly, these calls for the economic boycott of the Muslim minority have been supported by state representatives and respective state governments.”
And protests by members of the Muslim minority in response to the decision of the Karnataka High Court to uphold a governmental ban on Muslim girls, wearing the hijab in educational institutions are also notable.
It is of particular attention that on 5 August 2019, the Modi-led government abrogated Articles 35A and 370 of the Constitution, which gave a special status to the disputed territory of Indian-Occupied Kashmir. New Delhi bifurcated Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, to be ruled by the federal government. On the same day, strict military lockdown was imposed in Indian-Occupied Kashmir which continues unabated.
In this respect, the deployment of more than 900,000 troops in Indian-Occupied Kashmir, who have martyred tens of thousands of the Kashmiris, including women and children through brutal tactics and fake encounters, while closure of mosques, shortage of foods, medicines for the patients have worsemed the plight of the Kashmiris.
Besides, under a well-planned agenda, the Modi-led regime has intensified bringing ethno- demographic changes in Indian-Occupied Kashmir. In this context, such moves such as introduction of new laws, amendment of the laws to facilitate non-Kashmiris and outsiders to usurp the rights of the Muslim Kashmiris, like issuance of domicile certificates to more than 800000 non-Kashmiris, registration of almost 2.5 million new non-local voters in the IIOJK— failure of fake drama to host G-20 summit last May 22-24 in Indian-Occupied Kashmir, violations of the Line of Control (LoC) by shelling inside the Pakistanis side— in violation of the 2003 ceasefire agreement can be cited as instances.
These anti-Muslim developments and moves are part of the Indian saffron politics, which has also enveloped Indian key state institutions, especially the judiciary.
In this context, the top Indian court closed all proceedings relating to the 2002 riots in Gujarat, which killed over 1000 Muslims, as well as the 1992 demolition of the Babri Masjid (Mosque), as leaders of the Hindu fanatic parties and Modi were involved in these tragedies.
In its biased verdict, the court even neglected the authenticity of audio and video evidence in the Babri Mosque demolition case.
Modi’s anti-Muslim chauvinism took a dangerous turn on 5 August 2020 when he laid the foundation stone for the Hindu Ram temple at a bhoomi pujan ceremony at the site of the demolished Babri mosque in Ayodhya.
Nevertheless, BJP not only embraces acts and policies which discriminate against Muslims and other non-Hindu religious minorities, but also turns up its pressure on the media and judiciary.
Modi’s pressure on the judiciary can be judged from the verdict of the Indian Supreme Court which on December 11 upheld the decision to revoke Jammu and Kashmir’s special constitutional status in 2019.
It is also mentionable that on the midnight of 18-19 February 2007, India-Pakistan Samjhota Express train was bombed in which 68 Pakistani nationals were killed. A Hindu extremist Swami Aseemanand, a leader of the RSS, had confessed that he was involved in the incident.
The Supreme Court of India accepted the bail of Swami Aseemanand after the covert interference of the Modi-led authorities who changed the investigations in this respect in order to weaken the case.
Undoubtedly, these anti-Muslim developments and moves are part of the Indian saffron politics, which has enveloped Indian key state institutions, especially the judiciary, while other religious minorities are also being targeted.
Results of the elections 2024 around will be announced on 4 June, this year, as these are very important for the future of democracy in India.
