By Amna Razzaq
The Human Rights Watch (HRW) in its annual report criticize BJP for adopting discriminatory policies against minority communities, including Muslims.
In its World Report 2022, the HRW said, “This, coupled with the vilification of Muslims by some BJP leaders and police failure to take action against BJP supporters who commit violence, emboldened Hindu nationalist groups to attack Muslims and government critics with impunity.” India is home to some two hundred million Muslims, one of the world’s largest Muslim populations but a minority in the predominately Hindu country. Since India’s independence, Muslims have faced systematic discrimination, prejudice, and violence, despite constitutional protections. Experts say anti-Muslim sentiments have heightened under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has pursued a Hindu nationalist agenda since elected to power in 2014. Since Modi’s reelection in 2019, the government has pushed controversial policies that critics say explicitly ignore Muslims’ rights and are effectively intended to disenfranchise millions of Muslims. The moves have sparked protests in India and drawn international condemnation.
The national spokesperson of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Nupur Sharma recently came under fire for her derogatory comments against the Prophet Muhammad on national television.
According to Delhi University Professor Aupuravan and, anti-Muslim hatred was rampant in India for many years, but when the BJP government came into power, steps were taken by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to harm Muslims.
“In particular, to hurt the religious sentiments of the Muslims, the holy book of the Muslims, the Holy Qur’an, was desecrated, and the Prophet (PBUH) of Islam was targeted,” he said.
He maintained that in India, the ridicule of Muslims had become commonplace and extremist Hindus, especially the RSS, were openly doing so. The professor added that when Nupur Sharma made her blasphemous statement, the government should have taken immediate action but instead they acted reluctantly.
He further said that an FIR was lodged after protests from Muslim countries but that neither BJP leader had been arrested so far.
Amidst growing international pressure, the BJP distanced itself from her remarks, describing it as the views of the fringe.
In the wake of the international debate sparked by this event, far-right Dutch politician and lawmaker Geert Wilders, known for his anti-immigrant and anti-Islam stance, expressed his support for Sharma calling it brave and heroic. Wilders views were quickly circulated on social media platforms and mainstream media alike. Many prominent Indian news channels went on to give a platform to Wilders on their prime time debates where he was given space to openly express his anti-Muslim views.
The rising attacks against minorities had unmasked the true face of the world’s so-called largest democracy as the fascist Modi is shaping India’s policy according to Hindutva dictates.
Recently, the New York Times has published an alarming report about the plight of Muslims in India which is worsening every passing day. According to the report, the calls for anti-Muslim violence even genocide across India are moving from the fringes to the mainstream Indian society, while Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his top leaders keep silent on the situation. The report revealed that Hindu monks’ agenda is resonating with increasingly encouraged vigilante groups and Vigilantes are commonly beating the people accused of disrespecting cows, dragged couples out of trains, cafes, and homes on suspicion that Hindu women might be seduced by Muslim men; and burst into religious gatherings where they suspect Hindu people are being converted to Muslim or other religion.
Hindutva is by no means a recent political movement, and its bold new iteration has emerged from decades of sidelined radical activism, that could not demonstrate its extremist power under secular governments. It always stayed under the surface, until 2014 when the mainstream embraced political Hindutva under the BJP-RSS steer, showing how long India’s Hindu polity had waited for this moment, and had never bought into the secularism of its constitution.
The targeted marginalization of Indian Muslims is not novel for those who follow Indian politics. The repeated repressive attitude towards minorities, specifically Muslims has become an accepted norm in the Indian society. The anti-Muslim sentiment has now been strongly knitted in Indian society as a whole and the status of Indian Muslims is declining with each passing day. In today’s India, it is quite clear that it has become increasingly difficult for minorities, especially Muslims, to preserve their identity in this so-called ‘secular’ state.
