The Demise of Secular India

People are being beaten by the police just for looking like a Muslim

Welcome to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s India, where hate speech against Islam is an achievement and protest is a crime. The mainstream media are playing the role of the court, while bulldozers are being used as the tool for justice.

Recently, the authorities in India have demolished several houses owned by the Muslims on the pretext of illegal construction. But, a majority of Muslims in India, believe they were punished for raising their voices over the derogatory remarks made against the Holy Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him).

On June 13, a young Indian Muslim activist Afreen Fatima’s house was bulldozed and her family was mentally tortured after they protested against the offensive remarks against the Holy Prophet (PBUH).

Meanwhile, the father of Afreen Fatima, her mother and sister have also been reportedly taken into custody.

Rana Ayyub, an Indian journalist and a book author, posted on social media that the demolition of Afreen Fatima’s house is a resounding message to all dissenters and critics of the Modi government.

“This is the most precise definition of fascism and Indians need to collectively hang their heads in shame. This petty vindictiveness is us as a nation.”

According to the BBC, more than 300 people have been arrested in UP.

The Narendra Modi-led nation has been caught in a diplomatic storm over the controversial remarks made by the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Spokeswoman Nupur Sharma about the Holy Prophet (PBUH) in May.

Since then, the situation has been worse than before. Sharma, on a television show, made blasphemous remarks along with another BJP media head Naveen Kumar Jindal who has been expelled from the party for outraging religious feelings through his post on the Holy Prophet (PBUH). An FIR has been registered against both the accused members.

The comments, made during a television debate, have drawn widespread condemnation from more than a dozen Islamic nations — forcing the BJP to suspend Sharma from the party. The BJP said in a statement last week that it “respects all religions”.

On the one hand, the Modi government took an action against its political members to try to prove to the Muslim world that they do not promote hatred towards Islam and the Muslims, while on the other, they have continued the atrocities towards them in the country.

Dr Huma Baqai, vice chancellor of MITE University and a PhD in international relations, said that this is how the Modi government works, this is their characteristic, they play very smartly and diplomatically.

“They were facing a backlash on the diplomatic front, especially from the Muslim countries, including the UAE, the OIC and Iran; hence, they decided to suspend their members as an eyewash and these particular diplomatic steps were taken,” she said, while talking to BOL News.

Speaking about the diplomacy of the Modi government, Dr Baqai quoted the Indian television journalist Barkha Dutt who said that the now-suspended BJP members Sharma and Jindal have strengthened their politics and they have become stronger in the BJP.

“Once the blow is over, they will come back stronger,” she added.

This is evident from the policy that they follow at home, she said, adding: “On the diplomatic front, since India is extremely thick with Muslim countries when it comes to trade, whether it is bilateral trade, remittances, whether it is Indian people finding employment in Muslim countries, which result in remittances for India, so, to appease those countries they did what they had to do, which was just to firefight the diplomatic backlash,” she noted.

As per Dr Baqai, the Modi government took this action because they realised that this diplomatic isolation will hurt India economically.

However, on social media there was a movement to boycott Qatar Airways by the Indians.

“Social media is, in some way, privately supporting what the Modi government is doing to the Muslims,” she said.

The protests that are being conducted by the Muslims are justified because the Holy Prophet (PBUH) holds a very high rank in the hearts of the Muslims and this is something they would lay their lives for. “But unfortunately, I don’t see that changing the attitude of the Modi government, they have continued with their dual policies,” she lamented.

“In fact, Modi takes pride in the fact that he is so thick with the Muslim countries, despite what he does to the Muslims in Kashmir and Muslims in India,” Dr Baqai said.

Reportedly, the people in India are being beaten by the police just for “looking like a Muslim”, carrying or buying beef, wearing a hijab, calling out for prayers and for practicing their religious rites.

The Indian Muslims have been the victims of communal violence to-date. They have been mentally, physically, emotionally and socially tortured by the Hindu extremists. According to Dr Baqai, what is happening with the Muslims in India is tantamount to state terrorism.

“This is what happened during the time of the Nazis, they did this with the Jews,” she said, adding: “This is toxic nationalism, toxic religiosity, it is a complete reversal of the once secular India,” she said.

A journalist from New Delhi Abdul Hanan, who covers the minority issues in India, said that ever since Modi became the prime minister there has been some sort of discrimination against the Muslim population.

“The discrimination against the Muslims has got more institutionalised and getting more systematic support from the state,” he told BOL News.

There were a lot of factors that made the Muslim population angry, for example, the controversial citizenship act that the people felt was quite exclusionary for the Muslims and then there was a judicial settlement of the Babri Mosque in which the court gave a verdict in favour of the Hindu community, there have been a lot of lynching incidents in the name of smuggling of cow meat and a series of uncountable acts, which enraged the Muslims.

“The Muslims were also blamed for spreading the coronavirus when the virus entered the country,” Hanan added.

According to him, it’s not just the Muslims who are being marginalised, even the Sikhs and Dalits, also known as the ‘untouchables’, are being discriminated against in the country.

“There is still a hope among a large section of the society that if this government is ousted in 2024, the situation may improve, although, I do not agree with it, because I feel that the BJP is not going anywhere anytime soon,” he concluded.