The plight of Indian Muslims

There is no effort on part of New Delhi to roll back discriminatory laws or actions

Narendra Modi has truly consolidated his rule over India. Despite his controversial policies on a range of issues – including farmers and minorities which are left at the mercy of Hindu vigilantes – the Indian population seem content with their prime minister.

A larger Indian polity is critical of the disruption caused by the Nehru dynasty and views the Indian National Congress as inadequate to cater to the needs of the world’s second-largest country by population. This situation is taking a toll on Indian Muslims today.

A number of reports by independent human rights organizations – including the Amnesty International and the Human Rights Watch (HRW) – have documented egregious crimes against minorities under the rule of the Modi led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

While social exclusionism and isolation may be rare in urban areas, rural India is largely communal where extremists are emboldened by a sense of empowerment from grass roots level Hindu activism.

According to the HRW, there has been a surge in summary punishment of Muslims including discriminatory demolition of property, public flogging and incarceration without legal authorization. The findings are staggering.

Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asian Director at the HRW, said authorities in several Indian states – from Uttar Pradesh to Maharashtra – are using arbitrary violence against Muslims in the form of summary punishments with officials blatantly disregarding the rule of law and sending a message to the wider public that Muslims can be attacked and are soft targets.

In October 2022, police in Kheda district of Gujarat state arrested thirteen people for allegedly throwing stones at a Hindu festival dance. A man wearing a gun holster – allegedly a cop in plain clothes – was filmed flogging the Muslim men with a stick while the onlookers cheered.

This act of violence is sickening given that it comes straight from the law enforcement authorities who are ideally supposed to protect all Indian citizens from brazen acts of violence.

Gujarat was the former bastion of the current Indian prime minister who was at the helm when more than a thousand Muslims were butchered in broad daylight by Hindu mobs over false allegations of setting a train carrying pilgrims on fire.

The roots of that episode lie with the Babri Masjid dispute which the Indian Supreme Court has tried to resolve by delivering a ruling that helps enable the Modi administration’s majoritarian agenda.

The Ram Mandir narrative turned Muslims into second rate citizens in their own country where acceptance of a heinous crime like demolishing a mosque was to be a standard course.

Historic Babri Mosque was demolished in 1992. Thirty years on, tempers are flaring over another mosque, Gyanvapi Mosque, which, Hindu extremists and India national television claim, was built on a Shiva temple.

Nupur Sharma’s blasphemous comments – which resulted in India being reprimanded by a number of Muslim counties – also did not come in isolation.

She expressed views that define the BJP government and its stance regarding Muslims who challenge Hindu conspiracy theories as a justification to launch heinous attacks against them.

For example, authorities in the Khargone district of Madhya Pradesh and Jahangirpuri district of Delhi in April 2022 responded to communal clashes between Hindus and Muslims by demolishing properties of the latter. This is the height of callousness in Modi’s India.

In June 2022, three UN Special Rapporteurs expressed concern that some of these evictions are being carried out as arbitrary punishment against a minority population with lower-income backgrounds while authorities fail to investigate these crimes against humanity.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights – to which India is a party – forbids discrimination on any grounds and makes it mandatory for states to ensure that everyone is equal before the law.

The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights also guarantees the right of every citizen to benefit from housing and a decent standard of living.

In its General Comment No 7, the UN Committee on Social, Economic and Cultural Rights noted that such demolitions run contrary to the covenant.

The Indian government apparently seems to be sidestepping all international calls whether it is from the United Nations or human rights organizations to stop crimes against humanity.

As Ganguly rightly put it the Indian government is acting as if summary punishment is a state policy. There is no effort to roll back discriminatory laws or actions which specifically target minorities such as Muslims.

The way forward is to adopt punitive measures which punish the Indian regime for persecuting its own citizens at the expense of caving into their demands.

Given the size of the Indian market which is a trillion-dollar economy, the price paid by Muslims who live in the cosmetic secularism which Mahatma Gandhi once sought is too big of a price to pay for all concerned about human rights.

Punitive measures could eventually force the Modi government to adopt course correction; yet what is certain is that the plight of Indian Muslims will not be relieved at least in the near future.

The writer is an Assistant Research Associate at IPRI