Shah J. Chuodhury
An Indian bowler Mohammed Shami experienced savage criticism on social media following India’s recent loss to Pakistan at the T20 Cricket World Cup competition. It was the most recent example of the Islamophobic intolerance that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party has allowed to permeate Indian society (BJP).
Shami struggled in the match. But so had ten other Indian players. Shami was chosen due to his Muslim faith. Instead of being seen as a sporting failure, his failure was seen as a failure against a team of his fellow believers.
The brutal beating up of a villager by police during an eviction drive against Muslims in India’s north-eastern state of Assam went viral on social media. Violence has occasionally broken out in a wave of recent provocative anti-Muslim protests. More than 53 people were killed in riots that tore across New Delhi’s capital in February 2020. Most of them are Muslims.
Lynchings of Muslims have also dramatically increased, particularly for transporting or ingesting beef (the cow is considered holy in Hinduism). Cow slaughter is illegal in most states, and both law enforcement and self-appointed mobs are executing this legislation with more passion than wisdom. Such kinds of hate crimes are going unpunished.
For the trivial “crime” of supporting Pakistani cricketers, authorities have charged Muslim students under harsh terrorism and sedition laws. In Indore city, four Muslim students were detained for attending an “Hindus only” dance party. A Muslim journalist has been imprisoned for more than a year for doing his job.
When prominent political figures publicly proclaim their racism, there’s nothing more shocking. According to a statement made by Modi, demonstrators could be recognized by their clothes. Before the general election of 2019, BJP President Amit Shah had pledged that a BJP administration would drown the Muslim immigrants in the Bay of Bengal. Social groups, maintained by the BJP, are used to further inflame anti-Muslim sentiment. These groups hold the faults of former Muslim conquerors and rulers accountable for the entire community.
The BJP adheres to a bigoted, intolerant philosophy. The Muslim minority is denounced as a threat to their Hinduism, as are the actions of previous regimes toward them.
Campaigns have been started against interfaith relationships (with Muslim males accused of setting up love traps to seduce Hindu women), religious conversion (even though it is legal in India), and Muslim traditions about marriage, divorce, and alimony under the BJP reign. A well-known clothing company was forced to stop an ad campaign because it was thought to be incorporating Muslim aspects into the Hindu Diwali festival.
Additionally, the BJP-led government passed a bill granting fast track citizenship to citizens from neighboring countries—as long as they were not Muslims. In light of greater Muslim fertility, family-planning activities have been presented as attempts to maintain India’s demographic balance.
Liberals are disappointed by how flimsy the façade of constitutional secularism in India has proven to be. The cultural diversity and harmony between Hindus and Muslims that India has long proclaimed has been destroyed in barely 7 years of BJP leadership.
Muslims used to hold important roles in India. Muslims are now disproportionately overrepresented in jails while being drastically underrepresented in elite central administration agencies like the police. Politicians shout out opinions that would have been considered rude to express a generation ago. Instead of stopping the persecution of Muslims, the police frequently assist it.
Indians are increasingly becoming numb to the frequent speech and practice of anti-Muslim hatred under the BJP’s reign, which has resulted in the segregation and disempowerment of Muslims and the separation of Indian society into “us” and “them.” The response to a Muslim who brings this up is “move to Pakistan.” Hindus are going to be criticized as “anti-national.”
Being a cow is a safer choice than being a Muslim in BJP-ruled India. Regrettably, that is much more relevant now.
Edited by Zahan Ara Dolon.
