Saif
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Muslims are protesting in India as BJP/RSS demeans the prophet Muhammad.
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South Asia How are the Muslims doing in India under BJP rule?
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Saif
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Muslims Have Become A Persecuted Minority In India, Experts Warn
End of June 2022, a Panel of Independent International Experts (the Panel), consisting of three renowned international law experts, including Sonja Biserko, Marzuki Darusman and Stephen Rapp, launched their report on serious human rights violations against Muslims in India since 2019.
www.forbes.com
Muslims Have Become A Persecuted Minority In India, Experts Warn
Dr. Ewelina U. Ochab
End of June 2022, a Panel of Independent International Experts (the Panel), consisting of three renowned international law experts, including Sonja Biserko, Marzuki Darusman and Stephen Rapp, launched their report on serious human rights violations against Muslims in India since 2019. The Panel found that there is credible evidence to suggest that a wide range of international human rights of Muslim communities have been violated by the authorities in India. According to the evidence reviewed, federal and state-level authorities “adopted a wide range of laws, policies and conduct that target Muslims directly or affect them disproportionately.” In relation to violations perpetrated by non-state actors, the State failed to take the necessary measures to prevent the acts, effectively investigate and prosecute them. The Panel further found that some of the violations may amount to crimes against humanity, war crimes and incitement to commit genocide.
The Panel was established to review available evidence and determine whether there was sufficient credible information to require an independent international investigation into the situation of Muslims in India. The Panel reviewed reputable sources for information, including reports of independent media, civil society organizations and academic institutions.
Delhi University Students protesting against the State sponsored police cruelty which led to the ... [+]Hindustan Times via Getty Images
The Panel found credible evidence to suggest that several human rights are being perpetrated against Muslims throughout India, and especially in Assam, Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh, including “arbitrary deprivation of life, arbitrary detentions, torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, gender-based violence and discrimination, incitement to discrimination, hostility and violence, discrimination in laws and policies, including to nationality and representation, violations of freedom of religion or belief, violation of freedom of expression, association, assembly, violations of right to fair trial, and violation of economic, social and cultural rights.”
The Panel found that the following incidents may amount to crimes against humanity, as defined in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court: “the crack-down on protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (December 2019 – June 2020) in Uttar Pradesh” and “the repressive actions by the government against human rights defenders, journalists and activists in Jammu and Kashmir following the change of its special autonomous status in August 2019.”
The Panel stated that the killings and torture of civilians in the ongoing non-international armed conflict in Jammu and Kashmir may amount to war crimes.
Lastly, the Panel identified that a number of public speeches made by prominent political or religious leaders in Delhi, Chattisgarh, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh between December 2019 and April 2022, calling on their audience to kill Muslims or rape Muslim women and girls, may amount to direct and public incitement to commit genocide. According to the Panel, “some leaders [made] clear references to eradication or elimination or destruction of the religious community from the nation.” The Panel emphasized that such statements warrant further investigation by an independent body. Furthermore, urgent action is required to prevent repetition of such incidents.
Dr. Ewelina U. Ochab
End of June 2022, a Panel of Independent International Experts (the Panel), consisting of three renowned international law experts, including Sonja Biserko, Marzuki Darusman and Stephen Rapp, launched their report on serious human rights violations against Muslims in India since 2019. The Panel found that there is credible evidence to suggest that a wide range of international human rights of Muslim communities have been violated by the authorities in India. According to the evidence reviewed, federal and state-level authorities “adopted a wide range of laws, policies and conduct that target Muslims directly or affect them disproportionately.” In relation to violations perpetrated by non-state actors, the State failed to take the necessary measures to prevent the acts, effectively investigate and prosecute them. The Panel further found that some of the violations may amount to crimes against humanity, war crimes and incitement to commit genocide.
The Panel was established to review available evidence and determine whether there was sufficient credible information to require an independent international investigation into the situation of Muslims in India. The Panel reviewed reputable sources for information, including reports of independent media, civil society organizations and academic institutions.
Delhi University Students protesting against the State sponsored police cruelty which led to the ... [+]Hindustan Times via Getty Images
The Panel found credible evidence to suggest that several human rights are being perpetrated against Muslims throughout India, and especially in Assam, Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh, including “arbitrary deprivation of life, arbitrary detentions, torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, gender-based violence and discrimination, incitement to discrimination, hostility and violence, discrimination in laws and policies, including to nationality and representation, violations of freedom of religion or belief, violation of freedom of expression, association, assembly, violations of right to fair trial, and violation of economic, social and cultural rights.”
The Panel found that the following incidents may amount to crimes against humanity, as defined in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court: “the crack-down on protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (December 2019 – June 2020) in Uttar Pradesh” and “the repressive actions by the government against human rights defenders, journalists and activists in Jammu and Kashmir following the change of its special autonomous status in August 2019.”
The Panel stated that the killings and torture of civilians in the ongoing non-international armed conflict in Jammu and Kashmir may amount to war crimes.
Lastly, the Panel identified that a number of public speeches made by prominent political or religious leaders in Delhi, Chattisgarh, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh between December 2019 and April 2022, calling on their audience to kill Muslims or rape Muslim women and girls, may amount to direct and public incitement to commit genocide. According to the Panel, “some leaders [made] clear references to eradication or elimination or destruction of the religious community from the nation.” The Panel emphasized that such statements warrant further investigation by an independent body. Furthermore, urgent action is required to prevent repetition of such incidents.
Saif
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India’s Police Found Complicit in Anti-Muslim Mob Violence
An independent investigation into attacks on Muslims by Hindu mobs in Delhi in February 2020 found that police were complicit in and even abetted the violence. The attacks came after weeks of peaceful protests against the Indian government’s discriminatory citizenship policies.
India’s Police Found Complicit in Anti-Muslim Mob Violence
Independent Report Highlights Police Inaction in February’s Delhi Attacks
Jayshree Bajoria
Associate Director, Asia Division
Police stand guard during a protest against a new citizenship law at the Seelampur area of New Delhi, India, February 20, 2020. © 2020 AP Photo/Manish Swarup
An independent investigation into attacks on Muslims by Hindu mobs in Delhi in February 2020 found that police were complicit in and even abetted the violence. The attacks came after weeks of peaceful protests against the Indian government’s discriminatory citizenship policies. Witnesses say that when they asked police for help during the violence, they refused, saying “they had no orders to act.”
The report, by the Delhi Minorities Commission, said that the violence was “planned and targeted.” It also found that the police were filing cases against Muslim victims for the violence, but not taking action against the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders who incited it.
Some BJP leaders openly advocated violence against the protesters. The attacks began soon after a local BJP politician demanded that the police disperse the peaceful protests. At least 53 people were killed and hundreds more injured in the violence, most of them Muslim.
Human Rights Watch has documented police failures and bias in the investigation into the February violence. Instead of addressing police abuse and carrying out a fair investigation, police are now using draconian anti-terrorism, sedition, and other laws to arrest students, activists, and critics of the government. Delhi police deny these allegations, saying the number of people arrested from the two communities are “almost identical,” but have failed to disclose arrest details. In April, the head of the Delhi Minorities Commission, who questioned the police about the arrests, was charged with sedition for making “provocative” statements on social media.
The account of the violence, the participation and complicity by the authorities, and the intimidation and harassment of activists is eerily similar to past incidents of mass communal violence in India. Many witnesses of anti-Muslim violence in Gujarat in 2002 had said their calls to police either went unanswered or were met with responses such as: “We have no orders to save you.”
The failure to ensure justice for victims of communal violence in India has perpetuated further abuses against religious minorities and deepened distrust in India’s criminal justice system. The authorities should immediately drop politically motivated charges against those who peacefully protested the citizenship policies, enforce the recommendations of this new report, and ensure prompt, credible, and impartial criminal investigations into the Delhi violence, including police abuses. India’s embattled minorities are counting on it.
Independent Report Highlights Police Inaction in February’s Delhi Attacks
Jayshree Bajoria
Associate Director, Asia Division
Police stand guard during a protest against a new citizenship law at the Seelampur area of New Delhi, India, February 20, 2020. © 2020 AP Photo/Manish Swarup
An independent investigation into attacks on Muslims by Hindu mobs in Delhi in February 2020 found that police were complicit in and even abetted the violence. The attacks came after weeks of peaceful protests against the Indian government’s discriminatory citizenship policies. Witnesses say that when they asked police for help during the violence, they refused, saying “they had no orders to act.”
The report, by the Delhi Minorities Commission, said that the violence was “planned and targeted.” It also found that the police were filing cases against Muslim victims for the violence, but not taking action against the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders who incited it.
Some BJP leaders openly advocated violence against the protesters. The attacks began soon after a local BJP politician demanded that the police disperse the peaceful protests. At least 53 people were killed and hundreds more injured in the violence, most of them Muslim.
Human Rights Watch has documented police failures and bias in the investigation into the February violence. Instead of addressing police abuse and carrying out a fair investigation, police are now using draconian anti-terrorism, sedition, and other laws to arrest students, activists, and critics of the government. Delhi police deny these allegations, saying the number of people arrested from the two communities are “almost identical,” but have failed to disclose arrest details. In April, the head of the Delhi Minorities Commission, who questioned the police about the arrests, was charged with sedition for making “provocative” statements on social media.
The account of the violence, the participation and complicity by the authorities, and the intimidation and harassment of activists is eerily similar to past incidents of mass communal violence in India. Many witnesses of anti-Muslim violence in Gujarat in 2002 had said their calls to police either went unanswered or were met with responses such as: “We have no orders to save you.”
The failure to ensure justice for victims of communal violence in India has perpetuated further abuses against religious minorities and deepened distrust in India’s criminal justice system. The authorities should immediately drop politically motivated charges against those who peacefully protested the citizenship policies, enforce the recommendations of this new report, and ensure prompt, credible, and impartial criminal investigations into the Delhi violence, including police abuses. India’s embattled minorities are counting on it.
Saif
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'Invisible in our own country': Being Muslim in Modi's India
Since Narendra Modi's BJP took power in 2014, India's 200 million Muslims have faced turmoil.
www.bbc.com
'Invisible in our own country': Being Muslim in Modi's India
29 April 2024
India's 200 million Muslims are the largest minority in the world's most populous country
Six years ago, a Muslim boy returned red-faced from a well-known school in the northern Indian city of Agra.
"My classmates called me a Pakistani terrorist," the nine-year-old told his mother.
Reema Ahmad, an author and counsellor, remembers the day vividly.
"Here was a feisty, little boy with his fists clenched so tightly that there were nail marks in his palm. He was so angry."
As her son told the story, his classmates were having a mock fight when the teacher had stepped out.
"That's when one group of boys pointed at him and said, 'This is a Pakistani terrorist. Kill him!'"
He revealed some classmates had also called him nali ka kida (insect of the gutter). Ms Ahmad complained, and was told they "were imagining things… such things didn't happen".
Ms Ahmad eventually pulled her son out of school. Today, the 16-year-old is home-schooled.
"I sensed the community's tremors through my son's experiences, a feeling I never recall having in my own youth growing up here," she says.
"Our class privilege may have protected us from feeling Muslim all the time. Now, it seems class and privilege make you a more visible target."
Reema Ahmad pulled her son out of a well-known school after classmates called him a 'Pakistani terrorist'
Ever since Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept to power in 2014, India's 200 million-odd Muslims have had a turbulent journey.
Hindu vigilante mobs have lynched suspected cow traders and targeted small Muslim-owned businesses. Petitions have been filed against mosques. Internet trolls have orchestrated online "auctions" of Muslim women. Right-wing groups and sections of mainstream media have fuelled Islamophobia with accusations of "jihad" - "love jihad", for example, falsely accuses Muslim men of converting Hindu women by marriage.
And anti-Muslim hate speech has surged - three quarters of incidents were reported from states ruled by the BJP.
"Muslims have become second-class citizens, an invisible minority in their own country," says Ziya Us Salam, author of a new book, Being Muslim in Hindu India.
But the BJP - and Mr Modi - deny that minorities are being mistreated in India.
"These are usual tropes of some people who don't bother to meet people outside their bubbles. Even India's minorities don't buy this narrative anymore," the prime minister told Newsweek magazine.
Yet Ms Ahmad - whose family has lived in Agra for decades, counting many Hindu friends amid the city's serpentine lanes and crowded homes - feels a change.
In 2019, Ms Ahmad left a school WhatsApp group where she was one of only two Muslims. This followed the posting of a message after India launched air strikes against militants in Muslim-majority Pakistan.
"If they hit us with missiles, we will enter their homes and kill them," the message on the group said, echoing something Mr Modi had said about killing terrorists and enemies of India inside their homes.
"I lost my cool. I told my friends what's wrong with you? Do you condone killing of civilians and children?" Ms Ahmad recalled. She believed in advocating for peace.
The reaction was swift.
"Someone asked, are you pro-Pakistani just because you are Muslim? They accused me of being anti-national," she said.
"Suddenly appealing for non-violence was equated with being anti-national. I told them I don't have to be violent to support my country. I quit the group."
The changing atmosphere is felt in other ways too. For a long time, Ms Ahmad's spacious home has been a hangout for her son's classmates, regardless of gender or religion. But now the bogey of "love jihad" means she asks Hindu girls to leave by a certain hour and not linger in his room.
"My father and I sat my son down and told him that the atmosphere was not good - you have to limit your friendships, be careful, not stay out too late. You never know. Things can turn into 'love jihad' at any time."
Environmental activist Erum, a fifth-generation resident of Agra, has also noticed a shift in conversations among the city's children as she worked in local schools.
"Don't talk to me, my mother has told me not to," she heard one child tell a Muslim classmate.
"I am thinking, really?! This reflects the deeply ingrained phobia [of Muslims]. This will grow into something which will not heal easily," Ms Erum said.
But for herself, she had lots of Hindu friends, and did not feel insecure as a Muslim woman.
It's just not about the children. In his small office along a bustling Agra street, Siraj Qureshi, a local journalist and interfaith organiser, laments the fraying of the old bonhomie between Hindus and Muslims.
He recounts a recent incident where a man delivering mutton in the city was stopped by Hindu right-wing group members, handed over to the police and thrown into jail. "He had the proper licence, but the police still arrested him. He was later released," Mr Qureshi says.
Many in the community note a shift in behaviour among Muslims traveling by train, prompted by incidents in which Muslim passengers were reportedly attacked for allegedly carrying beef. "Now, we're all cautious, avoiding non-vegetarian food in public transport or opting out [of public transport] altogether if we can afford to," says Ms Ahmad.
Kaleem Ahmed Qureshi, a software engineer-turned jewellery designer and musician, is a seventh-generation Agra resident, who also leads heritage walks in the city.
Carrying his rubab, a lute-like musical instrument commonly played in Afghanistan, he took a shared taxi with a Hindu co-passenger from Delhi to Agra recently. "When he saw the case, he asked me to open it, fearing it was a gun. I sensed his reaction was influenced by my name," Mr Qureshi says.
"There is this anxiety [which we live with]. When I travel now, I have to be very aware of where I am, what I say, what I do. I feel unease even at disclosing my name to the ticket checker in the train."
Mr Qureshi can see a clear root cause: "Politics has mixed poison in the relationship between the communities."
"There is no reason for Muslims to be anxious," Syed Zafar Islam, a national spokesperson of the BJP, told me on a recent warm afternoon in Delhi, attributing rising Islamophobia to "irresponsible media houses".
"A small incident takes place somewhere, and the media amplifies it like it has never happened before. In a country of 1.4 billion people, several such incidents can take place between communities or within communities," he adds.
"You cannot generalise one or two incidents [and say the ruling party is anti-Muslim]. If someone portrays it as something targeted against Muslims, they are wrong."
I asked him how he'd react if his child came home from school, saying classmates had labelled him a "Pakistani terrorist" because of the family's religion. The ex-banker, who joined the party in 2014, has two children, one currently in school.
"Like any other parent, I would feel bad. It is the responsibility of the school to make sure such things don't happen. Parents should make sure they don't say such things," he said.
What about the talk of BJP establishing a Hindu rashtra (state) in a country where 79% of the people are Hindu?
"People know this is rhetoric. Has our government or party said such things? Why does media give so much space to people who say such things? We feel upset when media gives space to such people," Mr Islam said.
But then, what about the lack of Muslim representation? The BJP has no Muslim ministers, MPs in either house of the parliament, and only one member of a local assembly (MLA) among the more than 1,000 nationwide.
Mr Islam, a former BJP MP himself, said this was not intentional.
"Muslims are being used by the Congress and other opposition parties to serve their agenda to defeat the BJP. If a Muslim candidate is fielded by a party and Muslims don't vote for him, which party is going to give him a ticket?"
It is true only 8% of India's Muslims voted for the BJP in 2019, and are increasingly voting as a bloc against Mr Modi's party. In the 2020 Bihar state elections, 77% supported an anti-BJP alliance; in 2021, 75% backed the regional Trinamool Congress in West Bengal; and in 2022, 79% supported the opposition Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh.
But Mr Islam argues the Congress-led opposition parties instilled "fear and anxiety" in the community to ensure they remained loyal. The Modi government, on the other hand, "doesn't differentiate [between communities]".
"The welfare schemes are reaching all the people. Muslims are the biggest beneficiaries of some of the schemes. No big riots have taken place in the past 10 years." In fact rioting in Delhi over a controversial citizenship law in 2020 left more than 50 people dead, most of them Muslims - but India has seen far worse over the years since independence.
Mr Islam blamed the community for insulating itself from the mainstream.
"Muslims must introspect. They should reject being treated as a [mere] vote bank, and not be influenced by religious leaders.
"Mr Modi is trying hard to bring society together so that people coexist happily and they are not misled."
I asked him about how he looked at the future of Muslims in India under Mr Modi's leadership?
"It is very good.... Minds are changing slowly. More Muslims will be joining the BJP. Things are looking up."
It is true that, amidst these turbulent times, many Muslims say their community is undergoing a process of reform.
"Muslims are looking within and getting educated. There is a concerted effort by Muslim educationists and intellectuals to help deserving, needy community students to get educated. The effort to improve on your own is laudable but it also betrays lack of faith in the government," says Mr Salam.
Arzoo Parveen is one of those who can see a way out of poverty with her family in Bihar - India's poorest state - with education.
Unlike Ms Ahmad's son, the road block was not religious tensions, but her own father, scared of what others would think.
"He said we have money problems at home, you are a grown-up girl, villagers will talk about it. I told him we can't continue to live like this. Women are moving ahead. We can't put our futures on hold."
Arzoo's dream is to become a doctor, inspired after hearing how her mother died at the local hospital. But it was village teachers' stories of women becoming engineers and doctors that made her believe it was possible.
"Why not me?" she asked, and within a year she had become the first woman in her family to pursue higher education.
Her road out of the village was not through a state-run school, but Rahmani30, a free coaching school for underprivileged Muslim students set up by Maulana Wali Rahmani, a Muslim former politician and academician, in 2008.
Rahmani30 now mentors 850 students - girls and boys - in three cities, including Patna, Bihar's capital. Chosen students live in the school's rented buildings and cram for national entrance exams in engineering, medicine, and chartered accountancy. Many of them are first-generation learners, children of fruit vendors, farm workers, labourers and construction workers.
Some 600 alumni are already working as software engineers, chartered accountants and in other professions. Six are doctors.
Next year, Arzoo will join more than two million competitors - if not more - to compete for one of the 100,000-odd seats that India's 707 medical colleges offer every year.
Mohammed Shakir sees education at Rahmani30 as his ticket to a better life - one which will allow him to take care of his struggling family.
Last April, the 15-year-old, and his friend embarked on a six-hour bus journey to Patna, travelling through a district hit by religious riots sparked by a Hindu festival procession. They made the journey with a bottle of water and a few dates, stayed overnight in a mosque, sat for the Rahmani30 entrance exam and cracked it.
"My parents were so scared, they said don't go. I told them, "The time is now. If I don't go now, I don't know what my future will be," Shakir said.
For this teenager, who dreams of becoming a computer scientist, the fears over religious tension appeared to be the least of his worries.
"I had told my mum that I will return after acing the exam. Nothing will happen to me on the way. After all, why should anything go wrong? In my village, Hindus and Muslims live together in perfect harmony."
Short presentational grey line
So what about the future of India's Muslims - also divided on class, sect, caste and regional lines - in the world's most populous country?
Mr Salam talks about a sense of "lingering fear".
"People talk about lack of jobs and inflation for Muslim community. But it's just not about inflation and employment. It is about right to life."
Recent memoirs by young Muslims speak of similar fears.
"Almost everyone has picked a country where they would run to when the inevitable happens. Some have got in touch with uncles settled in Canada, the US, Turkey or the UK, if they ever need asylum. Even someone like me, who felt safe even in times of communal violence, now worries about my family's future in my homeland," writes Zeyad Masroor Khan in his recent book City on Fire: A Boyhood in Aligarh.
In Agra, Ms Ahmad also feels the weight of uncertainty about the future.
"In the beginning I thought it [Muslim-baiting] was fringe and it would pass. That was 10 years ago. Now I feel a lot has been permanently lost and damaged."
29 April 2024
India's 200 million Muslims are the largest minority in the world's most populous country
Six years ago, a Muslim boy returned red-faced from a well-known school in the northern Indian city of Agra.
"My classmates called me a Pakistani terrorist," the nine-year-old told his mother.
Reema Ahmad, an author and counsellor, remembers the day vividly.
"Here was a feisty, little boy with his fists clenched so tightly that there were nail marks in his palm. He was so angry."
As her son told the story, his classmates were having a mock fight when the teacher had stepped out.
"That's when one group of boys pointed at him and said, 'This is a Pakistani terrorist. Kill him!'"
He revealed some classmates had also called him nali ka kida (insect of the gutter). Ms Ahmad complained, and was told they "were imagining things… such things didn't happen".
Ms Ahmad eventually pulled her son out of school. Today, the 16-year-old is home-schooled.
"I sensed the community's tremors through my son's experiences, a feeling I never recall having in my own youth growing up here," she says.
"Our class privilege may have protected us from feeling Muslim all the time. Now, it seems class and privilege make you a more visible target."
Reema Ahmad pulled her son out of a well-known school after classmates called him a 'Pakistani terrorist'
Ever since Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept to power in 2014, India's 200 million-odd Muslims have had a turbulent journey.
Hindu vigilante mobs have lynched suspected cow traders and targeted small Muslim-owned businesses. Petitions have been filed against mosques. Internet trolls have orchestrated online "auctions" of Muslim women. Right-wing groups and sections of mainstream media have fuelled Islamophobia with accusations of "jihad" - "love jihad", for example, falsely accuses Muslim men of converting Hindu women by marriage.
And anti-Muslim hate speech has surged - three quarters of incidents were reported from states ruled by the BJP.
"Muslims have become second-class citizens, an invisible minority in their own country," says Ziya Us Salam, author of a new book, Being Muslim in Hindu India.
But the BJP - and Mr Modi - deny that minorities are being mistreated in India.
"These are usual tropes of some people who don't bother to meet people outside their bubbles. Even India's minorities don't buy this narrative anymore," the prime minister told Newsweek magazine.
Yet Ms Ahmad - whose family has lived in Agra for decades, counting many Hindu friends amid the city's serpentine lanes and crowded homes - feels a change.
In 2019, Ms Ahmad left a school WhatsApp group where she was one of only two Muslims. This followed the posting of a message after India launched air strikes against militants in Muslim-majority Pakistan.
"If they hit us with missiles, we will enter their homes and kill them," the message on the group said, echoing something Mr Modi had said about killing terrorists and enemies of India inside their homes.
"I lost my cool. I told my friends what's wrong with you? Do you condone killing of civilians and children?" Ms Ahmad recalled. She believed in advocating for peace.
The reaction was swift.
"Someone asked, are you pro-Pakistani just because you are Muslim? They accused me of being anti-national," she said.
"Suddenly appealing for non-violence was equated with being anti-national. I told them I don't have to be violent to support my country. I quit the group."
The changing atmosphere is felt in other ways too. For a long time, Ms Ahmad's spacious home has been a hangout for her son's classmates, regardless of gender or religion. But now the bogey of "love jihad" means she asks Hindu girls to leave by a certain hour and not linger in his room.
"My father and I sat my son down and told him that the atmosphere was not good - you have to limit your friendships, be careful, not stay out too late. You never know. Things can turn into 'love jihad' at any time."
Environmental activist Erum, a fifth-generation resident of Agra, has also noticed a shift in conversations among the city's children as she worked in local schools.
"Don't talk to me, my mother has told me not to," she heard one child tell a Muslim classmate.
"I am thinking, really?! This reflects the deeply ingrained phobia [of Muslims]. This will grow into something which will not heal easily," Ms Erum said.
But for herself, she had lots of Hindu friends, and did not feel insecure as a Muslim woman.
It's just not about the children. In his small office along a bustling Agra street, Siraj Qureshi, a local journalist and interfaith organiser, laments the fraying of the old bonhomie between Hindus and Muslims.
He recounts a recent incident where a man delivering mutton in the city was stopped by Hindu right-wing group members, handed over to the police and thrown into jail. "He had the proper licence, but the police still arrested him. He was later released," Mr Qureshi says.
Many in the community note a shift in behaviour among Muslims traveling by train, prompted by incidents in which Muslim passengers were reportedly attacked for allegedly carrying beef. "Now, we're all cautious, avoiding non-vegetarian food in public transport or opting out [of public transport] altogether if we can afford to," says Ms Ahmad.
Kaleem Ahmed Qureshi, a software engineer-turned jewellery designer and musician, is a seventh-generation Agra resident, who also leads heritage walks in the city.
Carrying his rubab, a lute-like musical instrument commonly played in Afghanistan, he took a shared taxi with a Hindu co-passenger from Delhi to Agra recently. "When he saw the case, he asked me to open it, fearing it was a gun. I sensed his reaction was influenced by my name," Mr Qureshi says.
"There is this anxiety [which we live with]. When I travel now, I have to be very aware of where I am, what I say, what I do. I feel unease even at disclosing my name to the ticket checker in the train."
Mr Qureshi can see a clear root cause: "Politics has mixed poison in the relationship between the communities."
"There is no reason for Muslims to be anxious," Syed Zafar Islam, a national spokesperson of the BJP, told me on a recent warm afternoon in Delhi, attributing rising Islamophobia to "irresponsible media houses".
"A small incident takes place somewhere, and the media amplifies it like it has never happened before. In a country of 1.4 billion people, several such incidents can take place between communities or within communities," he adds.
"You cannot generalise one or two incidents [and say the ruling party is anti-Muslim]. If someone portrays it as something targeted against Muslims, they are wrong."
I asked him how he'd react if his child came home from school, saying classmates had labelled him a "Pakistani terrorist" because of the family's religion. The ex-banker, who joined the party in 2014, has two children, one currently in school.
"Like any other parent, I would feel bad. It is the responsibility of the school to make sure such things don't happen. Parents should make sure they don't say such things," he said.
What about the talk of BJP establishing a Hindu rashtra (state) in a country where 79% of the people are Hindu?
"People know this is rhetoric. Has our government or party said such things? Why does media give so much space to people who say such things? We feel upset when media gives space to such people," Mr Islam said.
But then, what about the lack of Muslim representation? The BJP has no Muslim ministers, MPs in either house of the parliament, and only one member of a local assembly (MLA) among the more than 1,000 nationwide.
Mr Islam, a former BJP MP himself, said this was not intentional.
"Muslims are being used by the Congress and other opposition parties to serve their agenda to defeat the BJP. If a Muslim candidate is fielded by a party and Muslims don't vote for him, which party is going to give him a ticket?"
It is true only 8% of India's Muslims voted for the BJP in 2019, and are increasingly voting as a bloc against Mr Modi's party. In the 2020 Bihar state elections, 77% supported an anti-BJP alliance; in 2021, 75% backed the regional Trinamool Congress in West Bengal; and in 2022, 79% supported the opposition Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh.
But Mr Islam argues the Congress-led opposition parties instilled "fear and anxiety" in the community to ensure they remained loyal. The Modi government, on the other hand, "doesn't differentiate [between communities]".
"The welfare schemes are reaching all the people. Muslims are the biggest beneficiaries of some of the schemes. No big riots have taken place in the past 10 years." In fact rioting in Delhi over a controversial citizenship law in 2020 left more than 50 people dead, most of them Muslims - but India has seen far worse over the years since independence.
Mr Islam blamed the community for insulating itself from the mainstream.
"Muslims must introspect. They should reject being treated as a [mere] vote bank, and not be influenced by religious leaders.
"Mr Modi is trying hard to bring society together so that people coexist happily and they are not misled."
I asked him about how he looked at the future of Muslims in India under Mr Modi's leadership?
"It is very good.... Minds are changing slowly. More Muslims will be joining the BJP. Things are looking up."
It is true that, amidst these turbulent times, many Muslims say their community is undergoing a process of reform.
"Muslims are looking within and getting educated. There is a concerted effort by Muslim educationists and intellectuals to help deserving, needy community students to get educated. The effort to improve on your own is laudable but it also betrays lack of faith in the government," says Mr Salam.
Arzoo Parveen is one of those who can see a way out of poverty with her family in Bihar - India's poorest state - with education.
Unlike Ms Ahmad's son, the road block was not religious tensions, but her own father, scared of what others would think.
"He said we have money problems at home, you are a grown-up girl, villagers will talk about it. I told him we can't continue to live like this. Women are moving ahead. We can't put our futures on hold."
Arzoo's dream is to become a doctor, inspired after hearing how her mother died at the local hospital. But it was village teachers' stories of women becoming engineers and doctors that made her believe it was possible.
"Why not me?" she asked, and within a year she had become the first woman in her family to pursue higher education.
Her road out of the village was not through a state-run school, but Rahmani30, a free coaching school for underprivileged Muslim students set up by Maulana Wali Rahmani, a Muslim former politician and academician, in 2008.
Rahmani30 now mentors 850 students - girls and boys - in three cities, including Patna, Bihar's capital. Chosen students live in the school's rented buildings and cram for national entrance exams in engineering, medicine, and chartered accountancy. Many of them are first-generation learners, children of fruit vendors, farm workers, labourers and construction workers.
Some 600 alumni are already working as software engineers, chartered accountants and in other professions. Six are doctors.
Next year, Arzoo will join more than two million competitors - if not more - to compete for one of the 100,000-odd seats that India's 707 medical colleges offer every year.
Mohammed Shakir sees education at Rahmani30 as his ticket to a better life - one which will allow him to take care of his struggling family.
Last April, the 15-year-old, and his friend embarked on a six-hour bus journey to Patna, travelling through a district hit by religious riots sparked by a Hindu festival procession. They made the journey with a bottle of water and a few dates, stayed overnight in a mosque, sat for the Rahmani30 entrance exam and cracked it.
"My parents were so scared, they said don't go. I told them, "The time is now. If I don't go now, I don't know what my future will be," Shakir said.
For this teenager, who dreams of becoming a computer scientist, the fears over religious tension appeared to be the least of his worries.
"I had told my mum that I will return after acing the exam. Nothing will happen to me on the way. After all, why should anything go wrong? In my village, Hindus and Muslims live together in perfect harmony."
Short presentational grey line
So what about the future of India's Muslims - also divided on class, sect, caste and regional lines - in the world's most populous country?
Mr Salam talks about a sense of "lingering fear".
"People talk about lack of jobs and inflation for Muslim community. But it's just not about inflation and employment. It is about right to life."
Recent memoirs by young Muslims speak of similar fears.
"Almost everyone has picked a country where they would run to when the inevitable happens. Some have got in touch with uncles settled in Canada, the US, Turkey or the UK, if they ever need asylum. Even someone like me, who felt safe even in times of communal violence, now worries about my family's future in my homeland," writes Zeyad Masroor Khan in his recent book City on Fire: A Boyhood in Aligarh.
In Agra, Ms Ahmad also feels the weight of uncertainty about the future.
"In the beginning I thought it [Muslim-baiting] was fringe and it would pass. That was 10 years ago. Now I feel a lot has been permanently lost and damaged."
Saif
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How India's Hindu Nationalists Are Weaponizing History Against Muslims
The BJP is spreading a false history about the Mughal empire and more, to spread its Hindu nationalist vision.
How India’s Hindu Nationalists Are Weaponizing History Against Muslims
Supporters of the right-wing Hindu groups Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Bajrang Dal reacting to communal clashes in Haryana state, burn an effigy and shout slogans in Ahmedabad, India, on Aug. 2, 2023.Ajit Solanki—AP
About a month ago, a video emerged of an Indian teacher telling students to slap a 7-year-old classmate. The boy had gotten his multiplication tables wrong, but his real crime was being an Indian Muslim.
India used to be a secular democracy, but its current leader, Narendra Modi of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), advances a radically different vision. Modi wants India to become a Hindu nation, in which India’s religious minorities (about 20% of the population) are second-class citizens and Muslims especially (about 14% of Indians) are compelled to accept increasing majoritarian violence. Indeed, stories of terrorizing Indian Muslims have become depressingly common in Modi’s India, with human rights groups documenting rising violence with each passing year. International groups, such as Freedom House and V-Dem, consider India only “partly free” and an “electoral autocracy” owing to the sharp decline of human and civil rights.
The BJP has always considered Muslims to be less Indian than Hindus. The political party was formed in 1980 as an offshoot of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), an all-male paramilitary organization founded in 1925 and modeled on Italian fascist groups such as Mussolini’s Blackshirts. Both the BJP and RSS view India as a nation for Hindus, by Hindus, and seek to coalesce and mobilize a Hindu identity that historically was porous and varied.
Early Hindu nationalist leaders endorsed violence against Indian Muslims. For example, in December 1938—mere weeks after Kristallnacht—the Hindu nationalist leader V. D. Savarkar declared that Muslims who oppose Hindu interests “will have to play the part of German-Jews.” The RSS’s second leader, M. S. Golwalkar, proclaimed that Germany’s “purging the country of the semitic Race - the Jews” is “a good lesson for us in Hindusthan to learn and profit by.” Such genocidal calls remain current today. In 2021, a Hindu nationalist leader urged his followers to be prepared to kill millions of Indian Muslims. Watchdog groups, including Genocide Watch and Early Warning (a project of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum), caution that signs of genocide are already manifest in India.
Modi is a lifelong member of the RSS. Before he became India’s Prime Minister in 2014, he was Chief Minister of Gujarat, a state which, during his watch in 2002, saw India’s worst communal riots since partition—leaving at least 1,000 people dead, most of them Muslim. This earned him international rebuke, including a 2005 U.S. travel ban, and notoriety at home as an anti-Muslim strongman. That reputation helped propel Modi and the BJP to victory in India’s 2014 general election. After five years of rising Hindu nationalist violence against Indian Muslims, Modi led the BJP to another election win in 2019. Although many Indians—including many Hindus—oppose the BJP, it currently enjoys unprecedented power to reshape India.
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi waves to supporters in Kadi, 40 km north of the state’s main city Ahmedabad, on September 9, 2002.Amit Dave—Reuters
Textbook wars
A key piece of the BJP’s agenda involves twisting history to demonize Muslims, and Hindu nationalists often zero-in on the Mughals, a dynasty that ruled parts of northern and central India during its heyday from about 1560 to 1720. Chief among Hindu nationalist disinformation about the Mughals are that these kings fuelled Hindu-Muslim conflict, a phenomenon that largely developed during British colonial rule (1757–1947). By vilifying earlier Indian kings, the British deflected attention from their exploitative and harmful colonial enterprise.
Contemporary Hindu nationalists follow British colonial ideas regarding Indian history—but they go further in attacking the Mughals. Sometimes Hindu nationalists falsely accuse the Mughals of committing a genocide. Other times they falsely malign the Mughals as colonialists, which depicts them—and by extension all Muslims today—as a foreign threat to India.
Hindu nationalists have in turn attacked the Taj Mahal as a Mughal-built monument, omitting it from tourist booklets and promoting the conspiracy theory that it used to be a Shiva Temple. They have removed parts of Mughal history from school textbooks. This renders many Indian children ignorant of key parts of their own history, including that the Mughals built a multicultural empire, patronized Hindu and Muslim religious groups, and relied on Hindu elites known as Rajputs to rule.
Hindu nationalists have also razed historical mosques. Most prominently, in 1992, a Hindu mob illegally destroyed an early 16th-century Mughal mosque in Ayodhya, a town in northern India. In 2020, Modi laid the foundation stone for a modern temple to the Hindu god Ram atop the mosque’s ruins. When completed, Ayodhya’s Ram Temple will embody the heady mix of anti-Muslim iconoclasm and Hindu triumphalism that is core to the BJP’s vision.
Indian Hindu fundamentalists attack the wall of the 16th century Babri Masjid Mosque with iron rods at a disputed holy site in the city of Ayodhya, India, on December 6, 1992.Douglas E. Curran—AFP/Getty Images
After having students hit their 7-year-old Muslim classmate, the Indian teacher stated defiantly: “I do not regret my act; people are with me.” Indeed, over the past decade, Indian Muslims have been subjected to violent and often deadly assaults by India’s Hindu majority for praying, marrying across religious lines, celebrating holidays, eating beef, protesting government policies, reporting on Hindu nationalism, and more. Many used to take comfort in the aphorism that “India is not Modi,” but it now sounds like wishful thinking.
As the BJP’s agenda continues and Indian democracy erodes, we will likely see more attacks on religious minorities, especially Muslims, in both India’s past and present.
Supporters of the right-wing Hindu groups Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Bajrang Dal reacting to communal clashes in Haryana state, burn an effigy and shout slogans in Ahmedabad, India, on Aug. 2, 2023.Ajit Solanki—AP
About a month ago, a video emerged of an Indian teacher telling students to slap a 7-year-old classmate. The boy had gotten his multiplication tables wrong, but his real crime was being an Indian Muslim.
India used to be a secular democracy, but its current leader, Narendra Modi of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), advances a radically different vision. Modi wants India to become a Hindu nation, in which India’s religious minorities (about 20% of the population) are second-class citizens and Muslims especially (about 14% of Indians) are compelled to accept increasing majoritarian violence. Indeed, stories of terrorizing Indian Muslims have become depressingly common in Modi’s India, with human rights groups documenting rising violence with each passing year. International groups, such as Freedom House and V-Dem, consider India only “partly free” and an “electoral autocracy” owing to the sharp decline of human and civil rights.
The BJP has always considered Muslims to be less Indian than Hindus. The political party was formed in 1980 as an offshoot of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), an all-male paramilitary organization founded in 1925 and modeled on Italian fascist groups such as Mussolini’s Blackshirts. Both the BJP and RSS view India as a nation for Hindus, by Hindus, and seek to coalesce and mobilize a Hindu identity that historically was porous and varied.
Early Hindu nationalist leaders endorsed violence against Indian Muslims. For example, in December 1938—mere weeks after Kristallnacht—the Hindu nationalist leader V. D. Savarkar declared that Muslims who oppose Hindu interests “will have to play the part of German-Jews.” The RSS’s second leader, M. S. Golwalkar, proclaimed that Germany’s “purging the country of the semitic Race - the Jews” is “a good lesson for us in Hindusthan to learn and profit by.” Such genocidal calls remain current today. In 2021, a Hindu nationalist leader urged his followers to be prepared to kill millions of Indian Muslims. Watchdog groups, including Genocide Watch and Early Warning (a project of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum), caution that signs of genocide are already manifest in India.
Modi is a lifelong member of the RSS. Before he became India’s Prime Minister in 2014, he was Chief Minister of Gujarat, a state which, during his watch in 2002, saw India’s worst communal riots since partition—leaving at least 1,000 people dead, most of them Muslim. This earned him international rebuke, including a 2005 U.S. travel ban, and notoriety at home as an anti-Muslim strongman. That reputation helped propel Modi and the BJP to victory in India’s 2014 general election. After five years of rising Hindu nationalist violence against Indian Muslims, Modi led the BJP to another election win in 2019. Although many Indians—including many Hindus—oppose the BJP, it currently enjoys unprecedented power to reshape India.
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi waves to supporters in Kadi, 40 km north of the state’s main city Ahmedabad, on September 9, 2002.Amit Dave—Reuters
Textbook wars
A key piece of the BJP’s agenda involves twisting history to demonize Muslims, and Hindu nationalists often zero-in on the Mughals, a dynasty that ruled parts of northern and central India during its heyday from about 1560 to 1720. Chief among Hindu nationalist disinformation about the Mughals are that these kings fuelled Hindu-Muslim conflict, a phenomenon that largely developed during British colonial rule (1757–1947). By vilifying earlier Indian kings, the British deflected attention from their exploitative and harmful colonial enterprise.
Contemporary Hindu nationalists follow British colonial ideas regarding Indian history—but they go further in attacking the Mughals. Sometimes Hindu nationalists falsely accuse the Mughals of committing a genocide. Other times they falsely malign the Mughals as colonialists, which depicts them—and by extension all Muslims today—as a foreign threat to India.
Hindu nationalists have in turn attacked the Taj Mahal as a Mughal-built monument, omitting it from tourist booklets and promoting the conspiracy theory that it used to be a Shiva Temple. They have removed parts of Mughal history from school textbooks. This renders many Indian children ignorant of key parts of their own history, including that the Mughals built a multicultural empire, patronized Hindu and Muslim religious groups, and relied on Hindu elites known as Rajputs to rule.
Hindu nationalists have also razed historical mosques. Most prominently, in 1992, a Hindu mob illegally destroyed an early 16th-century Mughal mosque in Ayodhya, a town in northern India. In 2020, Modi laid the foundation stone for a modern temple to the Hindu god Ram atop the mosque’s ruins. When completed, Ayodhya’s Ram Temple will embody the heady mix of anti-Muslim iconoclasm and Hindu triumphalism that is core to the BJP’s vision.
Indian Hindu fundamentalists attack the wall of the 16th century Babri Masjid Mosque with iron rods at a disputed holy site in the city of Ayodhya, India, on December 6, 1992.Douglas E. Curran—AFP/Getty Images
After having students hit their 7-year-old Muslim classmate, the Indian teacher stated defiantly: “I do not regret my act; people are with me.” Indeed, over the past decade, Indian Muslims have been subjected to violent and often deadly assaults by India’s Hindu majority for praying, marrying across religious lines, celebrating holidays, eating beef, protesting government policies, reporting on Hindu nationalism, and more. Many used to take comfort in the aphorism that “India is not Modi,” but it now sounds like wishful thinking.
As the BJP’s agenda continues and Indian democracy erodes, we will likely see more attacks on religious minorities, especially Muslims, in both India’s past and present.
Krishna with Flute
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I highly advocate the same treatment to Muslims which Hindus get in Bangladesh and Pakistan. I want the Muslim population to rise in same way in India like it has risen in Bangladesh and Pakistan which are epitome of Secularism Post Independance. Since BJP and RSS are not capable to provide them with same treatment, I highly recommend a new political party who can give matching treatment to Indian Muslims.
Krishna with Flute
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Since when this police action against organized Stone platter becomes the human right violation.
Saif
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Delhi’s double standards condemnable
Law Adviser Asif Nazrul yesterday accused India of double standards for ignoring what he said were atrocities committed against its Muslim minority, but expressing concerns for Bangladesh.
Delhi’s double standards condemnable
Says Asif Nazrul
Law Adviser Asif Nazrul yesterday accused India of double standards for ignoring what he said were atrocities committed against its Muslim minority, but expressing concerns for Bangladesh.
"Most people in Bangladesh (64.1 percent) believe that the interim government has been able to provide more security to the country's minority population compared to the previous Awami League government. This was seen in a survey published by Voice of America Bangla," he wrote on his verified Facebook page.
"We have also seen how student organisations, madrasas, political parties and the general public of Bangladesh worked for the safety of minorities during the recent Durga Puja. Most recently, Muslims of Bangladesh showed immense restraint and patience even after the brutal murder of lawyer Saiful Islam in Chattogram.
"But India has not stopped expressing unwarranted concerns over the situation in Bangladesh. In India, countless incidents of cruelty against the minority Muslim community continue to take place. They are not embarrassed or remorseful about it.
Numerous brutal incidents continue to occur against the minority Muslim community. Yet, there is no hesitation or remorse about it.
"India's double standard is condemnable and objectionable," reads the Facebook post.
The Indian government and the opposition Congress recently expressed deep concerns over the arrest of Chinmoy Krishna Das Brahmachari, spokesperson of the Bangladesh Shammilito Sanatan Jagaran Jote and a former ISKCON leader.
On Tuesday night, Bangladesh's Ministry of Foreign Affairs reacted to India's Ministry of External Affairs' statement.
The ministry said Chinmoy was arrested on specific charges and expressed disappointment over the "misrepresentation of the arrest".
"Such baseless statements not only distort the truth, but also go against the spirit of friendship and understanding between the two neighbouring countries," reads the statement.
Chinmoy, who was expelled from ISKCON Bangladesh in July, was sent to prison last Tuesday on sedition charges.
That day, clashes broke out between police, lawyers, and Chinmoy's followers. Amid the clash, lawyer Saiful was hacked to death.
There was a discussion on Bangladesh in Indian parliament on Thursday as well.
In a written answer to a question, India's External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar told parliament that India took the incidents of attacks on minorities in Bangladesh seriously and the primary responsibility to protect them falls on Dhaka.
Says Asif Nazrul
Law Adviser Asif Nazrul yesterday accused India of double standards for ignoring what he said were atrocities committed against its Muslim minority, but expressing concerns for Bangladesh.
"Most people in Bangladesh (64.1 percent) believe that the interim government has been able to provide more security to the country's minority population compared to the previous Awami League government. This was seen in a survey published by Voice of America Bangla," he wrote on his verified Facebook page.
"We have also seen how student organisations, madrasas, political parties and the general public of Bangladesh worked for the safety of minorities during the recent Durga Puja. Most recently, Muslims of Bangladesh showed immense restraint and patience even after the brutal murder of lawyer Saiful Islam in Chattogram.
"But India has not stopped expressing unwarranted concerns over the situation in Bangladesh. In India, countless incidents of cruelty against the minority Muslim community continue to take place. They are not embarrassed or remorseful about it.
Numerous brutal incidents continue to occur against the minority Muslim community. Yet, there is no hesitation or remorse about it.
"India's double standard is condemnable and objectionable," reads the Facebook post.
The Indian government and the opposition Congress recently expressed deep concerns over the arrest of Chinmoy Krishna Das Brahmachari, spokesperson of the Bangladesh Shammilito Sanatan Jagaran Jote and a former ISKCON leader.
On Tuesday night, Bangladesh's Ministry of Foreign Affairs reacted to India's Ministry of External Affairs' statement.
The ministry said Chinmoy was arrested on specific charges and expressed disappointment over the "misrepresentation of the arrest".
"Such baseless statements not only distort the truth, but also go against the spirit of friendship and understanding between the two neighbouring countries," reads the statement.
Chinmoy, who was expelled from ISKCON Bangladesh in July, was sent to prison last Tuesday on sedition charges.
That day, clashes broke out between police, lawyers, and Chinmoy's followers. Amid the clash, lawyer Saiful was hacked to death.
There was a discussion on Bangladesh in Indian parliament on Thursday as well.
In a written answer to a question, India's External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar told parliament that India took the incidents of attacks on minorities in Bangladesh seriously and the primary responsibility to protect them falls on Dhaka.
