Prime Minister Narendra Modi has stepped up attacks on minority groups in the lead-up to India’s general election, sparking fears Muslims will be targeted as the two-term leader seeks to divide Indians and stoke tensions for his and his ruling party’s political gain.
This coincides with this week’s rollout of controversial legislation, known as the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which makes religion a determining factor for people to become Indian citizens.
Under the law, only Muslims are unable to fast-track their citizenship if they entered India from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh prior to December 2014. Lawyers and opposition politicians have slammed the move, arguing it seeks to divide the nation on religious lines.
Prashant Bhushan, a Supreme Court lawyer, called the decision “unconstitutional and discriminatory on several grounds, including exclusion based on religion.” Parliamentarian Asaduddin Owaisi said the move was “divisive” and designed to “target only Muslims.”
The law was originally passed in India’s Parliament in 2019, with the government delaying its implementation after violent protests broke out across the country. The timing is convenient, leading to accusations Modi is seeking to target the country’s estimated 200 million Muslims to win votes with his majority Hindu support base.
The government denies the law targets Muslims and argues it is designed to protect at-risk groups fleeing persecution. But it is telling that the most persecuted groups in the region – the Rohingyas in Myanmar, Hazaras in Afghanistan and Ahmadis in Pakistan, all Muslim minorities – have been excluded.
This is not surprising. Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have a history of targeting minorities for electoral gain. The BJP’s political ideology is based on Hindu nationalism, which claims Hindu culture is the core of India’s identity and that other religions and groups – like Muslims – are a threat to this identity.
Muslims are also easy targets being vastly outnumbered by India’s majority Hindu population and have long been discriminated against and marginalized. Modi simply does not need the Muslim vote to win again. While religious groups are not monoliths, Muslims largely voted against the BJP in the 2014 and 2019 general elections.
For this reason, Modi has targeted Muslims to great effect since his election in 2014, undermining India’s history of secularism and religious freedom in the process. His government has overseen a dramatic rise in state-based violence, discrimination and marginalization against India’s Muslim communities while emboldening nationalist vigilante groups to target minorities with impunity.
This has only gotten worse, with United Nations experts raising the alarm last week over the government’s treatment of minority groups, including Muslims. The group – part of the UN’s Human Rights Council – reported a spike in attacks on minority groups, saying it was “alarmed” at cases of violence, dehumanizing language, discrimination and the targeting of minority communities. The UN group says it expects the situation to worsen closer to the elections, which are scheduled to be held between April and May.
This concern is backed up by human rights organizations like India Hate Lab, which reported almost two anti-Muslim hate speech events per day in India last year, with 255 hate speech incidents occurring in the first half of 2023. The vast majority were in BJP-controlled states, the research shows.
Tellingly, the websites of India Hate Lab and fellow monitoring group Hindutva Watch have recently been blocked in India, after warnings from government officials. Modi’s government appears disinterested in the safety of Muslims and keen to silence publicity around the issue.
Modi’s recent personal inauguration of the controversial Ram Mandir temple in Uttar Pradesh has been seen as the most recent attempt to whip up anti-Muslim sentiment. Built on the site of a 16th-century mosque torn down by Hindu far-right groups in 1992, the temple is symbolic of the rise of Hindu nationalism throughout India and the diminishing status of Muslims.
The event, which coincided with India’s Republic Day on January 26, sparked unrest across the country, with Muslims targeted and attacked by Hindu nationalist groups in many areas. The violence may have had the desired result, with recent polls suggesting the BJP is on track for a landslide win in the state.
Modi’s inflammatory actions are problematic for two reasons.
First, Muslims will be increasingly at risk in the immediate term, as the country draws closer to election day. With Modi appearing to give the green light to discriminate against and target minorities – and with authorities already notorious for not protecting them – there is a real threat of widespread communal violence across the country.
The second problem is that the cynical strategy works. Modi is ahead in the polls and on track for a comfortable election victory. While voters are also attracted to the prime minister’s economic and foreign policy credentials, his divisive tactics have undoubtedly also contributed to his enduring popularity.
A third Modi and BJP term will mean more discrimination, marginalization and violence against Muslims and make the country even more dangerous for minority groups.
Politicians always have a choice and Modi has dangerously decided to embrace the politics of division. While this will likely win him another term, it runs counter to India’s proud history of secularism and religious pluralism.
As many experts have noted, Modi’s government is obliged to protect minorities. Doing so would show Modi can lead all Indians, not just Hindus, But unless he changes from his current divisive course, India will become more dangerous and less safe for all its citizens.