Maida Farid
Since its independence from British Raj in 1947, India has always taken pride in being a secular state, continuously making a contrast with Pakistan being an Islamic one. In defining the Indian variant of Secularism, Jawaharlal Nehru stated,”Secularism does not mean a state where religion as such is discouraged. It means freedom of religion and conscience, including freedom for those who may have no religion”. But after more than seven decades, where do India and its secular values stand is a question to be probed in. The biggest democracy in the world with a slogan of the secular state, for the longest has managed to fool the world of its true colours. But times have changed and so has the perception of the world. Today not only Pakistan but international press and human rights bodies have started to condemn India’s action against its minorities and especially the targeted violence against Muslims. There has been a noticeable decline on multiple global indices that measured India on the claims of democracy and human rights e.g., in the world press freedom index, it went down from previously held 120th position to 142nd position. Similarly, India was ranked at 62nd in Rule of Law index in the year 2017-2018, it fall down to 96th position. And in the year 2018, the Economist Intelligent Unit on the State of Democracy in the World ranked it at 41st of 167 countries that declined further to 51st position. Such low results suggest that India despite all its secular and democratic claims is a flawed democracy.
The dent to Indian ranking is subject to Modi’s populist rule. The statistics show that India has further drifted away from secularism, particularly after the re-election of 2019 and Modi coming to power for another five-year term period. Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) won the first election (2014) by painting an inspirational picture of India with a booming economy, development, and progress. Whereas, later in the 2019 campaign, BJP diverted to the communal issues and stressed upon making India a state that suited Hindus the most. That is the reason that right a few months before the general elections India abrogated articles 370 and 35A from Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir, making IIOJK part of the Indian Union to gain popularity and support. And these ferocious measures indeed helped Narendra Modi win the second time. Later in December 2019 citizen rules were amended that completely marginalized and excluded Muslims.
It is noteworthy that discrimination and violence against Muslims in India are not a new phenomenon, but with the right-wing nationalist BJP coming into power, it has made life further difficult for the Muslims of India. BJP that is the political wing of the paramilitary extremist group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), has passed certain legislations that openly discriminate against Muslims. Some of these legislations include the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, Love-Jihad laws in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Madhya Pradesh.
It is no secret that Modi is determined to make India solely a Hindu Rashtra (state) where there is no free space for any other religion to freely exist. In doing so BJP has introduced its brand of positive secularism that (in theory) brings together different religious and cultural communities under a shared code of conduct and responsibilities. But that is a deceitful image that the Modi government has been trying to paint to hide its Hindutva ideology and Islamophobia. Many violent instances have been recorded over the decades that question the claim of India being a secular state. Be it the 2002 Gujrat massacre, or the 2019 Delhi riots, things have only gotten worse for Muslims in India. Every day Muslims are stereotyped, questioned on their loyalty towards India, they are often labeled traitors, lynched for eating beef, harassed for practicing their religion, and so for appearing a certain way.
The recent incident where a young college student of Mahatma Gandhi Memorial College in India’s Karnataka was hackled by her fellow students inside the college for wearing a Hijab. This and many such incidents that take place within the bounds of educational settings depict how the Hindutva ideology has infiltrated the young minds of Indian youth. The young generation that is the face and future of any country is not only wearing and waving saffron scarfs and spitting hateful remarks towards their fellow students for belonging to a certain religion and for wearing a headscarf. And this only constitutes the lowest form of violence against Muslims.
The blatant display of unacceptance and hatred towards Muslims has become a norm in Indian polity and those who stand in opposition to Hindutva ideology seem to be in minority, a minority that like other minorities in India remains subject to criticism and violence.
The writer works at the Institute
of Regional Studies, Islamabad
