FOR Muslims in India, the situation appears to be deteriorating by the day. Indeed, things were never going to be easy for the community under BJP rule, considering that the RSS — the BJP’s ideological parent — had never accepted Muslims as ‘true’ Indians, and peddled the myth that the community comprised permanent outsiders. This despite the fact that Muslims can trace their roots in the subcontinent as far back as a millennium. Under the Narendra Modi dispensation, Muslims have been pushed to the fringes of society, as Nehruvian/Gandhian secularism has been dumped in favour of a muscular, toxic Hindutva narrative. Unfortunately, as the Covid-19 pandemic rages across the planet, the situation for Indian Muslims has become even more dire, as elements within the Indian establishment and media attempt to blame the infection’s spread on the community. This has had devastating consequences for India’s Muslims.

Mistakes may well have been made by Indian members of the Tableeghi Jamaat — which has its headquarters in New Delhi — but to blame the spread of Covid-19 on the entire Indian Muslim community is unacceptable. Moreover, those pointing their finger at Tableeghi preachers for holding a congregation after preventive measures were put in place conveniently skip the fact that the UP chief minster — a rabid Hindu priest — also held a religious gathering in Ayodhya the day the lockdown went into effect. Regrettably, facts and common sense matter little in today’s India, as a populist media and rabble-rousers within the political establishment have found a golden opportunity to pillory Muslims. There have been boycotts of Muslim traders, Muslim patients have been denied admission to hospitals, while two babies reportedly died as hospitals refused to treat their mothers on the basis of faith. But the Hindutva state remains unmoved as millions of people in India are disenfranchised by a violent, majoritarian narrative. Courageous non-Muslim Indians who raise a voice against these injustices are hounded by the Hindutva establishment, with bogus cases filed against them to snuff out dissent.

Congress leader Sonia Gandhi hit the target when she said the BJP was spreading the “virus of communal prejudice” while Pakistan’s Foreign Office has rightly said Indian Muslims face violence and exclusion in the midst of a pandemic. Of course, in times of crises people’s biases come out. Indian Muslims provide an easy target for the shock troops of the Sangh Parivar, as the saffron brigade has been emboldened by state support. The colonial lockdown of India-held Kashmir; the exclusionary legislation designed to disenfranchise Muslims, and now, the spurious allegations of ‘corona jihad’, are all part of a sick pattern to strip Indian Muslims of their rights. It appears that the comparisons between Nazi Germany and Hindutva India are quite apt. The champions of democracy and human rights in the world must speak up before the ogre of Hindutva devours the Indian Muslim community.

Published in Dawn, April 27th, 2020