New Delhi, India – Speaking to a crowd of saffron-clad supporters in his home state of Gujarat earlier this week, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi turned to an increasingly favored election topic: how opposition parties are working with Muslims to plot a takeover of the nation.
“[The opposition alliance] he is asking Muslims to “vote jihad.” This is new because so far we have heard about ‘love jihad’ and ‘land jihad’,” Modi said, referring to a number of Islamophobic conspiracy theories, before stressing to his audience why they should be afraid . “I hope you all know what the meaning of jihad is and against whom it is waged,”
As India’s giant national elections near their midpoint, with the third of seven phases of voting scheduled for May 7, Modi’s anti-Muslim rhetoric grows increasingly strident. This worries analysts and also Muslims who until recently supported the prime minister, but who now fear that the rhetoric risks serving as oxygen for the increase in physical violence against Indian Muslims.
His latest remarks came after a local leader of the opposition Samajwadi Party, Maria Alam, addressed a rally in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, calling on Muslims to carry out a “jihad” of “votes”, since “this is the only jihad” they could carry out to remove Modi from power. After Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) attacked her for using the term “jihad” in her speech, she clarified to the press that by “jihad,” the Arabic word for struggle, she meant to encourage participation of Muslim voters.
Modi, in his speech, however, suggested that a call for “vote jihad” would be “dangerous for the country’s democracy”. Critics and opposition leaders, however, argue that the Prime Minister’s words aimed at India’s 200 million Muslims are what worries India, especially in the midst of tense elections, in which 960 million voters turned out register to cast your vote.
‘Infiltrators’, ‘invaders’, ‘looters’
In an election speech last week, Modi equated the Muslim community with “infiltrators” and described them as “those who have more children”, pandering to the popular Hindu majority cliché that Muslims produce more children, with the aim to outnumber the Hindus in India. . In reality, Muslims make up less than 15 percent of the nation’s population, and government data shows that their fertility rate is declining faster than that of Hindus and other major religious groups.
These comments triggered a political controversy, drawing harsh criticism from the opposition and sectors of civil society. Nearly 20,000 citizens have written to the Election Commission of India to take action against Modi’s allegations of hate speech.
Yet, two days later, on April 23, Modi reiterated his comments alleging a plot hatched by Congress – the country’s main opposition party – and Muslims to steal Hindu wealth.
“I have presented to the nation the truth that Congress has hatched a deep conspiracy to snatch your property and distribute it among their favorites,” he said, referring to Muslims.
Then, on April 30, the BJP posted an animated campaign video on Instagram, showing stereotypical portraits of violent and greedy Muslim raiders attacking medieval India and plundering its riches, before Modi arrives to save the nation. The video again propagated the Prime Minister’s claims that the Congress, if elected, will distribute Hindu wealth and properties among Muslims.
While former Congress prime minister Manmohan Singh had said 18 years ago that underprivileged Indian communities, including Muslims, should have first access to national resources, the Congress campaign manifesto makes no reference to the diversion of wealth to a community to give it to any other group. Other conspiracy theories that Modi has referenced publicly in recent days include the notions of “love jihad” – that Muslim men marry women of other faiths to convert them to Islam – and “land jihad” – that Muslims are accumulating land to gain it. control of Indian territory.
None of this surprises Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, a Modi biographer, who says religious polarization has been second nature to Modi for decades. “Indian democracy has been severely brutalized by the BJP and Modi,” he told Oltre La Linea. “This is perhaps the worst time to be a Muslim in India today, continually feeling like a prisoner of one’s identity.”
While Instagram removed the video on April 30 after several users reported it for hate speech, India’s Election Commission has yet to act on the complaints against Modi, sparking criticism from opposition leaders.
“Modi has dishonored the dignity of the office of Prime Minister; his words can never come out of the mouth of an Indian prime minister,” said Congress MP Pramod Tiwari, leader of the opposition in the upper house of India’s parliament.
“Democracy is at stake in these elections and the Indian Election Commission is sleeping on it,” he said, speaking to Oltre La Linea. “Congress party demands disqualification of Modi’s candidature and he should be barred from campaigning.”
Oltre La Linea contacted three BJP spokespersons for a response to the allegations against Modi, but they did not comment.
“Unleash more hatred”
Meanwhile, critics say Modi’s “hateful remarks” have made Muslims more vulnerable to violence. “These remarks are likely to make Hindutva workers feel vindicated with the support of the highest office in the land. They would feel the patronage,” said Irfan Engineer, director of the Mumbai-based Center for the Study of Society and Secularism. Hindutva refers to the Hindu majority ideology of the BJP and its ideological mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
“I hope these remarks do not spark further hatred and violence, but this is hope against hope.”
Engineer has monitored community violence for decades and visited affected areas with fact-finding teams, he said, adding that “these kinds of speeches and demonstrations have sparked violence” in areas otherwise known for interfaith harmony.
Amnesty International also said it was concerned about the consequences of Modi’s remarks.
“The institutions created to monitor such speech during elections should work to hold accountable those responsible for such remarks, however, so far, we have only seen an unfortunate condonation of such incitement and hostility from the Election Commission of India,” Aakar Patel said. , chairman of the board of directors of Amnesty International in India, in a statement to Beyond the Line.
“This widespread impunity signals the extent and intensification of systematic discrimination faced by Muslims in India.”
Where Modi had previously portrayed himself as a victim of opposition attacks – alluding to his childhood of relative poverty as opposed to the privilege many opposition leaders grew up with, for example – “this time, he went beyond himself and it instilled an attitude of victimhood in him. the entire Hindu community,” the Engineer said.
“This is the end point of the Hindu nationalist movement, of which all Hindus are victims – and, therefore, a strong state is needed which contains no room for democratic institutions, freedom of speech or [freedom of] religion.”
‘Posted by individual’
Research suggests that, at least in some parts of India, Muslim support for the BJP, while small, is slowly growing. It rose from less than 5% in 2012 to more than 9% in 2022, in Uttar Pradesh, India’s largest and most politically significant state.
However, Mukhopadhyay, Modi’s biographer, said that even Indian Muslims who supported Modi are vulnerable today. “Modi will come anyway and attack Muslims,” he said.
This proved true for Usman Ghani, a young political leader from the northwestern state of Rajasthan. Ghani joined the student wing of the BJP during college and became the president of the minority wing of his district. A few months ago he welcomed Modi during the state election campaign.
However, when he addressed the poll, he said voters forced him to respond to Prime Minister Modi’s remarks against the community, which he called “nonsense”. He was expelled from the party and then arrested by local police in the BJP-ruled state.
“Modi is a bigger cult than anyone has ever been [in the Hindutva movement],” Mukhopadhyay said. “Is this an election or an individual glorification campaign?”
“The Hindutva movement has been absorbed by the individual. And it’s a great paradox because, for the Sangh [RSS] family, no individual is above the organization”.
A political commentator in New Delhi, who requested anonymity fearing repercussions for his work, said Modi’s focus on anti-Muslim concerns could be a reaction to lower-than-usual voter turnout in the first two phases of the election national. “No one believes Modi’s economic development proposals anymore, so he, obviously, is polarizing voters.”
Yet, despite record unemployment, growing income and wealth inequality and falling democratic indices, polls position Modi as the favorite to return to power for the third time.
“If the 2014 mandate was for so-called development and the 2019 mandate was for nationalism, now, in 2024, Modi will feel more confident that he got pro-polarization votes,” Engineer said. “Anti-Muslim hatred is now at the heart of the BJP’s campaign.”
