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 issue – how opposition parties are collaborating with Muslims to plan a takeover of the nation.
“[The opposition alliance] is asking Muslims to “vote for jihad.” This is new because until now we have heard about ‘love jihad’ and ‘land jihad’,” Modi said, referring to a number of Islamophobic conspiracy theories, before emphasizing to his audience why they needed to be afraid. “I hope you all know what the meaning of jihad is and against whom it is waged,”
As India’s mammoth national elections approach the halfway point, with the third of seven phases of voting scheduled for May 7, Modi’s anti-Muslim rhetoric becomes more strident. This worries analysts and even Muslims who supported the prime minister until recently, but now fear that the rhetoric risks providing oxygen for increased physical violence against Indian Muslims.
His latest statements came after a local leader of the opposition Congress party, Maria Alam, addressed a gathering in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, calling on Muslims to carry out a “jihad” of “votes”. , since “that is the only jihad” they could carry out to remove Modi from power. After Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) attacked her for the use of “jihad” in her speech, she clarified to the press that by “jihad”, the Arabic word for struggle, she was encouraging the participation of Muslim voters.
Modi, in his speech, however, suggested that a call for a “vote for jihad” was “dangerous for the country’s democracy”. Critics and opposition leaders, however, claim that the prime minister’s words, directed against India’s 200 million Muslims, are what worries India, especially in the midst of a tense election in which 960 million voters registered to vote.
‘Infiltrators’, ‘invaders’, ‘looters’
In a campaign speech last week, Modi equated the Muslim community with “infiltrators” and described them as “those who have more children”, pandering to a popular Hindu majority trope that Muslims produce more children, with the aim of eventually overtaking Hindus in India. . In reality, Muslims make up less than 15 percent of the national 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 dispute, 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 allegations of hate speech by Modi.
However, two days later, on April 23, Modi doubled down on his comments alleging a conspiracy hatched by the Congress and Muslims to steal Hindu wealth.
“I have presented to the nation the truth that Congress has devised a deep conspiracy to steal your property and distribute it among your special favorites,” he said, referring to Muslims.
Then, on April 30, the BJP published an animated campaign video on Instagram, showing stereotypical portrayals of violent and greedy Muslim invaders attacking medieval India and plundering its wealth, before Modi arrived to rescue the nation. The video rehashed the prime minister’s claims that the Congress, if elected, will distribute Hindu wealth and properties among Muslims.
Although former Congress Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said 18 years ago that disadvantaged Indian communities, including Muslims, should have first access to national resources, the Congress campaign manifesto makes no reference to withdrawing wealth of a community to give it to any other group. Other conspiracy theories that Modi has publicly referenced in recent days include the notions of “love jihad” – that Muslim men are marrying women of other religions in order to convert them to Islam – and “land jihad”. – that Muslims are accumulating land to gain control of India’s terrain.
None of this surprised Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, Modi’s biographer, who said religious polarization has been second nature to Modi for decades. “Indian democracy has been severely brutalized by the BJP and Modi,” he told Al Jazeera. “This is perhaps the worst time to be a Muslim in India today, who all the time feels like a prisoner of their identity.”
Although Instagram removed the April 30 video after several users reported it for hate speech, India’s election commission has yet to take any action on the complaints against Modi, prompting criticism from opposition leaders.
“Modi dishonored the dignity of the post of PM; his words can never be words that come out of the mouth of an Indian prime minister,” said Congress lawmaker Pramod Tiwari, leader of the opposition in the upper house of the Indian parliament.
“Democracy is at stake in these elections and India’s electoral commission is sleeping on it,” he said, speaking to Al Jazeera. “The Congress Party calls for the disqualification of Modi’s candidacy and he should be barred from campaigning.”
Al Jazeera reached out to three BJP spokespersons for a response to the allegations against Modi, but they did not comment.
‘Unleash more hate’
However, critics say Modi’s “hateful comments” have left Muslims more vulnerable to violence. “These remarks are likely to make Hindutva workers feel vindicated due to their support from 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 don’t trigger more hate and violence – but that’s hope against hope.”
Engineer has been monitoring communal violence for decades and has visited affected areas with fact-finding teams, he said, adding that “these types of speeches and rallies have provoked violence” in areas also known for interfaith harmony.
Amnesty International also said it was concerned about the consequences of Modi’s remarks.
“The institutions set up to monitor such speech during elections should work to hold those responsible for such comments accountable, however, so far we have only seen an unfortunate tolerance of such incitement and hostility by the Election Commission of India,” said Aakar Patel, chairman of Amnesty International India, said in a statement to Al Jazeera.
“This widespread impunity signals the extent and intensification of systematic discrimination suffered by Muslims in India.”
While Modi has previously portrayed himself as a victim of opposition attacks – alluding to his childhood in relative poverty, as opposed to the privilege many opposition leaders grew up with, for example – “in this time, he has turned away from himself and instilled victimhood in the entire Hindu community,” said Engineer.
“This is the end point of the Hindu nationalist movement, where all Hindus are victims – and therefore a strong state is needed, with no place for democratic institutions, freedom of expression or [freedom of] religion.”
‘Subsumed by the individual’
Research suggests that, at least in some parts of India, Muslim support for the BJP, although small, is slowly growing. This rose from less than 5 percent in 2012 to more than 9 percent 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 still come and attack Muslims,” he said.
This has come 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 president of his district’s minority wing. A few months ago, he welcomed Modi during the state election campaign.
However, when he addressed the polls, he said that voters forced him to respond to PM Modi’s remarks against the community, which he called “absurd”. He was expelled from the party and later detained by local police in the BJP-ruled state.
“Modi is a bigger cult than anyone has ever been [in the Hindutva movement],” said Mukhopadhyay. “Is this an election or an effort at individual glorification?”
“The Hindutva movement has been included in the individual. And it is a great paradox because for the Sangh [RSS] family, no individual is above the organization.”
A New Delhi-based political commentator, who requested anonymity for fear of repercussions for his work, said Modi’s focus on anti-Muslim fears could be a reaction to lower-than-usual voter turnout in the first two phases of national elections. “Nobody believes in Modi’s economic development proposal anymore, so he is, of course, polarizing voters.”
However, despite record unemployment, the increase in income and wealth inequality and the setback in democratic indexes, 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 has won votes for polarization,” Engineer said. “Anti-Muslim hatred is now central to the BJP campaign.”
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
