Hindutva Through the Prism of Hinduism: A Religious Cataclysm
Abstract
The modern world is a battlefield of religious, ethnic & sectarian groups. The increasing religious intolerance among different communities is the main reason for modern conflicts. Within this frame of reference, the evolution of relations between Hindus and Muslims have always been antagonist & indicative. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is a Hindutva party based on the dogma of the philosophy of Hinduism. Modi’s national and international policies are more prone to populism rather than pluralism. The ultra-nationalist Modi’s one-sided approach is the wrong way forward. Modi’s policies are directed towards nationalist militancy with the clear support of the Hindu nationalist movement. The kind of nationalism Hindu fanatics are promoting is ethno-nationalism which is aggressive, offensive and violent in nature and at its darkest hour, this ethno-nationalism can lead to full-scale interstate war, then regional war and even a global war. The existence of ethno-national radicalism poses a certain kind of danger to Hinduism itself and enforced violence causes hostile relationship among Hindus themselves and other religions. Extreme Hinduism can trigger conflicts in other countries and jeopardize regional and global peace that can create a new cycle of violence with devastating humanitarian consequences.
Keywords: Hindutva, Hinduism, Hindu, BJP, Muslims, India, Ethnonationalism, War, Regional & Global Peace.
Introduction
The Muslims arrived in the subcontinent in the 8th century and the Muslim rule in India began in the 11th century which came to an end in the 18th century. However, this epoch is better known than any other era that came before in the history of India which resulted in the emergence of one of the world’s ancient civilizations called the Indo-Islamic Civilization. Apart from Arab, Afghan, Turk and Mongol conquerors, this region also witnessed the Ghaznavid dynasty, Ghurid dynasty & Timurid dynasty which had a deep impression on the languages, beliefs and arts of India and this impact is still visible in India. During the time period of 1838-1858, the British had tightened their control and imposed their influence on the subcontinent. In 1858, the Islamic State of Mughal fell and turned the last page of the great Islamic rule in India, which has been lofty for more than eight centuries and thus this is where the history of Islamic India ends.
The roots of the problems in India go back to the time when Britain officially annexed India to the property of the British crown, which endeavored not only to remove Islamic rule but to deepen the rifts between the two largest religious groups in the continent. After the second world war, the British colonialism withdrew from the subcontinent and at that time it was no longer possible for Hindus & Muslims to continue to live with the ignition of sectarian conflicts except the option of partition, so the Muslims sided with Pakistan and the Hindus sided with the rest of India, on the other hand, this partition resulted in a huge massacre in which thousands of Muslims were killed when they left from India to Pakistan. But the most unfortunate thing happened with those Muslims who decided not to leave India for some reason. These were those poor people who couldn’t afford the cost of migration and then those poor Muslim classes in India remained under the Hindu rule and then the colonial political frustrations & fluctuations worked to support India against Pakistan until civil wars broke out in which Bangladesh separated from Pakistan, India deployed heavy-armed force in Jammu & Kashmir and despite the United Nations resolution of the right of self-determination for the Kashmiris, India put occupied Kashmir behind the iron Curtin and imposed its own sectarian, fascist and racist policies. And here the bright side ends and the dark & painful reality begins.
After independence, Hindus took the leading positions in politics and in the economy as heirs to the British administration. It was they who seized the initiative in the liberation movement and consequently, found themselves in key positions in the state. Therefore, the confrontation between the Indians and Muslims was initially laid in the approach to the idea of a national state, which subsequently deepened.
The result of the BJP's clear anti-Muslim orientation & religious-communal policies over the past three decades has been in several major clashes between Hindus and Muslims in the name of Hindutva. The most tragic among them was the demolition of a mosque in the state of Uttar Pradesh, as well as the massacre of Muslims in the state of Gujarat in 2002. In these circumstances, there was a sharp ideological struggle started among Hindus. One school of thought believed that Hinduism should be served as the basis of political agenda and use the terms Hindutva and Hindu Rashtra (Hindu state) and claime that non-Hindus cannot be real Indians. Others believed that religion should not be drawn into politics and the state must recognize and protect the rights of all citizens plus minorities on an equal footing.
According to 15th Indian Census data (India conducts census data every 10 years & the updated data will be available in 2021), the proportion of Muslims in the Indian population is higher than the Hindu population. The increase in absolute numbers of Hindus are 138.7 million from 2001 to 2011, Muslims are the largest minority with the number of 34.1 million, Christianity 3.7 million, Sikhism 1.6 million, Buddhism 0.5 million and Jainism 0.2 million. The number of the Muslim population in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, Assam, West Bengal, Maharashtra (Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad), Gujarat, Malabar coast (Kerala), Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Uttarakhand is noticeably higher than the Hindu population. The share of Muslims in the population of India increased from 13.4% to 14.2%. It is important to underline that the proportion of the Hindu population to the Indian total population in 2011 has declined and only the Muslim population growth rate has been increased. The fall in the proportion of Hindus below the mark of 80% is one of the main factors of state-sponsored communal hate/turbulence in India. The data also revealed that the pro-Hindu BJP came to power in 2014 and the secular political party the Indian National Congress suffered one of the most crushing defeats in its history after it had been in power for ten years. It can be assumed that the increasing growth rate of the Muslim population is the greatest fear of Hindu nationalists and leaving Hindus in second place, Muslims can influence not only the geopolitical but geo-economic situation of the so-called secular state of India.
ETYMOLOGY OF HINDUTVA
The term “Hindutva” comes from the combination of the two terms “Hindu” and “Tattva”, which means “Hindu principles”. The Hindutvas reflects the idea of creating a single Hindu nation on the basis of universal Hinduism. Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, the founder of the Hindutva ideology, initially conceptualized this ideology as a social and religious movement but Hindu nationalism soon transformed into a political force opposing the other political parties. However, the result was the institutionalization of Hindu nationalism into the nationalist organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the first Hindutva organization Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) founded in 1925 and it strengthened its influence in the country in the late 1980s. The transformation of ideological disciplines to the political instruments for gaining access to power and seeking the support of other minorities and ethnic groups during elections has always been the legacy of Hindu nationalists.
In essence, Hindutva is a racial theory about the superiority of the Hindu nation over all others. In the past few years, as the number and intensity of communal & religious conflicts increased the minorities feel trapped and unsafe in India, the so-called practice of secularism has intensified the religious contradictions in the country.
THE SYMBIOTIC RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FASCISM, NAZISM, HINDUISM
Italian Fascism, German Nazism and Indian Hinduism are totalitarian & settler-colonialist movements introduced by the three dictators Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler and Narendra Modi. In all of these three cases, they achieved political power and reorganized society at their own will, militarized citizens and undermined the rights of minorities. During fascist & Nazis rhetoric and now in India, the minorities are defined as inferior races destined for extermination or slavery, to give the strongest peoples sufficient living space to grow and flourish. These ideologies are a kind of social distortion that led dictators to conquer the nations and to build concentration & extermination camps.
Fascism & Nazism were racist, bigoted and superior ideologies. Its nationalists used to discredit their political opponents and portray them as puppets to ensure their rise to power. In Germany, Nazis spread the idea of the superiority of the Aryan race to rule over all others. In 1935, at the Nuremberg Party Conference, two Nuremberg Laws were enacted Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor & the Reich Citizenship Law. These two laws were intended to separate the Aryan race from the Jewish race. The Protection of German Blood prohibited Jewish-Aryan marriages. The second law, the Reich Citizenship Law, stated that a Jew cannot be a German citizen, they were deprived of the right to vote in all political affairs and the possibility of holding public office. Soon after the Nazis seized power, the Jewish population began to escape and migrate. But some people still expressed a German-patriotic opinion and did not lose hope that their situation would soon improve. India has adopted the same policies with anti-Muslim propaganda being launched by Hindu nationalists that led to the Indian Citizenship Amendment Act, which was passed by the Indian Parliament in December 2019. This facilitates the naturalization of immigrants from three neighboring countries but excludes Muslims. Nationality is thus for the first time granted on religious grounds, which seems unconstitutional in this secular country. This reform gave birth to a wave of revolt in India. The Hindu nationalist party of the BJP has already stated that it will never withdraw this citizenship law. In Germany, economic restrictions had been set in 1933 and measures had been taken to allow the confiscation of Jewish property. As a result of the consistent anti-Jewish politics, property, companies, shops, homes and properties were passed to Aryan, ie non-Jewish owners. The same happened in India on 28th April 2020, Uttar Pradesh legislator Suresh Tiwari from BJP publically urged to boycott Muslim vendors, shopkeepers, hawkers and small businessmen. Hindu fanatics in different states of India distributed saffron flags to vegetable/fruits sellers to identify them as Hindu vendors.
The genetic connection between Hindutva, Fascism and Nazism is one of the most discussed in modern India. Three of them are the negative anti-human expansionist ideologies while the Hindutva has more political characteristics rather than scientific relevance, as a result, the concept of Hindutva has become more than ambiguous nowadays. The "Military Hinduism" has become a solid and necessary element of the ideology and philosophy of nationalism of the RSS. The Military Hinduism is the component that Hindu nationalism has borrowed from the ideology of fascism.
The politicization of Hindutva is depended upon the socio-economic conditions of the country's development. The absence of the middle class and the existing huge gap between the rich and the poor has made it easier for politicians to manipulate the attitudes of the uneducated masses. It is easiest to find the support of fearful, frustrated and insecure minority groups for people using chauvinistic, fascist and nationalist policies. The difficult conditions of distrust between Hindus and Muslims did not contribute to the political and socio-economic integration of most Muslims in Indian society.
HINDUTVA: A GLOBAL THREAT
Hindutva challenges the secular status of India primarily because of the covert and explicit promotion of intolerance, aggression, violence, conflict and communal hostility within society. Hindu nationalism is the cause of riots and conflict between Hindus and other minorities, due to the promotion of polarization along sectarian lines. The purpose of extreme nationalism, in terms of Hindutva, is the respect of one leading nation, race, religion and the suppression of other races, nations, religious views and importantly the adoption of their dogma. Soon after 2014, the Indian government moved its Hindu national agenda to a new level with a set of Hindutva based policies, which threatens not only democratic future of the country but also jeopardizes regional and international peace.
The Hindutva also changes the dynamics of international relations of India with other states. India adopted and maintained its policy of non-alignment during and after the cold war era, however, during Obama’s presidency, India developed its ties with the USA and became a close ally of the USA in 2009 and further India strengthened its political and economic relations with Russia, China, UAE, Bhutan, Bangladesh, France, Israel & other states. Countries like France, Russia, United Kingdom and the United States supported India for a permanent seat in the Security Council. Therefore, one important thing that is keenly observed by global actors is the status of Indian minorities, these countries remained reluctant to criticize the harsh & violent policies of Modi after the local unrest in India exposed that to what extent the Hindu nationalists can go. According to the United Nations report, India has the largest diaspora in the world with a number of 17.5 million. The Indian diaspora is a significant tool of India for lobbying and promoting the Hindutva (Hindu far-right nationalism) in Western countries.
The influence of Hindutva is beyond the borders of India. The far-right Hindu fanatics believe that to make India a Hindu State needs to include Nepal, Bhutan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh in Indian map and time to time these fanatics have issued the revised map of India. The repercussion of Hindutva can be seen at the regional level in terms of India-Pakistan conflict over Jammu & Kashmir and India- China conflict over Ladakh. The recent aggressive policies of the Indian government based on Hindutva have set the tone for India in the global arena. The ultra-nationalist Modi’s dream to transform India into a Hindu state will only happen when the Hindus would be able to dominate not only India but also the entire world. The state-sponsored sectarian violence in the world’s largest so-called secular democracy is relentless & protracted. The international powers are worried about India’s domestic unrest caused by extreme Hindu-ethno-nationalism that is creating pointless tensions at the regional level that can lead to international level as well.
NEO-HINDUTVA: THE RADICALIZATION OF MUSLIMS IN INDIA
History bears witness that the religious factor always plays the role of justification in a conflict like situation and provides the content to nationalist doctrines & movements. The use of strong religious-ethnic symbols by Hindu nationalist political elites in the struggle for votes and to pursue a chauvinistic policy against the other minorities weakened the secular nature of the state and supported extremist organizations which lead to an escalation of mutual distrust between government representatives and people of various groups. However, this distrust of the state and its institutions result in violence.
The conflict smoldered for many years in the city of Ayodhya (Uttar Pradesh state) around the Babri mosque, which, according to the extremists of the Hindu chauvinist organizations were built in the 16th century on the site of an ancient Hindu temple which is the birthplace of their Bhagwan Ram. According to the leaders of chauvinist organizations, the idea of building a Hindu temple on the site of Babri mosque would unite all the Hindus (against Muslims). By the mid-1980s, all Hindu religious sects were united under the common symbol of Bhagwan Ram (Lord Ramachandra). The construction of the temple at the birthplace of Rama in Ayodhya was declared a holy deed for the Indians. Thus, the destructive movement of Hindu chauvinism by that time gained such momentum that on December 6, 1992 the Babri mosque was demolished. As a result, bloody Hindu-Muslim clashes began in which about 1,500 people died and another 5 thousand were injured. The greatest shock of violence in 2002 was that the government did not suppress it quickly and firmly. At the peak of the unrest, the government chose not to suppress them but on the contrary, added fuel to the fire. Police later admitted that they had received orders not to intervene. Immediately after the pogrom, the BJP called for early elections in the hope that violence would benefit them. Narendra Modi, CM Gujrat at that time took advantage of the situation and in his speeches called his critics enemies of the state. He portrayed himself as a throttlehold of Gujarat against Muslim violence and terror. In his electoral campaign, Modi, while keeping aside the norms of democratic discourse, accused Muslims of initiating all conflicts between Muslims and Hindus since the time of the British colonial era and that’s how Modi won the landslide victory.
The aggressive actions of Hindu nationalists of modern India have been provoking minorities of the state and consequently the interfaith strife has been gaining strength, like a snowball. Oil has been added to the fire family with more attacks unless the men shaved their beards and stopped wearing the Islamic cap just because his 19 years old son liked a Facebook post. This incident is one of eight recorded in Haryana State alone since early April. Another incident happened where a young Muslim was beaten with sticks and was bleeding and pleading while one of the attackers asks him "Who sent you to spread the Coronavirus?" Banners with the heading "No Muslims are allowed" displayed in some villages. Moreover, hospitals have announced that it would admit only COVID19 negative Muslim patients.
Under the rule of Hindu nationalists led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi of the country, the Muslim minority of about 200 million people has started to feel a steadily increasing hatred towards them. Islamophobia is reinforced in light of the spread of the Corona pandemic and it was fueled by a stream of false news. The forged & dubious posts by radical Hindus are floating on social media to target Muslims. One of the fake posts shows that people are offering prayer on a rooftop and violating lockdown and social distancing rules. Later, transpired that photo was from Dubai and used intentionally to target Muslims in India. Another video went viral on social media in India which created fuss among people that video shows a virus-infected Muslim was deliberately spitting & sneezing on non-muslims to transfer the virus. The video caused ire of anti-Muslim hatred in the country, however, in reality that video was recorded in Thailand.
This is a completely misguided claim that Muslims are the reason behind the spread of COVID-19 in India. The Hindu nationalists have thrown the COVID-19 on the backs of the Muslims. The Hindu nationalists including different ministers from the ruling party have inflamed hatred against the Indian Muslim minority and claim that Muslims intended to harm India. The truth is that the Indian government was looking for a continent scapegoat to shoulder the blame of the government’s ill, ruinous and failed policies to tackle this pandemic. It is ironic that the virus ignored all the huge Hindu religious gatherings and targeted only Muslim Ijtemah (Muslim religious gathering). There were already hundreds of virus-infected cases registered by authorities in the first week of March which was exposed before the Muslims Ijtemah. Despite the international warnings of the possible outbreak of the virus, the Indian government declared it on 13 March 2020 that there is no health emergency in India. In mid-March 2020, not only Muslim’s religious activities were held but also Hindu’s religious festivals were organized, on 17th-18th March and at least 40000 Hindus participated in the religious festivals held at the Hindu temple in Southern India.
Now the question arises, what’s the big deal if a Muslim took part in any Ijtemah, or participated in any religious gathering, it would be inhuman to chase them as if they’re a part of any criminal conspiracy, just identify the participants and quarantine them without criminalizing them. It looks as if a virus is a tangible object and there is hunting going on to catch it, as soon as they catch it, they will probably transfer it to one of their torture rooms and make it disappear there, as they do with Muslims. The COVID-19 doesn’t care about any caste, religion or nationality, the only solution can be achieved through human solidarity and social cohesion.
XENOPHOBIC VIOLENCE ON MUSLIMS
The Trinity of poverty, ignorance and disease can be found in the Muslim community of India. The economically undeveloped populace is an easy target for irrational political nationalists and extremists. India, the so-called secular state, lacks the simplest forms of infrastructure, educational opportunities, basic services, clean water, healthcare, employment and human rights of minorities. Today, Muslims are facing systematic harassment in establishing and running a business, getting a job, entering an educational institution, as well as in health care is scarce in India. Muslims are only 4-5% among the graduates of the high schools and only 2-3% hold the public offices. According to the report of the committee on the Social, Economic and Educational Status of Muslims of India, published in 2006, most Indian Muslims have few social opportunities due to a lack of access to education, healthcare and employment, they are even more destitute than the Dalits.
The total population of India is 1369.56 million and with 172 million population Muslims are the largest minority, accounts of 14.2% of India’s total population. The proportion of Muslims among government employees does not exceed 5% and in the railway company their percentage does not exceed 4.5%. The percentage of Muslims in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is 1.8% and 4% in the security apparatus. They are hardly present in the Ministry of Defense, poverty and illiteracy are widespread among Muslims in India, half of the Muslim women do not read or write and a quarter of Muslim children have either never entered school or left school. As for the problem of poverty, 35% of Muslims are below the poverty line. Despite the large size of the Muslim minority in India, the percentage of their representation in state institutions does not exceed 1% of government jobs and in the judiciary, Muslims represent only 2.7% of the number of judges and the strange irony that carries many negative connotations is that in the Indian army, there are 1.3 million soldiers including only 29 thousand Muslims.
Today, Muslims in India are facing a set of serious challenges and the most prominent of them is to protect their Muslim identity in a predominantly Hindu society. Their problems and fears are compounded by the fact that the Hindu nationalists are trying to perpetuate the racial persecution in the society which leads to communal and sectarian violence in the country. Some of the most violent clashes occurred in the state of Ahmedabad (1969), Assam (1984), Gujrat (2002), Muzaffarnagar (2013), Haryana (2017) that resulted in massacres of thousands of Muslims, the demolition of Babri Mosque in the city of Ayodhya in December 1992, where clashes took place between Muslims and Hindus fanatics.
STRINGENT & STINGY LOCKDOWN IN KASHMIR
India wants people of J&K to be resistant but also wants to make sure that the political opposition has no effect. They want an oppressed populace in J&K but also wants them to explode time-to-time in an un-strategic manner so that they can be presented to the world as rebellions & insurgents. If you are a trader, or a vendor, or a driver, or a hawker, or a farmer in Indian occupied Jammu & Kashmir, the daily work process for your livelihood would result in never-ending humiliations. Almost every Kashmiri mother and father have to worry about whether their 12-year-old will be able to return home safely from school and if he is already chained and blindfolded in a concrete Ibid cell then they have to beg to release them from police custody. And in case you protest against Indian suppression & atrocities, they might just hold you in the police custody as well. This happens on a daily basis and if you are a Kashmiri then you realize that you're going to live like this forever. There is no political process. The torture will never end except in the case of any superhuman involvement, you have to face this terror and absurdity for the rest of your life. Yes it is Kashmir.
On the one hand, where the Coronavirus is still draining the world to contain it and also increasing severe economic repercussions, on the other hand, India is working to tighten its grip on Kashmir and take advantage of epidemiological measures to prevent the escalation of resistance against Modi’s fascist regime, by igniting the war with guerrillas, imprisoning people for going to buy food and medicine, putting charges against journalists, beating doctors/paramedics and municipal workers. The capital’s streets are surrounded by coils of barbed wire a painful reminder of the Kashmir’s loss of freedom and dignity. The armed forces deployed amid lockdown in the streets inspire residents with a strange caged feeling.
IOJK had so far its constitution, however, Modi’s authoritarian regime revoked its special status by introducing the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization Act, 2019 on 5th Aug 2019. Now the status of Jammu and Kashmir is no longer a State of the Union but that the two Union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. These territories of the Union will not be as democratic & governed from New Delhi. The police forces, law & order of a Union territory is now under the control of the central government through a lieutenant-governor. They both are not accountable to the democratically elected government. Before this bifurcation it was not possible for non-Kashmiris to buy a land/property in Kashmir and only the Kashmiris had access to land and access to senior civil service positions in Jammu and Kashmir. This is the great fear of the Kashmiris for being dispossessed from their own land or would become second-class citizens in their state and to see non-Kashmiris to invest and acquire land in Jammu & Kashmir.
CONCLUSION
Hindutva is a racial & chauvinistic ideology, based on a modern version of centralized Hinduism that is on a par with fascism and Nazism. The history of Hindutva in India has shown that the politicization of religion carries a powerful destructive force and for a great many years this fact has continued to remind of itself again and again in India. Muslim’s historical, political, cultural contribution is undeniable but the right-wing government has changed the text of school textbooks, presented India as a Hindu Rashtra, the contributions of other communities are diminished and minorities (mainly Muslims and Christians) are portrayed as historical enemies of Hindus. The Hindu nationalist power dares to use violent political tactics i.e. targeted assassinations, detention without reason, inter-religious riots in various states of India. The epicenter of a crisis of the Hindu-Muslim relations is the Kashmir dispute. The COVID-19 pandemic now and Indian occupation from long has throttled the lives of people of J&K. The Indian Premier Narendra Modi has deliberately dramatized the situation and traumatized the from time-to-time by the Hindu fanatics. One of its example is, Babubhai Patel who was a leader of a militant organization Bajrang-Dal in Gujrat & a mastermind behind the Naroda Patiya massacre. He killed & burnt at-least 97 Muslims in Gujrat. Later he publically justified his act and said: “Muslims do not have the right to live in our country. How dare they marry our girls?” Soon after Naroda Patiya massacre, under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, 2002 (POTA), Indian police arrested at least 240 people and sadly all detainees were Muslim.
Uttar Pradesh is the most populous state of India with more than 200 million inhabitants, bigger than Brazil. In the 2014 general elections, the BJP won almost all of the seats in that state and appointed a controversial personality as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, an extremist monk-soldier, Yogi Adityanath. In 2014 he publically urged Hindus to marry Muslim girls and forcibly convert them to Hinduism. In 2016, he openly exhorted Muslims to leave India. He has been involved in targeting minorities (Muslims, Christians), hate speeches, mob-violence, attacked inter-religious marriage couples and consumers of beef. Despite the acts of violence attributed to him and fifteen criminal cases the previous government of Uttar Pradesh launched against him, Yogi Adityanath was chosen in 2017 to lead the Uttar Pradesh.
The main organization that stands for the identity of the Hindu religion and the Indian nation is the Sangh Parivar (Family of the RSS). It includes the parent cultural organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the religious organization Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the political party Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The religious and political philosophy of Hindutva was to lead to cultural uniformity, economic growth and military power. To achieve its cultural goals, the Sangh Parivar started taking control of the education system, the distribution of information in society and eradicating the independence of non-governmental organizations. Almost 30,000 schools are operated by the educational branch of the RSS. The RSS has added their books, where propaganda is inserted. The 4th & 5th standards students are being taught that Islam has spread with a sword in one hand and the Quran in the other. Rivers of blood flow everywhere Islam arrives. These children are growing up learning that Muslims are monsters and that killing a Muslim is a nationalist act. The Hindu nationalists have been trying to instill hatred in the minds of the younger generation. The RSS edition textbook for the students of the 10th standard praises Nazism, reflecting the interest of Hindu nationalists in European theories on the purity of the race. On 16th December 2019, in the southwest of India, the Hindu school of Sri Ram Vidya Kendra celebrated its annual day attended by Indian federal minister. Students re-enacted the incident of demolition of the Babri Mosque, carried out in 1992 by the Hindus fanatics. However, Prabhakar Bhatt Kalladka, the founder of the school and regional leader of the Hindu organization of the RSS, says “we have only shown a historical fact, it was not Babri Masjid but it was a “Babri Structure”.
ISLAMOPHOBIC CONSPIRACISM
It is globally believed that Modi’s authoritarian regime is taking advantage of novel pandemic and diverting world’s attention from a systematic propaganda campaign to the newly introduced Islamophobia in India. After his re-election in the spring of 2019, Modi started his second term with the controversial abolition of constitutional autonomy of the Jammu & Kashmir and the revocation of citizenship law, which reflects his hatred against Muslims. In the wake of COVID19, Islamophobia gave a new dimension to Hindus hostility towards Indian minorities and strengthened anti-Islam rhetoric in the country. The flimsy and hate campaign intended to describe Muslims as human bombs, to call them by provoking tags i.e. Biological Jihad, CoronaJihad, and to make them a group of untouchables is a deliberate attempt of Indian media to fuel anti-Muslim sentiments in the country. Some doctors refused to treat virus-infected Muslims, Hindu extremists attacked mosques and religious places, dozens of migrant workers in Assam have been attacked by the Hindu fanatics, villagers in Karnataka beat Muslims as "Corona Virus Spreader". Since the beginning of April 2020, the police have been investigating senior clerics of the Muslim community in Delhi for the negligence of the spread of a life-threatening disease.
On 4th April 2020, Dilshad Muhammad, 34 years old dairy farmer resident of Bangadh village Himachal, returned from the hospital to his home, with the good news of testing COVID-19 negative. However, hours later, he committed suicide because his neighbors taunted & socially boycotted him and believed that he was the reason for spreading the virus in the area. In another incident, some Hindu extremists attacked Ghayoor Hassan’s house with stones & threatened his Muslims. The application of Hindu supremacist theory is illustrated by the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, adopted on December 11 by the Indian parliament. The ultra-nationalist Narendra Modi ends the certain idea of secular India by revoking the special status of Jammu and Kashmir on 5th Aug 2019.
Modi throughout his political career relies on Hindutva, the ideology of Hindu nationalism, proclaiming a return to the golden age of Hinduism. Little by little, the Hindu nationalists are reshaping India to their image through the centralized and chauvinistic Hinduism. Hindutva aimed to undermine democracy and free-thinking in the name of exalting nationalism and the use of this term has become a powerful weapon.
The politicization of religion, the increasing influence of the ideology of Hindutva aimed at lowering the status of religious minorities, political mobilization of the population based on caste and religious identities, is dangerous for a country that calls itself the largest democracy in the world. The significant shift that occurred in the religious structure of the Indian population created fear among Hindu nationalists about the decrease in the proportion of the Hindu population of India. Nevertheless, Hindutva not only continued to influence the lives of the people especially minorities but gradually managed to increase its influence on the state as a whole.
In India, the political culture and criminal culture has been developed in opposite directions. On the one hand, political culture has contributed to the emergence of new civil orders, a viable economy based on traditional industries such as food, textile, chemical, pharmaceutical industries. Criminal culture, on the other hand, undermined public confidence in the police and government officials, whether they are elected officials or civil servants. Indian authorities imposed a ban on alcohol, illegal construction and introduced new reforms and on the flip side, they planned & executed pogroms of Muslims, even police participated in every riots or clash. Indian nationalist’s hypocrisy successfully flourished in Modi’s authoritarian regime.
Now, the unstable condition and unsafe situation of Muslims in Kashmir & India are forcing some Muslim states to reduce relations with New Delhi. As the saying goes, as you sow so shall you reap, what Hindu nationalists planted began to bear bitter fruit.
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