Abstract
This article examines the impact of the gradual Hindutvaization of Indian culture and politics on Indian Muslims. The article contrasts the status of Muslims in the still secular, pluralistic, and democratic constitution of India with the rather marginalized reality of Muslims since the rise of Hindu nationalism. The article argues that successive electoral victories by Hindu nationalist party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, has precipitated political events, generated policies, and passed new laws that are eroding the democratic nature of India and undermining its religious freedoms. The article documents recent changes that are expediting the emergence of the Hindu state in India and consequently exposes the world’s largest religious minority to an intolerant form of majoritarian governance.
Highlights
India is the biggest democracy in the world, but it has the largest religious minority in the world
We focus on a narrow element of this multifaceted national conversation—the impact of the recent rise of Hindutva via electoral victories of the BJP in 2014 and 2019 on the constitutional rights of Indian Muslims
Some of the controversial actions taken by the BJP government include supporting cow vigilantism, stripping the semi-autonomous status of Jammu and Kashmir, imposing a lockdown on Jammu and Kashmir, imposing the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), introducing the National Register of Citizen (NRC), adopting anti-conversion laws, and promoting a Hindu temple on the land where the Babri Mosque stood until it was destroyed by Hindu extremists (Hayat et al 2021; Singh 2019)
Summary
India is the biggest democracy in the world, but it has the largest religious minority in the world. If Indian Muslims, who are about 200 million, constituted a country, they would be the eighth most populous nation in the world. In 2014, the Hindu nationalist BJP became a dominant force in Indian politics and formed the government with an absolute majority in the parliament after an unprecedented election victory. The focus of this article is to show how the rise of Hindu nationalism and principally the policies of the BJP government which has been in power in India since 2014 are eroding India’s secular and democratic culture through discrimination of its largest religious minority
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