Last month, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had landed on the world stage with a new sobriquet to define his homeland–the “mother of all democracies.” Quite eloquent but could not be any further off the mark.
Anyone still holding out hope in the ideals of Mahatma Gandhi would be better off talking to over five thousand traumatised by the deadly eviction drive in Assam. It might be hard to decide whether the graphic footage of a police team fiendishly shot a protestor dead at point-blank range was more heart-wrenching or the fact that such vile attacks have become a routine matter in the so-called secular country.
The rampage of Hindu mobs continues to wreak havoc upon shops and houses of Muslims who try every trick in the book to make light of their religious identity. And why wouldn’t they? The ruling party has shamelessly used Muslims as the electoral bogeyman to ride to power. If they are not busy lusting after Hindu women with a nefarious agenda to establish an Islamic emirate (hello, love jihad), they are out to desecrate holy cows. Then again comes along the occasional sprinkling of forceful chants of Hindu war cry, Jai Shri Ram (Victory be to Lord Ram).
Self-appointed protectors of Hinduism feel emboldened under Modi’s administration to issue death threats to whomsoever, whensoever. And then, India has the audacity to point fingers at the potential new haven of Islamic fundamentalism in Kabul. Though no one in their right mind would defend film actor Shahrukh Khan’s son in the viral drug case, depriving him of the basic right to bail does appear out-of-the-way. Indian media may sharpen its claws to peddle the all-is-well narrative but it simply cannot obliterate the fact that the said celebrity is Muslim and this “process as punishment” reeks of a targeted campaign.
Pellet attacks in occupied Kashmir or assaults on Muslim vendors in Uttar Pradesh; online “auction” of Muslim women or restrictive measures imposed on Muslim restaurants: the writing on the wall is clear. The India of 2021 is a state within a state; neither of which seems ready to house Muslims. In a land that thrives on ultra-nationalism, accusing modern-day Muslims of treachery just because some “barbaric invadors” plundered the Hindu empires thousands of years ago, silence reigns supreme. For they very well know that one can only survive as long as shrouded by dark drapes of obscurity. One look at the battered dead body of Moinul Hoque from a remote village in Assam will probably answer all reservations raised by Quaid’s two-nation theory. Or maybe, not! *