I used to say “Salam” when answering the phone, but I don't do that anymore because I don't want people to know I'm Muslim.
For starters, apart from my name, there is little to identify me as Muslim. I don't wear a skullcap, I avoid wearing a loose Pathani kurta in public and I avoid speaking in Urdu – all markers of my Indian Muslim identity. But in Narendra Modi's India, I cannot take chances.
For a decade, Modi's Hindu fanatic government has denigrated the country's 200 million Muslims as dangerous and undesirable. Recently, he took his rhetoric to a new low, directly calling Muslims “infiltrators” during India's general election (which is widely expected to see him return to office for a third consecutive five-year term) in what he and his supporters want to turn into a purely Hindu nation.
It was uncomfortable, but sadly, it is all too common for Indian Muslims like me, who after a decade of vilification, violence and murder, live in daily fear of being identified and attacked, forcing us into self-denial to protect ourselves.
India has one of the world's largest Muslim populations. Islam was introduced to the country about 1,300 years ago, and Indian Muslims are the descendants of the original inhabitants of the land who converted to Islam centuries ago. Many Indian Muslims resisted British colonization, and millions rejected India's partition into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan in 1947. India is our home, and I am a proud patriot.
But Mr. Modi’s Hindu nationalism has made us the target of perhaps the greatest radicalization on earth. Its seeds were sown with the 1925 founding of the Swayamsevak Sangh, a right-wing Hindu organization inspired by European fascism of the time and aimed to establish a fully Hindu state in India. When Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (a political offshoot of the Swayamsevak Sangh) won the 2014 elections and Mr. Modi became prime minister, he and his supporters saw it as the civilizational moment Hindus had been waiting for. Mr. Modi was a god and king who would liberate Hindu civilization from the domination of a series of Muslim rulers, culminating in the Mughal Empire, which had ruled India for nearly three centuries, and the British colonialists who followed.
Islamophobia is not new to India – Muslims have faced prejudice and frequent violence for generations when liberal, upper-caste Hindu elites dominated the country's secular democratic politics. But under Modi's right-wing leadership, Muslim hatred has effectively become state policy. India is now a country where police are accused of standing by while Hindus attack Muslims, where killers of religious minorities go unpunished and where Hindu extremists openly call for the genocide of Muslims.
If they protest, they risk being attacked by Hindu mobs, which is exactly what happened after Modi's government pushed through a discriminatory citizenship law in 2019 and the party promised to expel “infiltrators” from the country. When Indian Muslims protested, one of Modi's supporters responded with a provocative speech that allegedly sparked deadly clashes between Hindus and Muslims in Delhi in February 2020. Police are accused of turning a blind eye as Muslims had their shops vandalized, were assaulted and even killed.
Bulldozers have become a symbol of this state terror as they are used to illegally demolish the homes and shops of vocal Muslims in areas ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party. As part of a long-term plan to turn India into an Islamic state, some states have effectively made relations between Muslims and Hindus illegal, based on an absurd Hindu conspiracy theory that Muslim men are seducing Hindu women.
Far from acknowledging their role in fomenting the sentiments Modi has exploited, liberal Hindu elites have done little beyond vainly expressing nostalgia for lost Hindu tolerance. And there is little India's Muslims can do within the political system. While the percentage of Muslims in India's population has gradually risen to 14 percent, their share of parliamentary representation has fallen from 9 percent in the early 1980s to less than 5 percent today.
The response of Indian Muslims to our oppression has been largely a deafening silence. Many of us are simply unwilling to speak out against the Modi government's bitter bargain that requires us to meekly accept historical revisionism, dehumanisation and demonisation in order to live as Indian citizens.
This degradation, and the realization that I am essentially outside the protection of the law, kills something in me. I take precautions to protect myself. My mother no longer packs me mutton to take back to Delhi after visits, as she used to, for fear of being mistaken for beef. Dozens of Muslims have reportedly been killed or assaulted by Hindu mobs for suspected killing cows sacred to Hindus, or for suspected of eating or possessing beef. Muslim parents now routinely repeat to their children a series of don'ts: don't look Muslim in public, don't reveal your name, don't enter Hindu areas or travel alone, and don't get involved in potential conflicts.
Though we are careful to blend in, it is hard to come to terms with the whole. There is something embedded in each of our sense of self and expression that is especially painful to erase. And the physical features we try to hide are not unique to Muslims in India. My cousin likes to wear the pathani kurta, as do many Hindus. My youngest sister likes to cover her head, as do many Hindu women, though she does not wear the hijab. I have an attachment to using a certain Urdu word that is characteristic of India's mixed culture and has been widely used by Hindus as well.
Self-denial leads to deep frustration. Now, we avoid talking about politics even when we get together with friends and family. Discussing the elephant in the room only serves to remind us of our powerlessness. All this adds up to a mental health crisis of fear and depression among Muslims. But with a dire shortage of mental health professionals in India and many non-Muslim therapists poorly understanding our new reality, many Muslims are left to fend for themselves.
I hesitated to write this essay. I feel that I should not protest or speak out. When I do sometimes and post about it online, the typical response is “Go Pakistan.” But why should I leave? I am Indian. I was born here. My ancestors also opposed the religious basis of partition with Pakistan and believed in the ideals of a secular democracy for India.
However, due to the worsening political situation, many Muslims have fled over the years, migrating to Australia, Canada, the UK, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, and elsewhere. Many who cannot afford to relocate are moving from Hindu-majority or mixed areas where they have lived for decades to poorer Muslim neighborhoods in search of safety. I and two of my Muslim friends owned an apartment in a suburb near New Delhi that was once home to a large upper-caste Hindu population. But after the discriminatory citizenship law was passed in 2020, Hindu mobs stormed the neighborhood lusting for Muslim blood. My two friends moved out immediately. I stayed in my apartment, but one night in 2022, in the elevator, I overheard two men discussing how many katuas (a derogatory term for Muslims, referring to circumcision) lived in the area. The next day, I moved out. Sadly, my Hindu friends and colleagues have also become cold, estranged, and out of touch.
The Indian election season comes to an end on June 1st, a day that promises to be terrifying for Muslims like me, as it is widely expected to be yet another victory for Modi and further legitimization of mob rule and the denigration of 200 million Muslims by an arrogant Hindu majority.
Muhammad Ali (@hindureporter) is an independent journalist and writer who splits his time between New York and India. He is writing a book about his experiences growing up in India at a time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his party are trying to transform the country into a Hindu nation.
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