June 01, 2019

Time for Modi to take Indian Muslims along

located:	India
editor:	Shadi Khan Saif

Upon securing a second-term for five years, the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has struck the right chord by vowing to address grim concerns of Muslim minority in the country.

In the backdrop of Modi's Hindu-nationalist agenda, India’s estimated 170 million Muslims are rightly feeling threatened. This prevailing distress, unlike what the elected Indian premier described as ‘imaginary fears’ stems from his previous five-year term in office, when according to a credible Human Rights Watch report, attacks under the name of "cow protection" left 44 people killed over suspicion for transporting cows for slaughter, or even just eating beef. That number included 36 Muslims.

According to this watchdog, many of the murders went unpunished, in part due to delayed police investigations and 'rhetoric' from ruling party politicians, which may have incited mob violence. This coupled with the appointment of hardline nationalists to key posts during his first term speaks volume of the mindset in his administration.

One such example was Yogi Adityanath who was made chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, the largest and key election state with almost 40 million Muslims. Adityanath, a hardline Hindu ascetic who is known for anti-Muslim comments, has called for India to become a Hindu state, and has expressed views against inter-faith marriage.

India’s own ‘Muslims for Secular Democracy’ report indicates that the literacy rate among Muslims is far below the national average. Indian Muslims face fairly high levels of poverty, urban Muslims face much higher relative deprivation than Muslims in rural India and face gross under-representation in jobs in the government sector.

Rightly sensing the resentments among the Indian Muslims, Modi referred to the growing division in a recent tweet and vowed to ‘’build a strong and inclusive India’’. In an earlier speech, he said, “Due to vote bank politics, minorities were crushed, boxed into a corner, subjected to imaginary fears, and exploited during the elections”.

Now this may be indeed just a political statement, but for the utter survival of Indian democracy, Modi has to emerge above the petty party politics and take Muslims along with him rather than forcing them in socially and politically isolated ghettos.