India’s Muslims have evolved their own survival strategy since 1989 and the rise of the Hindu nationalist politics under the banner of the B.J.P. Hindu nationalist ideologues have argued that Muslims can’t be loyal to India, as it might be their motherland, but it is not their holy land. Many Indian Muslims, including religious scholars, ferociously opposed the Muslim League’s demand for Pakistan.
Many might not have had any political opinion whatsoever. Some of them might have subscribed to Pakistan but chose India because they didn’t wish to forfeit properties or sever ties with their extended families. Hindu nationalists haven’t forgiven Muslims for the partition of India, but their fury is a little misguided.ĭespite the mass violence and displacement of the partition, around 35 million Muslims stayed in India after the creation of Pakistan, which was carved out of Muslim majority provinces. After an argument over a train seat, their fellow passengers threw religious slurs at them, killed Mr. They were identified as Muslim because of their clothes and skullcaps. Khan was traveling with his older brother and two friends. On a late June afternoon, Junaid Khan, a 15-year-old Muslim boy, was stabbed to death on a train near New Delhi. The markers of Muslim identity - beards, skullcaps and head scarves - invite frowns, even violence, in India. They must sing “Vande Mataram,” the national song, these proponents say, to prove their loyalty to India, and their children must perform yoga in schools to show respect for India’s culture. and like-minded others say, because their ancestors were Hindus who were forcibly converted by medieval Muslim rulers. They should reconvert to Hinduism, the B.J.P. Modi’s party and its affiliates have run aggressive campaigns demanding that, apart from giving up beef, India’s Muslims must not date or marry Hindu girls or women. A conviction can lead to sentences ranging from five years to life imprisonment. Punishment for cow slaughter, which is proscribed in most states of India, has become more severe. Over the last three years, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party government, some of the League’s fears in the 1930s and ’40s have returned to haunt India’s Muslims - who acount for 172 million of India’s 1.3 billion citizens.
The League objected to its singing as it depicted India as Mother Goddess, which the League construed to promote idolatry, anathema to Muslims. In 1937, Congress adopted as the national song of India some verses from “Vande Mataram,” or “I praise you, Mother,” a poem written in the 1870s by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, a Bengali poet and novelist, as an ode to the Hindu goddess Durga. Unlike Muslims, Christians, Jews and animists, a segment of Hindus worship the cow and don’t eat its meat. They argued that the movement to ban the slaughter of cows, led by an assortment of religious leaders, Hindu nationalist groups and some members of the Congress, was aimed at subverting Muslim culture. As evidence, the League pointed to Hindu-Muslim riots in the northern states of Bihar and the United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh), both ruled by the Congress, as an ominous portent. The League began to argue that the Hindu majority of undivided India would swamp Muslims and suppress their religion and culture. Despite its claim of representing Muslims’ aspirations, the Muslim League polled less than 5 percent of their votes, which inspired fantasies and fears. The Congress, the League and a slew of provincial parties participated in the polls. A large measure of administrative powers was to be transferred to the governments thus elected. In 1936-7, the British decided to conduct elections to 11 provincial legislatures. This brought it into conflict with the Indian National Congress of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, who argued that they represented all Indians. The Muslim League, a party established by Muslim landlords and the educated middle class, claimed that it alone had the right to represent Muslims and their interests. NEW DELHI - Seventy years after independence, India’s Muslim population has begun to fear that the dark fantasies of the Muslims led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the Muslim League in the 1930s and 1940s - who fought for the partition of India and the creation of Pakistan as a homeland for the subcontinent’s Muslims - could well be coming true.
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