A viral clip featuring Muskan Khan, a high school student in Karnataka, has caused India to become emblematic of the Hindu/Muslim conflict in India today. Like every other school day, Muskan parked her scooter and was making her way into the school premises when she was stopped by a mob of angry Hindu men waving saffron flags, the colours of the ruling party, the BJP. They shouted Jai Shri Ram (Hail Lord Ram) and demanded that Muskan remove her Hijab, a Muslim headcovering, before entering the school. Muskan kept her composure and shouted back Allahu Akbar (God is Great). Many Indians admire Muskan for her courage in the face of clear danger and for holding on to her constitutional right to practise her religion. However many Hindus see Muskan’s actions as regressive and a threat to India’s future. India is a secular country and religious freedom is safeguarded under its constitution, but in practice, its minorities (most notably the Muslims) are facing the erosion of their religious freedoms.
Islam came to India in waves from the 8th century and soon established itself as a significant religion in the region with lasting influence on India’s cultural heritage. The Hindu majority had largely accepted Muslims and both communities learned to live together in relative peace and prosperity. However this communal harmony started to ebb with the arrival of the British in the 19th century and their colonisation of India. In order to keep control of this vast and diverse country, the British adopted a divide and rule policy to weaken any potential resistance. They deliberately created rifts between Hindus and Muslims by having separate rules for the two communities. When the British left India, they divided the nation into the Hindu-majority India and the Muslim-majority Pakistan. This resulted in one of the largest migrations in history, with millions of Hindus and Sikhs fleeing from the newly formed Pakistan to India and likewise Muslims who had spent generations as India migrated to Pakistan. This mass movement triggered deadly riots and killings by both parties, leaving two communities that had coexisted for centuries filled with decades of deep animosity and distrust.
Even though millions of Muslims emigrated during the 1947 partition, many stayed behind in newly independent India. They stayed under a secular constitution and in belief that India would always be their home. However, over the decades, the rifts between the Hindu majority and the Muslim minority have continued to widen rather than heal. Today 15% of Indians or nearly 200 million people are Muslims, making India the country with the second or third largest Muslim population in the world. However, the majority (nearly 80%) of Indians are Hindu.
As the largest democracy in the world, India has a complex political landscape. Politicians use religion and caste as a way to carve out vote banks, particularly using the bloody history between Hindus and Muslims as a way to appeal to their electorates. In recent years, the concept of Hindutva, an ideology that India is a primarily Hindu nation, has gained considerable traction in a section of Hindus. This ideology is particularly favoured by several members of the current ruling party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Elected politicians are now speaking openly against Muslims and calling for violence against them. Recently the BJP introduced an amended Citizen’s Act which openly discriminated against Muslims. Anti-Muslim mobs are common, making spontaeuous attacks on them frequent.
The thought of children my age, being harassed and assaulted fears and enrages me. I believe that the India before British rule, where Muslims and Hindus mostly lived in peace with one another, respecting their religious differences and uniting through their common national identity, is the India that should exist today. The country holding the second largest population in the world as well as one of the richest cultures should be the one to set an example as to how different groups can come together, despite differences in beliefs.
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