Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have decided to contest this seven-phase national election as champions of Hindu interests. They also made it clear that protecting Hindu interests meant protecting them from Muslims.
They say the Hindu majority is in danger because opposition Congress parties are colluding with the Muslim community to strip Hindus of their wealth and rights and hand them over to Muslims.
The prime minister told a rally in Rajasthan on Sunday that if the opposition came to power, he would take away the wealth of Hindus and give it to “those who have more children”, an apparent reference to Muslims. He also called the Muslim community “infiltrators.”
Prime Minister Modi’s comments sparked anger in some quarters. Citizens and organizations across India have called on the Election Commission of India (ECI) to take action against his hate speech.
The human rights organization People’s Alliance for Freedom went so far as to call for Mr. Modi to be disqualified from contesting the election due to this blatant social incitement.
These reactions did not provoke a change in rhetoric. In fact, the Prime Minister doubled down two days later.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Modi, speaking at another election rally in Rajasthan, reiterated his claim that the Congress is conspiring to expropriate Hindu wealth and distribute it to a “selected” people.
To ensure that there is no ambiguity, Prime Minister Modi went on to say that Congress will take away and give reservations for backward classes, scheduled castes and tribal people – quotas for education, employment, government schemes, etc. he suggested. To Muslims. This was a clear attempt to scare backward and Dalit Hindu voters into voting for the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Also on Tuesday, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said Congress wants to implement Islamic law. This was a clear attempt to expose the scars of India’s Islamization.
Prime Minister Modi is considered a master of dog whistles. He has mastered the art of insulting, mocking, and attacking Muslims without ever uttering the word Muslim.
For example, in 2002, when he was chief minister of Gujarat, there were riots in which thousands of Muslims were forced from their homes and sent to relief camps. When the state government started destroying these camps and faced criticism for it, Prime Minister Modi said that “child-producing factories” could not be allowed to operate.
He said they were people who did not use the word Muslim, but whose motto was “We are 5 years old, we are 25 years old.” It mentioned that the Muslim man was said to have been married four times and had 25 children.
In subsequent speeches, he also talked about the “pink revolution” (non-vegetarianism), the “white revolution” (vegetarianism), or even cemeteries (referring to Muslim burial customs) and crematoriums (referring to Muslim burial customs). He continued to use insinuations to pit Hindus and Muslims against each other. (Due to the Hindu custom of burning dead bodies).
In a speech on Sunday, Prime Minister Modi directly referred to Muslims as “people who give birth to more children” and “infiltrators”, saying Muslims are outsiders who seek to outdo the Hindu majority. This gave rise to a sinister conspiracy theory.
The Prime Minister is clearly playing a dangerous game of turning the election into a war between Hindus and Muslims, with the Bharatiya Janata Party openly calling itself a Hindu party. It would not be wrong to conclude from his speech that he accepted that the only voters were Hindus. Other leaders of the party have made this clear as well. Last year, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma declared that he did not want Miyya (Bengali-speaking Muslim) votes.
Some analysts feel that the Bharatiya Janata Party has become hopeless as it did not receive as much support as expected in the first phase of the election. Out of this desperation, India is attempting the old formula of Hindu polarization, creating fears of a Muslim takeover of India.
However, if you look at Mr. Modi’s speeches since the start of this election campaign, you will see that from the beginning he has made statements that paint the opposition party as anti-Hindu. For example, he said the Congress manifesto had “traces of the Muslim League”, referring to a political party founded to ensure the rights of Muslims under British colonialism.
He also said that the rebel leaders had the mindset of the Mughals, the Muslim rulers of India from the 16th to the 18th centuries, and that they ate fish at Hindu sacred ceremonies and worshiped the Hindu holy sawan. He claimed that he had insulted Hindus by eating meat on the moon. They do it to please “their” voters, he said. Who could these voters be but Muslims?
Opposition leaders are indulging in anti-Hindu practices to appease Muslims, given that the opposition also needs Hindu votes and cannot afford to do anything to alienate them. That is a completely unreasonable claim. However, the lack of logic did not stop Prime Minister Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party from repeating such claims with the aim of provoking Hindus against Muslims.
This is a clear violation of the ECI’s Model Code of Conduct, according to which soliciting votes or campaigning on religious or communal grounds is not permitted.
It also violates the Representation of the People Act, which criminalizes communal propaganda. The law states that “voting or soliciting to refrain from voting on grounds of religion, race, caste, community, or language by a candidate, or any other person with the candidate’s consent, is a corrupt election practice.” ”. If found guilty under this provision, an individual may be sentenced to up to six years in prison.
The provisions of the Act led to Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray being banned from elections for six years in 1999 for attempting social agitation.
Despite calls for action to stop the use of inflammatory speech by the Bharatiya Janata Party in the ongoing elections, the ECI has remained completely silent on the issue. That’s because your body is hurt.
In December, the Bharatiya Janata Party succeeded in passing a bill in parliament to change the composition of the selection committee tasked with appointing election commissioners. Previously, the Chief Justice of India (CJI) had also participated, along with the Indian Prime Minister and opposition leaders. Currently, the CJI has been replaced by ministers selected by the Prime Minister.
ECI thus lost its independence. Since then, it has been behaving like a government agency, issuing notices to opposition leaders about minor lapses and taking no action against major violations by the Bharatiya Janata Party leadership. This effectively means that India’s elections are also in jeopardy.
As the BJP’s agitation campaign continues, Muslims are being advised by well-wishers not to react as Hindus will be drawn to the party. Muslims remain silent, but so do the ECI and courts. In this deafening silence, we mourn the death of democracy in India.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of Al Jazeera.
