Pak Sahafat: Narendra Subramanian said: The economic strategies of the nationalist and ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in India have failed, especially over the past five years, to emphasize Hindu cultural and political hegemony by restricting the rights and resources of religious minorities, especially maximizing pressure on the Muslim minority.
Indian Muslims have been discriminated against and hostile by Indian extremists since the ouster of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Prime Minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and violent events such as the Delhi Uprising in 2020 have led many human rights activists to express concern with the Muslims of this country. This is happening at a time when India, as the largest democracy in the world, has always been known for the peaceful coexistence of followers of different religions.
In recent months, these hateful pressures and discourses by Hindu extremist activists have intensified, and some have even called for the destruction of all Islamic monuments in India and the killing of all Muslims in the country or their expulsion to Pakistan.
Narendra Subramanian is a professor of Indian political science at McGill University in Canada. The Subramanians specialize in the politics of nationalism, ethnicity, religion, gender, and race, and focus mainly on India. In an interview with media, he spoke about the situation of Indian Muslims in the Modi government.
Q: Since Narendra Modi came to power in India, we have witnessed increasing pressure on religious and racial minorities in the country, especially Muslims. What is the reason for these pressures?
These pressures have been on religious minorities, mainly Muslims and Christians. The Hindu nationalist movement, from which the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party emerged, has consistently defined India as a predominantly Hindu state with followers of marginalized religions outside South Asia.
While the BJP was the largest party in the Indian Parliament between 1998 and 2004, it was limited at the time due to its alliance with other parties. Since Modi took office in 2014, the BJP has held an absolute majority in parliament, allowing the party to act on its own monopoly, especially on Muslims and Christians.
Q: Why does the BJP insist on extremist Hindu nationalism in a country that is always concerned with the peaceful coexistence of followers of different religions?
India, like many other countries, includes forces with different social and political orientations. Some movements and parties have emphasized the coexistence of different religious groups.
This was mainly the case with the Indian National Congress (Congress Party), which ruled India alone or through alliances with most of the post-colonial period, although the party sometimes marginalized certain religious minorities.
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Q: What was the main reason for BJP coming to power in India?
The main reason is the effective cultural and political mobilization of various Hindu groups, which has been more successful in the last decade among more linguistic and caste groups (social classes). Other reasons include its organizational strength, the decline of the former Congress Party, and the restrictions of most other parties in certain parts of India.
Q: Some believe that the BJP’s actions against Muslims and other religious minorities in India are due to the party’s failure to solve India’s economic and political problems. How true is this view?
The BJP seeks to limit the rights and resources of religious minorities, especially Muslims, apart from the party’s success in promoting economic development and providing effective (problem-solving) governance. The party’s economic strategies have failed, especially over the past five years, and have increased the BJP’s willingness to emphasize Hindu cultural and political hegemony.
Q: What is the ideological basis of the HIDUTUA movement in India and why is this ideology so popular?
Hinduism, or the ideology of being Hindu, is built around the perspective of India as a predominantly Hindu country. This is a cultural and political view. V.D. Savarkar, one of the first Hindu nationalist leaders, defined Hinduism as referring to cultural and territorial affiliation rather than belief and religious practices; That India is a fatherland, not a holy land.
This category includes non-Hindus who agree with this view. In fact, this ideology casts doubt on the national loyalty of those whose religious sentiments are linked to outside India.
Q: How do you see the future of India in light of BJP actions?
The BJP influences India’s view as a predominantly Hindu country. The party won only 37.4 percent of the vote in the last national election in 2019, but won an absolute majority of seats in parliament because the rest of the vote was split between different parties.
The BJP remains the most influential party in mobilizing voters across India. Other parties either have limited support or are organizationally weak and have not effectively allied with each other to oppose the BJP.
These conditions make it possible for the BJP to remain in power, although it has not run the country effectively and the development trend has slowed over the past decade.