Minority Opinion

The debate over the future of Muslim politics in the wake of Adityanath’s elevation / Politics.

- Ali Khan Mahmudabad

Following the Bharatiya Janata Party’s landslide victory in the Uttar Pradesh election, at the beginning of March, Muslims across north India have been discussing what went wrong in hushed tones. What has left them feeling besieged is not just the BJP’s choice of the state’s chief minister—Adityanath, a firebrand Hindu priest who has regularly flaunted his anti-Muslim bigotry. The BJP did not field a single Muslim candidate in a state where Muslims form a fifth of the population; the party’s campaign was deeply communally divisive, making issues of such things as the presence of qabristans, or Muslim graveyards, and a supposed shortage of cremation grounds; and the new state government cracked down on cattle slaughter, which disproportionately affects the economic interests of Muslims, as well as Dalits. All of this comes against the backdrop of Muslims’ growing marginalisation in Indian social, economic and political life, as documented in the 2006 Sachar Committee report—which belies the BJP’s claims that governments have appeased Muslims since 1947.

Most Muslims are having these conversations at a safe distance from social media and sensationalist television shows, both presently hostile to nonmajoritarian views. However, a recent statement by the All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat, a body of 16 Muslim organisations that seeks to transcend the various sectarian divides within the community, stated clearly that Indian Muslims “are in the grip of fear.” And in Urdu newspapers and other largely Muslim forums, a number of prominent figures from the community have been holding forth on the political future of Muslims in India.