The situation of Muslims in India

One problem with the rise of the far right and nationalist rhetoric is that it does not remain limited to representing itself. Far-right nationalism is, at its core, already an aggressive, exclusionary, discriminatory and violence-oriented politics. But its influence on democratic politics lies in its bringing even those opposed to it under its sway, putting democratic, leftist, even liberal politics under pressure, and virtually taking them hostage politically.

In Europe we often see far-right racist parties, after a while, seeping into the rhetoric and politics of parties that appear moderate. What is rising here is not nationalism, but the error of not letting a possibility of political profit slip away and of trying, if necessary, to save one's own political rhetoric with a wrong sacrifice. Yet a one-time concession to racism never remains limited to one time. What is at issue is such a relationship of debt that politics, shrinking from taking measures against Islamophobic hate speech today in Sweden or in many democratic states, has let itself fall into.

While thinking about this event, what has taken place in India also came onto our agenda, as a similar example of precisely this far right's mode of rising to fascism.

The "Justice For All" organization, a civil society organization founded in 2001 in the US state of Illinois that tries to voice the problems of the oppressed and the wronged everywhere in the world and to be a voice and support for the oppressed, together with Platform Dergisi, organized an international meeting yesterday in Istanbul on "The Problems of Minorities in India."

Participants at the meeting, Indian Muslims from the US and other countries, laid out in all its gravity the picture of the severe discrimination and attempts at elimination to which Muslims have been subjected in India in recent years:

Muslims, who have lived in India for centuries, who are an inseparable part of India, who indeed ruled India for centuries, are today subjected to grave and systematic human rights violations and persecution in this country. The participants noted that extrajudicial executions, torture and ill-treatment, pressure on freedom of belief and expression, and unsolved murders have reached terrifying dimensions especially for Muslims, and they also related that these pressures are not directed only at Muslims; for example, in this June alone more than 200 Christian churches were burned in India.

That fascistic, racist and discriminatory rhetoric against Muslims has become ordinary is the most dangerous side of the matter, and that fascism has become a possibility into which normal parties too can easily slide, as we mentioned above, is the worst. A Hindu parliamentarian, for example, was able to call in a speech last month for the genocide of 200 million Muslims.

The policies of the "Hinduization of India" currently being carried out under the joint political-paramilitary cooperation between the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the main paramilitary movement, the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), show that the discriminations against Muslims are within a certain philosophy and plan. The President of the Justice For All association, Abdul Malik Mujahid, describes this process as the "Nazification of India" and compares the policies applied in this regard one-to-one with Nazi practices.

This political alliance or cooperation thinks that India belongs only to Hindus, and that Muslims and Christians have their roots outside and do not belong to this country. Of course, to believe this or to make others believe it, and therefore to build a new national identity on this basis, one has to distort both history and sociology. Muslims, after all, did not come to India from outside. Perhaps Islam was presented by some pioneers, but a significant part of India's people accepted it in the past without any coercion, and thanks to this a strong state and civilization were established in India. This state and civilization, under the rule of Muslims for centuries, made India an assertive country on the world stage. India's Muslims are India itself; the Taj Mahal alone perhaps bears witness to this; but the Hindu racist movement is trying to write the Muslims off in India.

Totally eliminating 200 million Muslims (of course this number is the figure of official Indian rhetoric; Muslims say their own number is far greater than this) may be seen as an empty threat that is not found credible. But a subject that has been on India's agenda for quite some time envisages a redefinition of the scope of citizenship. This new arrangement, found as the Citizenship Rejection Laws, is thought to target India's Muslims. Among a significant group of people living in India it is not easy to prove citizenship because of the problem of lack of documentation. This is especially true for those living in rural India, who make up about 70% of the population. Many people have lived in an area for years without official documents. For example, in 2000 only 56% of the births of children in India were registered.

When this process was started, while non-Muslims could easily register and get their identities, Muslims, because of the extra difficulties placed before them, cannot prove their identities and are thus reduced to the status of illegal people and face being sent to the many concentration camps that have been built.

Within this scope 1.9 million people lost their citizenship. Many people are in concentration camps. New detention camps are also being built in different regions of the country.

Elections in India are held in 7 phases, the longest-running elections in the world. In the latest elections, held between 11 April and 19 May 2019, in the 543-seat Lok Sabha, the alliance led by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP-Indian People's Party), to which Prime Minister Modi belongs, won 349 seats, and the alliance formed by the Congress Party led by Rahul Gandhi, the main opposition, won 83 seats.

The election process has already been entered and Modi is not expected to be re-elected, but we hope this rising racism in India is not seen by other parties as an attractive and profitable field of political investment. For this politics worsens India's perception in the world with each passing day. India, at all critical turning points in history, in the struggle of civilization and in liberation from imperialist occupation, has drawn the power it needed from Indian-Muslim unity.

For Turkey too, when Indian Muslims are mentioned, the scene that should not escape the mind is the great participation in the War of Independence by the women with the jewelry they exchanged for money.