Muslims in India: A Slow Erosion of History, Representation, Art and Culture

The controversy of rewriting ‘Indian’ history has reached mass hysteria in India. The bifurcation between a ‘Hindu’ India and a ‘Muslim’ India is today is reaching pandemic proportions. It represents a real and existential threat to India’s claims of its syncretic past, and its pluralist and democratic credentials.

This is happening in broad daylight under the tutelage, patronage and support of Prime Minister Narindra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)& and its allies, the Rashtriya Swamasevak Sangh (RSS), the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), the Bajrang Dal, and other ultra-nationalist right wing Hindu parties.

In an interview to Republic TV on October 16, 2017, in a noisy, boisterous and hysterical backdrop, the National Spokesperson of the BJP, Sambit Patra said “We don’t need the Mughals to have a golden era. I don’t need a Babur to have a golden era.”

Earlier the saffron-clad Chief Minister of India’s most populous State, Uttar Pardesh, Yogi Adityanath, had removed the Taj Mahal from the Tourist Booklet. According to Al-Jazeera:

“The 32-page booklet titled “Uttar Pradesh Tourism: Its High Potential”, released by Rita Bahuguna Joshi, State Tourism Minister, mentions a number of Hindu and Buddhist religious places, but misses one of the world’s most famous monuments.[The Taj Mahal]”

-Taj Mahal dropped from tourism booklet of Uttar Pradesh, Aljazeera.com, 9th October, 2017

This comes in the backdrop of another frantic, hysterical, pro-Hindu BJP leader Sangeet Som, who declared that the “Taj Mahal is a blot on Indian history.”

In an address to BJP supporters, the BJP MLA from Meerut said:

“I can tell you with complete guarantee that history will be changed. History which was misrepresented and distorted is being corrected now. The State government and the Central government are working to fix the history and include Lord Ram, Maharana Pratap and Shivaji in the history books. The governments at the State and Centre are working to remove stories of the blot that Babur, Akbar and Aurangzeb stand for.”

– The Hindu, October 16th, 2017 article “Another Stab at Taj Mahal’s Heritage”

Not taking into account that the Taj Mahal is considered one of the Seven Wonders of the World, is a UNESCO Heritage sight, attracts over 6 million tourists a year and employs over 400,000 Indians directly or indirectly, the fact remains that the BJP is overturning its electoral promise of “sab ka saath, sab ka vikaas” with pro-Hindu rhetoric that is divisive, and is directly aimed at creating a permanent rift between the 800 million Hindus and 200 million Muslims of India.

The issue traces itself back to the emergence of the BJP as a major political player in India based on sectarian lines. In 1990, the then President of the BJP, L.K.Advani initiated his infamous “Ram Rath Yatra” a religious march traversing thousands of miles all across India to reach Ayodhya, claiming the birthplace of the Indian god Ram on the exact site of the Babri Masjid built by the Mughal General Mir Baqi for the Mughal Emperor Babur in 1528.

It resulted in pandemonium and violence, the demolition of the Babri Mosque by Hindu karsevaks and laid the grounds for the Muslim pogrom of 1992 remembered as the “Bombay Riots”. Importantly it roused Hindu nationalism to fever pitch, aroused pro-Hindu sentiments and enflamed anti-Muslim sentiment.

By 1999, and obscure political entity previous to the demolition of the Babri Mosque, the BJP become the 2nd largest political party in India in the 1999 elections bagging 183 Lok Sabha seats.

This rousing of sentiments saw the BJP finally come into power in 2014 in the backdrop of the Gujarat Riots of 2002. Not since 1984, had a single party achieved such a majority in India. Under Mr. Modi, the BJP won 282 seats, and with its partners ended with a tally of 336, receiving 31% of the popular vote, fielding not a single Muslim candidate, especially in the State of Uttar Pardesh which has a sizeable (18%) Muslim population. The Muslims in India today have their lowest representation in the Lok Sabha since 1957, only 22 representatives in all out of a population of 200 million. According to the Indian Express:

“While Muslims constitute 10.5 per cent of the population, its percentage representation in the new Lok Sabha will be 4.2 per cent. In 1957, it was marginally high at 4.6 per cent. The highest representation was in 1980 when 49 Muslims were elected to Parliament.”
– May 17th, 2014

In Uttar Pradesh, Muslim population stands at 38.4 million, or 19% of the total population of India itself, whereas representation has plummeted from 17.1% in 2012, to just 5.9% in 2017.

According to an article printed by wire.in published on 14th March, 2017:

“While the BJP’s popularity, in terms of seats, has increased six-fold – from 47 seats of 403 in 2012 to 312 now – Muslim representation has dropped nearly 65%, from 68 seats in 2012 to 24.”

And in an article published the Indian newspaper The Hindu in 2014:

“At the ministerial level, of the 151 Cabinet Ministers and Ministers of State in the nine BJP-ruled States, just one – Yunus Khan, Public Works Department minister in the Rajasthan government – is a Muslim.”

The situation since then has only gotten worse.

Socially, and politically the Muslim community is pushed to the sidelines, under archaic and mediaeval “beef bans” in 21 out of 29 States, with 86% of “cow-related” violence emanating on the Muslim population with “gau rakshaks” (cow-protectors) inducing attacks on Muslims by cow-vigilantes, lynching, murder, attempt to murder, chaining and stripping, and other forms of abuse on Muslims carrying beef even on a presumption. Since May 2014, 600 such attacks have taken place including 149 on the Christians as well.

Not only are the Muslims acutely marginalized in India today, but the entire curriculum is being reverse-engineered to ‘shut out’ Muslim history from Indian textbooks with special reference to the Mughal Period.

In a documentary made by AlJazeera English by Indian journalist Mandakini Ghalot, a leader of the RSS, Deenanath Batra said “Muslims are Mohammedans, with a sword in one hand, and a Quran in the other” and another BJP leader Sakshi Maharaj said “I think that people who cannot respect the nation have no right to live in Hindustan; the road is open, let them go to Pakistan.”

Mr. Sadanand More, Head of the History Subject Committee of Maharashtra has an imperative – A “sole agenda of protecting Hindu culture from Muslims,” he argues “We are restoring Maratha history by sacrificing chapters [of Mughal history]” erasing 300 years of Mughal Rule, also omitting Muslim rulers such as the Slave Dynasty Muslim Empress Razia Sultana entirely from textbooks.

Eerily Muslims in India are today are synonymous with “invaders.” Indian history is reduced to Hindu history where the Muslim “conquerors” and “traitors” are being replaced by Hindu princes such as Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj who raised a Maratha kingdom in defiance of the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb.

Shocking, disbelieving, disparaging and regressive anti-Muslim indoctrination is underway in Hindu schools and special camps arranged by the RSS and other militaristic institutions all across India.

Addressing a military camp the “Durga Vahini” or Army of the Hindu goddess Durga, a senior VHP leader Ishwari Prasad said to the camp attendees, mostly young Hindu girls between the ages 15-35, “Hindus need to be united, they [Muslims] are trying to reduce the number of Hindus in the country. If a Muslim runs out of food, then according to their religion, they can cut & eat the flesh of their women.”

In a large country like India, it is not uncommon for sectarian strife to raise its ugly head, and result in catastrophic violence; the 2002 Gujarat Riots and the 2014 Muzaffarnagar Riots are but a few examples, however what is most alarming is the erosion of Muslim culture, heritage and history from India; the forceful and purposeful rewriting of Indian history, eliminating one culture absolutely and completely from the hearts and minds of modern India itself.

This travesty of history is being conducted at the expense of 200 million Muslims of India. It is designed to not just take away their historical right but permanently subjugate a minority at the hands of a ‘ruling’ overriding majority population that is bent on ‘reclaiming’ India for itself at the expense of its minority population – one that held its head high of belonging to Empires that ruled India, gave it its history, art, and culture; today being washed away at the hands of a political party and its ultra-nationalism that stands to wither, wash away and eliminate the syncretic, all-encompassing roots of India itself.