He called Muslims infiltrators, procreative people, and people who steal Hindu resources. He and his party have blown anti-Muslim dog whistles before, but this was a new extreme. India’s Home Minister Amit Shah said that if he came to power, he would hang cattle traders and smugglers who slaughter cows and hang them upside down.
Some of Modi’s cabinet members and top leaders raised the spectre of “love jihad” (Muslims marrying Hindus) and “land jihad” (Muslims seizing land in Hindu-majority areas across India). Another election video campaign by Modi’s Hindu nationalist party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), portrayed Muslims as plunderers of India’s glorious past.
But on the morning of June 4, as the results began to come in, the mood changed. I spoke to Javed Mohammed, a human rights activist in Prayagraj, north India, who sees himself as a bridge between local Muslims and the government. Mohammed had been incarcerated for almost two years before a judge determined there was no evidence he had committed a crime. Seven people, including activists and students, were in Mohammed’s house in Jamia Nagar, a Muslim neighborhood that is an important civic hub in Delhi.
Mohammed looked relieved as he checked the Election Commission’s website for the latest figures for Uttar Pradesh, a northern stronghold that holds 80 of India’s 543 seats in the lower house of parliament. In Faizabad, home to a controversial new Ram temple and where nearly 80% of the population is Hindu, voters chose a candidate from the Samajwadi Party, a secular socialist party, rather than one from Modi’s BJP. It was one of the biggest shocks in a generally surprising national election. “Indian Muslims have mainly supported the Indian Union,” Mohammed said of Modi’s opponents. “They are doing it because they believe that ultimately secularism will prevail in India.” [over] A political party based on religion
On television, a news anchor said that Modi’s hopes of winning more than 400 parliamentary seats in this election would likely be dashed, and there was a palpable sense of relief in the auditorium.
This is not to say that the Indian Union has represented Muslims well. They were significantly under-represented in the elections, with 22 Muslim members of Parliament, the lowest number since independence. Many in the hall felt that the opposition was hesitant to take on Modi’s anti-Muslim policies for fear of losing its Hindu support base.
Still, a decline in Modi’s majority and an increase in the Indian Union’s seats would mean a stronger check on the prime minister’s majoritarian, anti-Muslim politics, given the opposition’s pledge to defend India’s constitution.
“This election may have given Modi a third term, but now his wings have been clipped,” said Ali Javed, head of the Noos network, sitting next to Mohammed, holding his 2-month-old son on his lap. “He is at the mercy of his coalition partners.”
Javed said the outcome would give “breathing space” to Indian Muslims.
Modi’s tally now stands at 240 seats, well down from the midpoint of 272. It is the first time in his political career, which began as chief minister of Gujarat state, that he has failed to win a majority, shattering the myth of his invincibility after an election campaign in which he portrayed himself as a god.
Nadim Khan, an Indian civil rights leader whom I met separately, attributed Modi’s drop in approval ratings to the efforts of Muslim groups, particularly in Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, to rally Muslims together to vote.
“There was desperation and fear,” Khan said. “We had to address that issue and tell people the only solution was to come together and vote regardless of the outcome.”
PM Modi tried to divide the Muslim community with his ‘Pasmanda outreach’ – He seeks to divide Muslims along economic and social class lines and blame upper-class Muslims for the suffering of the marginalized.
“I think the move has backfired,” Khan said, “because many Pasmanda families include cattle traders who have been victims of hate crimes. This is the result of hate speech by the BJP and Hindu nationalist leaders and is an act of discrimination against Muslims.”
Muslims voted in large numbers in this election to protect their rights and the Indian Constitution. Cases of voter suppression hit the news in the Sambhal district of Uttar Pradesh, where Muslim voters said police had forced them to leave polling stations. Videos of voters being beaten were widely shared along with testimonies of people who had been attacked by police to stop them from voting.
In what could be called poetic justice, the BJP was defeated in Sambhal by a margin of 12 lakh votes.
The electoral surprise has left Muslims feeling a little more secure about their future in India. “Those who were previously afraid to speak out, to mobilise and to fight for their constitutional rights may now start doing so,” Khan said.
Ahmar Mohammad, a trader from Shaheen Bagh in Delhi, told me he might take a break from looking for work in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait: “I wanted to move my family out of here. I wanted to give my children some dignity in life and not let them grow up like second-class citizens. If things improve, I might not have to move.”
Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state, recorded its highest voter turnout in two decades, in what Kashmiris called a “vote to make our voices heard.” Notably, it elected Engineer Rashid, a local politician who was jailed by Modi in 2019 and ran for office from prison. (He remains incarcerated and needs court permission to attend parliament sessions and his own inauguration.)
It may be too early to predict a dramatically new future for India’s Muslims and other minorities, but they know that their active participation has made a difference, and their despair is now being replaced by optimism and a sense of belonging.
