Muslims have been insecure in India for a long time

Are Muslims a persecuted group in India during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration? Do they feel insecure under his governance? When did Muslims in the Indian subcontinent feel safe and protected? Were they comfortable while Gandhiji and Pandit Nehru dominated the Indian public space? What factors contribute to feelings of insecurity among them?

These questions have come to the forefront following two recent incidents. On December 5, the ‘secular’ crowd celebrated the return of Sunali Khatoon, a pregnant Muslim woman, and her eight-year-old son following a Supreme Court order, after they were deported earlier this year to Bangladesh. Meanwhile, another case is unfolding in the Supreme Court to determine whether the Rohingyas are refugees or illegal infiltrators who should be deported in the interest of national security.

Sunali Khatoon is jubilant, looking forward to delivering her baby in India, a move that has caught ‘secular’ media attention. She is being presented as a symbol of a Muslim woman’s love for India. Similarly, this sentiment is often invoked to portray the Rohingya refugees’ desire to seek sanctuary in India after being banished from their homeland in Myanmar.

The irony is striking, and the contradiction is too galling to ignore. The Left-liberals are now lauding Sunali’s return as a "historic" event. They are also seeking the rehabilitation of the Rohingyas in India. And they are the ones who, for over a decade, have relentlessly portrayed India as a nation that is "anti-Muslim", "intolerant", and "unsafe for Muslims" under PM Modi.

See the contradiction. If India is ‘unsafe’, why should Sunali’s decision to deliver her next child in India be celebrated? Instead, she should be warned against any such move on her part by her ‘secular’ well-wishers. Will the mother and her yet-to-be-born child be safe in BJP-dominated India? And why are there now determined efforts to settle the Rohingyas?

How does one explain this perfidious behaviour of the ‘secular’ pack? Due to its colonial mindset, this class harbours a visceral hatred towards Prime Minister Narendra Modi. One of the simplest tactics to arraign PM Modi, both domestically and internationally, is to propagate the claim that India is unsafe for minorities, especially Muslims, under his leadership.

Muslims in India indeed feel insecure. But that is not a new development. Their sense of insecurity and alienation has persisted for centuries, dating back to the death of Aurangzeb in 1707, after which the Mughal Empire began to disintegrate rapidly. As a result, Muslims’ ability to persecute Hindus waned quickly. This change in power dynamics upset them, for they could no longer torment Hindus as before and earn religious merit.

Following the collapse of the Mughal Empire, the Maratha flag was flying high across India. Muslims felt ‘insecure’ and sought help from foreign invaders. The North Indian Sufi scholar Shah Waliullah Dehlavi-whose intellectual legacy later inspired the Taliban-invited the Afghan ruler Ahmad Shah Abdali to invade India to re-establish Islamic rule over the ‘kafirs’. Abdali’s victory in the Third Battle of Panipat (1761) weakened India and facilitated the subsequent British ascendancy in Delhi by 1803. Had Waliullah not summoned Abdali, India’s history might have taken a markedly different

trajectory.

However, for a while, Hindus and Muslims were on an even keel following the British colonisation of India, which completely dislodged local power structures. Both communities came together, leading to the 1857 uprising, which ended in a British victory.

To perpetuate their rule, the British began pursuing the ancient Roman adage Divide et impera, often translated as ‘divide and conquer’. The Muslim leadership, sorely missing the times when they pulverised the Hindus at will, willingly walked into the colonial trap, became British allies, and opposed Hindus and the Indian National Congress, which was leading India’s fight for independence.

When the British realised they would have to leave soon, with help from communists, they exploited Muslim ‘insecurity’ sentiments. The ‘insecure’ Muslim leadership once again raised the fear that Hindu Raj would follow and Islam would be in danger after the British departure and the Congress leadership taking over independent India.

The doubting Thomases should read the 1938 report of the Pirpur Committee, set up by the Muslim League. Succinctly put, the report documents evidence condemning the Congress as a Hindu revivalist party with a strong anti-Muslim bias. It may shock some readers to learn that the allegations made by the Committee read the same as those made today against Modi and the BJP by Islamists and ‘secular’ parties, especially the Congress.

During that period, Congress leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Nehru, Acharya Kripalani, and Sardar Patel went to great lengths to reassure the ‘insecure’ Muslim community that it would be protected in independent India. Despite their heartfelt pleas, Muslims continued to feel ‘insecure’.

The ‘insecure’ Muslims organised and led violent protests in support of their demand for an independent Islamic nation. The result: timeless India was divided, and Pakistan was born after an internecine bloodbath in which lakhs of innocents were killed, millions were uprooted, and limitless pain and humiliation were inflicted.

So, the narrative that Muslims feel ‘insecure’ in India ruled by the Prime Minister is no surprise. Muslims have been ‘insecure’ long before even Modi or the RSS were born.

Muslims in India-whether Shia or Sunni, Deobandi or Barelvi-enjoy not only equal rights but often greater constitutional protections than the Hindu majority. This is not merely a product of a "secular Constitution". India’s pluralism is rooted in a civilisation that has, for millennia, embraced multiplicity and coexistence. In contrast, hundreds of Muslims are killed by fellow Muslims every year in fratricidal violence in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Why do present-day Muslims feel ‘insecure’ in India? No one holds today’s Muslims responsible for the atrocities committed against Hindus by successive Islamic invaders. But why does a significant section of the subcontinent’s Muslims glorify and identify with figures like Ghaznavi, Ghori, Babur, Aurangzeb, and Tipu Sultan? bCelebrating a character (mythical or historical) implies validation of its actions and a strong desire to emulate them. A recent development adds to the substance of this argument. On 6 December, suspended Trinamool Congress MLA Humayun Kabir laid the foundation stone for a "Babri Masjid" in Murshidabad, with a massive crowd in attendance. Building a mosque is not the issue-India’s pluralistic ethos welcomes all faiths. But why name it after Babur? His memory evokes the destruction of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi temple at Ayodhya by his associate, Mir Baqi, and the endless struggle by successive generations of Hindus to reclaim it, in the Indian psyche. Babur established Mughal rule through jihad, calling himself a "Ghazi"-an Islamic warrior dedicated to fighting infidels.

Treating figures like Babur as role models initiates an endless cycle. Much of Muslim ‘insecurity’ results from this action-reaction syndrome. A segment of Muslims, influenced by ‘secularists’, seeks to celebrate Islamic ‘heroes’, aspires to imitate them and their deeds, which inevitably leads to conflict with a resurgent India determined to oppose this medieval, jihadi mindset.

It is not rocket science to realise that building genuine friendships with Jews while praising Hitler and overlooking his horrific genocide is not a workable proposition.

The writer is an eminent columnist and the author of ‘Tryst with Ayodhya: Decolonisation of India’ and ‘Narrative ka Mayajaal’; views are personal