Mainstream WeeklyOthering of Muslims is a recurring strategy pursued by Hindutva politics in contemporary India. This was manifested in the recent protests in Kolkata against police atrocities on the students/young protesters in New Delhi. It was reported in Altnews: “From the assembly to press briefings, Suvendu Adhikari repeatedly invoked communal tropes while defending the arrests made over the alleged violence during the July 24 Kolkata solidarity protest. Sixteen people arrested in the case – 15 of them Muslims – were granted bail on July 28… West Bengal chief minister Suvendu Adhikari repeatedly described the troublemakers as ‘Friday people’, ‘foreign-funded Jamatis’ and ‘Islamists’”. (www.altnews.in)
The targeting of Muslim protesters in Kolkata remind us of what happened in the wake of the anti-CAA protests and Delhi riots. Natasha Narwal observed in a PUCL bulletin (August 31, 2023): “In February 2020, Delhi witnessed targeted violence against Muslims, in which 53 lives were lost and several mosques, shops and homes belonging to Muslims were burnt and looted…FIR 59 of 2020 invoked the UAPA and other sections of the IPC, falsely accusing 18 people of conspiring to foment communal violence in Delhi and destabilising the state…
This FIR (59/2020) as well as hundreds of other FIRs also have another alarming quality in common. 16 out of the 18 accused in FIR 59 are Muslims…What should be deeply worrying for a constitutional democracy is that the preponderance of Muslims indicates a religious bias in the actions of the police.” (pucl.org)
Elaine Pearson, Asia Director at Human Rights Watch, recently said: “The Indian government has normalized violence against religious minorities, marginalized groups, and critics through discriminatory policies, hate speech, and politically motivated prosecutions.” (www.hrw.org)
The above narratives bear testimony to the anti-Muslim violence embedded in Hindutva politics in contemporary India.