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View from Bangladesh: India has Lost its Moral Edge as an Example of Handling Pluralism

Rushad Faridi

In the wake of the recent India-Pakistan conflict, sparked by the Pahalgam terror attack, the Narendra Modi government has wasted no time in projecting itself as a bulwark against extremism and a champion of democratic values. Nationalist rhetoric has reached a fever pitch, with state-aligned media painting India as a victim of cross-border terrorism and a beacon of civilisation under siege.

But while strikes on either side of the border were publicised, a quieter, more insidious war continues within India’s own borders – one aimed at its Muslim citizens. Long before Pahalgam, long before the first shot was fired across the Line of Control, the groundwork for this internal war was laid.

Let me take you back to the village of Bishara, Dadri, Uttar Pradesh, where a horrifying event unfolded on September 28, 2015, that would mark the beginning of a dark chapter. Mohammad Akhlaq, a Muslim ironsmith, was lynched by a mob after being falsely accused of carrying beef. His son was beaten so brutally that he ended up in the intensive care unit. What followed wasn’t justice but impunity. The accused walked free on bail, and shockingly, some even shared the stage with Uttar Pradesh’s chief minister Adityanath during an election rally in 2019. On the other hand, as mind boggling as it may sound, police filed a criminal case against the family of Mohammad Akhlaq in July 2016 for allegedly slaughtering a calf. The victim’s family maintained that they never had beef, it was mutton all along, and even laboratory tests proved it.

A year before this incident, in 2014, Narendra Modi had swept to power, riding on a wave of Hindu nationalist sentiment. His campaign, peppered with overt communal messaging, tapped into deep-rooted fears and prejudices of majority Hindus against minorities, particularly Muslims. After his election, several states swiftly enacted bans on cattle slaughter and beef consumption, further emboldening fringe groups who saw an opportunity to turn bigotry into vigilantism.

Cow vigilante groups, often with ties to the BJP or its ideological affiliates, mushroomed across the country. Muslims, especially those involved in cattle trade, became targets. A Human Rights Watch report chronicles another such atrocity. On March 18, 2016, a group of men murdered two Muslim cattle herders who were on their way to sell bulls at an animal fair in Jharkhand. The attackers, all linked to a local “cow protection” group, accused Mohammed Mazlum Ansari, 35, and Imteyaz Khan, 12, of selling the cattle for slaughter, then beat them to death and hanged their bodies from a tree. Imteyaz’s father, Azad Khan, said he watched helplessly as the attack took place: “I hid in the bushes when I saw them beating up Imteyaz and Mazlum. If I stepped out, they would have killed me too. My son was screaming for help, but I was so scared.”

In 2017, Pehlu Khan, a dairy farmer, was lynched in Rajasthan while returning home with legally purchased cattle. The murder was filmed. The evidence was undeniable. And yet, the accused walked free. But police did not let Pehlu Khan go even after his death. Rajasthan police filed a chargesheet against him and his sons for transporting cattle allegedly without the district collector’s permission.

According to Human Rights Watch, between May 2015 and December 2018, at least 44 people, 36 of them Muslims, were killed in such attacks across 12 Indian states. During the same period, over 280 individuals were injured in more than 100 separate incidents spanning 20 states. Research by the non-profit Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) has found that more than one in five recorded attacks by Hindus targeting Muslims in India between June 2019 and March 2024 were motivated by so-called “cow vigilantism”.

This exponential rise in repression occurred due to the culture of impunity that the Modi government practiced when it comes to hate crimes towards Muslims. Modi’s India has effectively assured Hindu extremists that violence against minorities carries no consequences. In this new India, the rule of law bends to ideology. Lynching videos trend on social media, while justice remains elusive.

But the world has been taking notice. In 2020, for the first time since 2004, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) designated India a “country of particular concern” – and has repeated the recommendation every year since. Yet, owing to geopolitical calculations, the US State Department has failed to act significantly.

In its latest report (2024), USCIRF documented instances throughout the year where individuals were killed, beaten, and lynched by vigilante groups, religious leaders were arbitrarily arrested, and homes and places of worship were demolished. It also noted the use of misinformation and hate speech by government officials to incite violence against religious minorities. Furthermore, the enforcement of laws such as the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), Uniform Civil Code (UCC), and various state-level anti-conversion and cow slaughter laws were cited as tools to target and disenfranchise religious minorities. The USCIRF emphasised that these actions represent severe violations of religious freedom.

Reports from Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International also have documented mass detentions of Muslims, discriminatory laws like the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), and demolitions of Muslim homes under the guise of urban planning. In 2022 and 2023, authorities in states like Madhya Pradesh and Delhi used bulldozers to demolish homes and shops belonging to Muslims, most often without due process.

Recently, in early 2025, reports emerged from Assam where Muslim students were denied scholarships, and in Uttarakhand, a new law was introduced that gives police sweeping powers to monitor interfaith relationships, yet another dog-whistle aimed at the mythical “love jihad” conspiracy.

In this long list of incidents of minority oppression of Muslims in India, the newest addition is the Waqf Amendment Act. This law has raised significant concerns among India’s Muslim community, as it introduces changes perceived to undermine their religious autonomy. One contentious provision allows for the inclusion of non-Muslims on Waqf Boards, a departure from traditional practices where only Muslims managed these religious endowments. Critics argue this could dilute the Islamic character of Waqf institutions and infringe upon the community’s right to self-governance. Additionally, the bill proposes replacing Waqf Tribunals with district collectors for resolving property disputes, centralising authority and potentially compromising impartial adjudication. Another controversial clause restricts the creation of new Waqfs to individuals who have practiced Islam for at least five years, a criterion seen as arbitrary and exclusionary. These amendments, introduced without extensive consultation with Muslim stakeholders, are viewed by many as a threat to the constitutional rights and religious freedoms of the Muslim minority in India.

Neighbours

And yet, this same India, with its appalling record on minority rights, does not shy away from moral posturing on its neighbours. In the wake of Sheikh Hasina’s ouster in Bangladesh in August 2024 – a long overdue end to her 15-year autocratic rule – India unleashed a misinformation campaign accusing Bangladesh of descending into anti-Hindu chaos.

Incidents of violence occurred amid the power vacuum and public fury that followed Hasina’s fall which must be seen in context. Thousands of young protesters were killed by Hasina’s regime, with shootings even conducted from helicopters. As her government crumbled, law enforcement disappeared. In the resulting chaos, local vigilante groups stepped in. Opportunistic crimes occurred – some involving attacks on Hindu homes and temples. But these were driven more by anger at Hasina’s supporters than by communal animosity.

Bangladesh is no utopia, but neither is it a cauldron of hatred. There are isolated cases of communal violence, yes, but these often stem from land disputes or personal feuds, not state-sponsored bigotry. In fact, many Muslim-majority communities actively protected Hindu neighbours in those chaotic days. That nuance, however, is deliberately erased by the Indian media and political establishment.

Why? Because Hasina, for all her repression, was India’s most reliable ally. Her government served New Delhi’s strategic interests –granting ports, access corridors, and cracking down on opposition groups that India deemed a threat. Her fall has left a geopolitical void that India now seeks to fill by painting the new administration under Nobel laureate Mohammad Yunus as radical or unstable.

Let’s be clear. India, not Bangladesh, is facing an existential crisis of pluralism. Under Modi, a once-proud secular democracy has veered dangerously close to theocratic majoritarianism.

Let’s also not sugarcoat it: India has become a dangerous place for minorities. Its democracy is faltering, and its moral credibility is in tatters.

Therefore, before Modi and his party points fingers, it should take a long, hard look in the mirror. Because the world is watching. And increasingly, it’s not buying the hypocrisy.

The terror attack in Pahalgam is, without question, a heinous and despicable act that deserves the strongest condemnation. Those responsible must be brought to justice swiftly and unequivocally. But while India mourns the lives lost and rallies against external threats, it must also confront a painful internal truth: systemic repression of its own minorities, especially Muslims, will not bring the country closer to security or stability.

(Rushad Faridi is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Dhaka. Courtesy: The Wire, an Indian nonprofit news and opinion website. It was founded in 2015 by Siddharth Varadarajan, Sidharth Bhatia, and M. K. Venu.)

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In Assam, ‘Indigenous’ Means Many Things—Until it Means Muslim

Greeshma Kuthar

Professor Monirul Hussain, 73, recounted a conversation that he had a few years ago in Guwahati. At the end of an engaging chat with a stranger during a journey, the professor was asked his name. When he gave his name, the stranger exclaimed, “Oh! I thought you were Axomiya.” Perturbed, the professor asked how the man defined “Assamese” and if it included only those who had Hindu-sounding names, but the conversation soon petered off.

Prof. Hussain is a scholar from Guwahati who started his journey from Cotton College in the city and went to the University of Oxford for postdoctoral studies. During his tenure as a lecturer at the Department of Political Science, he wrote his first book, The Assam Movement: Class, Ideology and Identity (published in 1993), which featured a stinging indictment of Assamese nationalism.

He criticised the movement for its narrow view on who could be Assamese, its myth-making by equating Muslims to migrants and thereby pitting them as enemies of the State and, more importantly, how the movement itself was predominantly conceptualised, steered, and controlled by the Assamese privileged-caste elite. Prof. Hussain’s observations came under severe criticism, and he was painted as an enemy of Assamese nationalism. But he continued to write.

Three decades later, there is not a single Muslim District Commissioner or Superintendent of Police in Assam even though more than 30 per cent of the population is Muslim, notes Nazimuddin Siddique, an assistant professor of sociology at Jamia Millia Islamia. But compared with the time when Prof. Hussain was writing, when there seemed to be space to at least publish dissenting opinions, Muslims in Assam now face complete isolation and social criminalisation, according to Prof. Siddique. He said: “Indian Muslims are being dumped at the borders arbitrarily by the state, targeted by almost all organisations here, and there is not a single newspaper that wants to even write an editorial column about this. How did this come to be?”

Assamese nationalism

After the British transferred power, opinion creation in every region of modern India has been the exclusive right of those who possess caste capital. Identities that eventually became core to how a region would be perceived within the nation-building exercise were closely connected with these caste networks, which constructed narratives of cultural glory that ensured marginalised tribes and others were subservient to and subsumed within the “grand picture”.

Assamese nationalism too has done exactly that, ensuring that dominant castes stay in power while clubbing together a broad set of people—subjects of erstwhile feudal kingdoms, tribal groups, and those with historical marginalities—as “indigenous” groups.

The “indigenous” identity, however, since its creation, only seems to peak at the expense of the “outsider”, “the migrant”, “the foreigner”. At one time, the “outsider” could be either Hindu or Muslim, but now they are only Muslim. When a certain kind of Muslim is presented as “acceptable”, then they are described as “indigenous”, and the rest are pitted as the enemy.

In his seminal work Medieval and Early Colonial Assam, Amalendu Guha describes the social structure that emerged in the region from the time of the migrant Tai Ahom kings until the British took over. It details how migration, complex wars, conversions led by Brahmins, and power struggles between these groups played a role in solidifying the emergence of a dominant ruling class just before Independence.

More importantly, Guha defines the emergence of “Asamiya nationalism” in the 1850s along with the question of language, land, and jobs, and what became of it over the next century.

Analysing how some leaders of the Asam Sahitya Sabha tried to foster a political class invoking past glory, while also creating insecurity around Bengali domination, Guha observes: “As the Asamiya middle class emerged stronger and more ambitious than ever after Sylhet was shaken off its back, its little nationalism started degenerating into chauvinism and minority-baiting.”

Support for AASU

This feeling, according to him, was mainstreamed by the new Assamese nationalists, who used popular media, which they had come to control by then. The All Assam Students’ Union (AASU), which was the frontrunner of the project to safeguard Assamese nationalism, received unparalleled support from media outlets at its peak and later too. Even now, any critical voice against this nationalism attracts immediate virtual mobs and trolls.

The peculiarities surrounding the AASU’s formation are a good way to understand the power centres of Assamese nationalism itself. Besides how the AASU solidified this identity, there is also the fact that every tribe in Assam has its own students’ body.

Every tribal leader this reporter spoke to said that the anxiety of tribal people around the alienation of their land did not stem only from the foreigners’ issue, as the AASU would have us believe, but from the Assamese state as well. According to them, some of the most violent displacements of tribal people have been facilitated by those in power, be it pre-independence kingdoms or the post-Independence Assam State.

These fissures and anxieties did not go unnoticed. Enter the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

RSS inroads

In the mid-1990s, the riverine town of Silapathar in Dhemaji district had very little to offer families who wanted to admit their children to good schools. Thus, when a new school called Sankardev Shishu Vidya Niketan was inaugurated in 1996, among the many students who sought admission in it were Manoranjan Pegu’s cousins. A scholar from the Mising community, Pegu has written extensively about how the RSS steadily co-opted tribal identities in Assam into the Hindu fold.

The Sankardev schools, similar to Saraswati Shishu Mandirs in Uttar Pradesh or similar schools in other States, are actually Vidya Bharati schools of the RSS education network, which is the largest in the country, with more than 12,000 schools. Specifically in Assam, the school name invoked Sankardev, a medieval figure who is seen as the founder of the Vaishnavite movement in the State.

“Many families would admit their children to these schools even if they were supported by the RSS because most tribal areas of Assam lack schools and other basic infrastructure. The RSS understood this fairly early,” said Pegu, pointing to how the RSS had, from the time of its entry into Assam, been flexible in its operations to aid the assimilation of various communities into the Hindu fold.

From offering “seva”, or service, during disasters through the Seva Bharati arm to reaching out to tribal groups through Vanvasi Kalyan Ashrams to building schools through Vidya Bharati to finally supporting the movement against refugees from Bangladesh, the universal experiments of the RSS turned local over a period of time.

Religion and cultural identity

It is crucial to note here that the RSS is not the first to use a blend of religious and cultural identity to foster a common political identity. It was already attempted by the Ahom kingdom, when the Vaishnavite religion was promoted as the state religion and Vaishnavite monasteries called satras were used to foster connections with tribal groups. These connections were of a transactional nature, sought only on the condition of subservience.

When some tribal groups tried to become religious preachers themselves, they were put down by the kings, thus ensuring that Brahmins remained the central figures of Vaishnavite proselytisation.

When this reporter was researching the 2018 archives of the RSS for a study on the proliferation of Hindu nationalism in the south, the name of Dadarao Paramarth cropped up repeatedly. A trusted aide of Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, the RSS founder, Paramarth was first deputed to the south. From Madras Presidency, he extended support to various people such as traders, moneylenders, and others who wanted to set up RSS extensions in their regions.

It was his intervention that introduced the RSS to Mangaluru, from where it went on to become the strongest outpost of the organisation in the south. With this wealth of experience, Paramarth was sent to Assam in 1946, where he and his colleagues set up shop in Guwahati, Dibrugarh, and Shillong, reaching out to pro-Brahmin networks, who, by then, were spreading the word about the RSS’ work.

Many actively sought them out nationally, as the RSS was seen as the organisation that centred an opinion of Muslims as aggressors. Through such networks the RSS assimilated into Assam’s political, social, and cultural spaces. Speaking a language of convenience according to the group that it interacted with, the RSS used local linkages to percolate important spaces.

The fourth Hindu Conference of the Vishva Hindu Parishad in 1981 at Kamrup even had the public patronage of Sharatchandra Goswami, chairman of the Board of Secondary Education, who presided over the programme. It was a telling example of the extent of the RSS’ penetration in the State and the amount of support it enjoyed from the authorities. In less than a decade, Sankardev schools had mushroomed all over the State.

Most of these schools receive financial aid from the State government. More widespread in tribal districts are the Ekal Vidyalayas, or single-teacher schools. Many students from these schools in Assam have also been sent to other States, where they are enrolled in bigger institutions run by the RSS or its supporters. The schools centre Vedic learning and a uniform thought process that aligns with majoritarian Hindu identity while erasing the student’s own identity. Alongside, Hindu temples and institutions are built in the students’ neighbourhoods so that the conversion is complete.

“Muslims from Bangladesh”

The most important aspect of these institutions is that they seek to ensure that the students internalise that the main aggressor they need to fear, the enemy erasing their culture, identity, or space, are the “Muslims from Bangladesh”.

Both the RSS and the Assamese nationalists claim that they have the support of Assam’s tribal groups. In reality, tribal lands belonging to the Mising community have been grabbed by State authorities, often using unconstitutional methods. “Nobody showed up then,” said Pegu.

Called “Protected Tribal Belts and Blocks”, land belonging to protected tribal classes such as the Mising cannot be taken by non-tribal people, which by extension should also include the Assamese government. Yet, District Commissioners regularly denotify such protected areas, doing away with the safeguards to facilitate the takeover by the government.

Two such land grants, totalling 13,000 bighas of tribal land, to Adani Enterprises have come under severe criticism from tribal groups in Kokrajhar and Dima Hasao districts. The land grant in Kokrajhar was made without mandatory public consultations, said Bodo National Students Union president Bonjit Manjil Basumatary, calling for mass protests. These protests are supported by a few senior activists who work on land issues, but beyond that, no other Assamese nationalist group comes out in support when such rights are grabbed by the State, said Pegu.

The nexus between the State apparatus and the rise of Hindu nationalism among dominant caste Assamese peaked in the 1970s, when the RSS’ student wing, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), began to fully participate in the Assam movement.

Masoyo Awungashi, a journalist, and Professor Malini Bhattacharjee have written in detail about how the acceptance of the RSS grew with its involvement in the campaign against “Bangladeshi immigrants” from the time of M.S. Golwalkar, the second head of the organisation. Successive RSS leaders spoke vehemently on the issue nationally, warning of the “sinister plot” of Bengali Muslims to change the demographics of Assam. Simultaneously, Bengali Hindus from Bangladesh were positioned as victims who had to be provided refuge in India. By accommodating them, the RSS said, “Assam can remain a Hindu majority.”

By the 1980s, the ABVP had started organising national programmes in Delhi to “save Assam today to save India tomorrow”, in a bid to give the issue national colour. The AASU and the RSS together created so much hate against Muslims that it eventually led to the appalling Nellie massacre, wherein more than 2,000 Muslims were slaughtered by a group of people belonging to the dominant Assamese Hindu castes and the Tiwa and Karbi tribes. The victims got no justice; worse, the event was erased from public memory by prominent Assamese nationalists who readily evoke the memory of the 855 killed during the Assam movement.

Assamese nationalism and Hindutva

The marriage of Assamese nationalism and Hindu nationalism came full circle when, in 2018, two former AASU leaders sat on the dais at what was termed the largest rally the RSS had ever organised in north-eastern India. One of them was the then Chief Minister, Sarbananda Sonowal, and the other is current Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma.

The rally, organised two years after the first BJP government came to power in Assam in 2016, was called “Luitporia Hindu Samabesh”. Among the invitees on the stage were leaders from over 10 tribes of Assam such as the Karbi, Tiwa, and Mising. At least 10 religious leaders from the satras were present. Also present were top RSS leaders and more than five BJP legislators.

On the occasion, RSS leaders invoked every symbol from the satras to Lachit Borphukan, a celebrated army general of the Ahom kingdom, to reiterate that Assam and other north-eastern States needed saving. They pointed to the tribal leaders on the stage to denote “diversity of Hindu identity”. Shiladitya Dev, a BJP MLA at the time, declared: “Only the RSS can save Assam.” The programme ended with a recitation of the Assamese song, “Luitporia Hindu ami” (We are Hindus of the Brahmaputra).

As the AASU and the RSS posture collectively or separately as the protectors of the Assamese, who are now more or less defined as dominant caste Hindu Assamese, newer and more aggressive groups are emerging who label them “tame” and “sold-out” and who declare that they will address the “foreigners” issue more forcefully.

Fringe groups

The Veer Lachit Sena is one such organisation. It says it will not hesitate to take up arms if required to protect Assam. Boasting of a cadre running into lakhs of youngsters, the group roughs up migrants and organises rallies targeting Muslim properties that it claims are “illegally occupied”.

Deepjyoti Gogoi, president of a local chapter of the Veer Lachit Sena, said: “The population of Assam is 3.5 crore. Of this, 2 crore are indigenous Assamese Hindu, Christian, and other communities. Muslims are 1.5 crore, of which at least 1 crore are not from here, such as the Miya Muslims (Bengali Muslims). They have to be sent back.”

According to Gogoi, Bengali Hindus have assimilated with the larger category of Hindus. But even this is not entirely true, as a visit to the lower Assam regions, especially the Bengali-dominated Barak Valley side, proves. “Actually, it is Bengali Muslims who accepted the Assamese language more readily than Bengali Hindus, since they felt their religion could be used against them and had no choice,” Prof. Hussain explained. Bengali Hindus, on the other hand, have always had the support of the RSS, so they did not have to abandon their culture or language.

As in Jharkhand, land and job losses are the main planks against the “foreigners”.

The Veer Lachit Sena has an elaborate plan on this front. In localities where Miya Muslims are seen as the major labour force, the Sena plans to create training centres to build capacities among non-Muslims.

Violence against Muslims

Funds are also reportedly being generated to support local businesses, the most important condition being that they do not employ “foreigners”. Gogoi added: “The more aggressive method is to mark areas where these Muslims live and drive them out.” According to him, a civil war is brewing, and Assam would soon turn into Manipur if the Bangladeshis are not thrown out. Gogoi showed this writer a video from Kachutali village of Sonapur, in which Shrinkhal Chaliha, a prominent Lachit Sena leader, is seen proclaiming that all Bengali Muslims would be driven out by the Sena, after the group orchestrated an eviction.

There have already been incidents of violent evictions of Bengali Muslims in this village, and two Muslims were shot dead by the police during one such eviction in 2024.

The government justified the eviction saying that the land belonged to tribal people and fell under the protected category, but the Muslim owners said the land had been sold to them and produced documents in support. None of the Lachit Sena leaders this writer met belonged to any tribe from Assam, but the group now works in many tribal areas as leaders protecting the “indigenous land of the Assamese”.

Interestingly, all the Assamese nationalists Frontline spoke to insisted on the State’s secular history. The irony of showcasing such a secular history even as a structural campaign is being orchestrated against Muslims was lost on them.

As two majoritarian nationalisms blend violently in Assam, threats by fringe groups such as Gogoi’s loom darkly overhead.

[Greeshma Kuthar is an independent journalist and lawyer from Tamil Nadu. Her primary focus is investigating the evolving methods of the far right, their use of cultural nationalism regionally, and their attempts to assimilate caste identities into the RSS fold. Courtesy: Frontline magazine, a fortnightly English language magazine published by The Hindu Group of publications headquartered in Chennai, India.]