India Insights: The BJP’s Multi-Faceted Relationship with Indian Muslims
Reuters Amit Dev
A few days ago, Narendra Modi was accused of hate speech by calling Muslims “infiltrators" during a campaign rally in the Indian state of Rajasthan. In this rally, Modi said:
“When they (the Congress) were in power, they said Muslims have first right over resources. They will gather all your wealth and distribute it among those who have more children. They will distribute among infiltrators.” “Do you think your hard-earned money should be given to infiltrators? Would you accept this?”
(Video is in Hindi)
In response, opposition members requested that the Indian Election Commission investigate whether Modi breached the code of conduct. Mallikarjun Kharge, the INC president, called this remark “hate speech.” Asaduddin Owaisi said that “common Hindus are made to fear Muslims while their wealth is being used to enrich others.” In response, however, Tom Vadakkan, the BJP spokesperson, said that this was misinterpreted and that Modi was merely talking about “infiltrators,” not fellow compatriots.
This incident only adds to the narrative in the Western media (and some elements of Indian media) that Modi is Islamophobic, and some argue he is an outright “fascist.” For example, in an interview with the French media outlet Le Monde, Indian writer Arundhati Roy stressed that the BJP is a fascist party, especially given the history that parties such as the RSS openly admired Hitler, Mussolini, and other fascist parties in Europe.
While it is true that the RSS has ideological inspirations from the Nazis and communal violence exists, this narrative ignores the complex nature of Indian politics since the “Indian Muslim” community is not homogenous.
The Shi’a-BJP “Alliance”
One indication of the complexity of the BJP's relationship with Muslims is the “alliance” with India’s Shi’a Muslims. Shi’a Muslims are a sect of Islam and constitute about 10% of all Muslims worldwide. The countries that have a majority Shi’a population are Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan, and Bahrain. Additionally, there is a significant Shi’a population in Lebanon, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. In India, Shi’a make up about 15% of India’s entire Muslim population, and some estimates show that India has the second largest Shi’a population after Iran. Within India, the city of Lucknow, in Uttar Pradesh, has the highest population of Shi’a and is considered the central of Shi’a culture and politics.
Since the 1990s, the BJP has made inroads into the Shi’a population, but despite the image of the BJP being Hindu nationalist, it hasn’t deterred some Shi’a from supporting the BJP, such as Maluna Kalbe Jawad, a Shi’a cleric from Lucknow.
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In 2017, Jawad, said “No party has played with the Muslims more than the Congress. No party has been worse for the Muslims,” said Jawad. Referring to the SP-Congress alliance, he said, “I would say that voting for the BJP is better than voting for these two parties.” Later, in 2023, he supported the BJP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath by saying
“All previous governments never bothered to take care and uplift the Shia community, which is the most backward among all as per Sachar committee report. We firmly believe that only the BJP government can uplift the community which has been loyal to the party and will continue to be.”
This cleric supported Adityanath even though Adityanath has said statements such as Muslims did India “no favour” by choosing to stay after partition, in addition to other statements and actions that targeted Muslims.
Similarly, during the 2019 elections, Bukku Nawab who heads the Rashtriya Shi’a Samaj (also known as RSS), said that the Shi’a will support Modi during the elections and aside from the BJP, no other party has cared for the Shi’a.
A critical reason why some Shias vote for the BJP is due to their place as being a “minority within a minority.” As Akhilesh Pillalamarri explains in an article for The Diplomat,
“Shia alienation from the Sunni-dominated Islamic world has made individual Shias more likely to throw their lot in with the BJP and adopt an more India-centric approach to politics, rather than an approach that focuses on the global Muslim community.”
Similarly, Javid Beigh said that:
“The separatist movement in Kashmir is primarily for establishment of radical Sunni Muslim Caliphate on lines of what ISIS has done in the Middle East or what Taliban did in Afghanistan.” This fear drives much of the Shia population to support the Indian Government’s actions in Kashmir.”
Additionally, regarding Kashmir, it is quite noteworthy that after 3 decades, the Indian government lifted a ban on Muharram (another important religious day for Shi’a) in Kashmir after it was banned in the late 1980s due to rising violence in the region.
Many will argue that Shi’a clerics like Jawad are merely “window dressing” by the BJP, and this cleric doesn't represent the actual opinions of Shi’a Muslims. However, while it is true that the Shi’a clerics in Lucknow do not represent the entire Shi’a living in India, at the same time, many of Jawad’s other statements and beliefs don’t represent the positions of the BJP either. For example, after the U.S. assassinated the Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, Jawad protested that move and called Soleimani a “martyr,” and argued that Donald Trump should be tried in the international court for this crime. In fact, rather than doing the “bidding” for the BJP, this cleric has been alleged to be receiving money from the Iranians, according to the 2006 diplomatic cables leak.
Regardless of whether or not Jawad is an “Iranian agent,” it illustrates that despite the differences the Shi’a and the BJP have, it is mutually beneficial for their political agendas to make an “alliance” with each other.
The Banning of the Triple Talaaq
Raj K Raj - Hindustan Times/Getty images
Another instance that illustrated the extremely nuanced relationship between the BJP and the Indian Muslim community is the triple talaq issue. In 2017, the Supreme Court of India outlawed the practice of “triple talaq,” which is when a Muslim man can divorce his wife by saying “talaq” three times. (Talaaq means divorce in Arabic). Later, in 2019, this practice was criminalized by the Indian parliament, and in response, the law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said “This is a historic day, the injustice that was going on with Muslim women, India’s parliament has given them justice.” Modi commended the parliament for ending this “archaic and medieval practice” and correcting a “historical wrong.”
Just recently, Modi has continued to reference the decision to end this practice and criticized the Congress Party, by saying:
“You (Congress) never dared to stop triple talaq due to vote-bank politics. But, I am not worried about the vote bank. I don't run the country on the basis of victory or defeat in elections. I just wanted to give security to my Muslim daughters. I was able to save the lives of lakhs of women and their families with that decision.”
Muslim women long complained about this practice and the movement to end this accelerated in 2016, when Shayara Bano received a letter from her husband that he was divorcing her when she was visiting her parents. However, she was unable to reach him and was denied access to her children. Consequently, she filed a petition to the court, demanding to end this practice since it allowed Muslim men to treat their wives like “chattels.” Additionally, she accused her in-laws of making her have 6 abortions and causing her mental and physical stress.
In another incident, Ishrat Jahan, a woman living in West Bengal received a phone call from her husband in 2015 informing her that he divorced her. He allegedly married another woman and took custody of their four children. In response, Jahan said:
“I don't accept the talaq by phone. I want justice. I want my three daughters and one son back from my husband who snatched them away and I want maintenance for their upbringing. That's why I have gone to court. I will fight to the finish.”
There have been countless other examples of Muslim women experiencing the same situation as Shayara and Ishrat.
After the government outlawed this practice, some Muslim groups have argued that this “demonizes Muslim men” and interferes with domestic affairs. Others, such as Kavita Krishnan, insisted that this bill was discriminatory since it only targeted Muslim men for abandoning their wives, not Hindu men.
However, many Muslim women’s rights organizations hailed this decision. The Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA) said this was “long overdue,” and argued that religion was being used to justify the subjugation of women. Importantly, many Muslim-majority countries have outlawed this practice, such as Türkiye, Egypt, Lebanon, and even Pakistan.
As stated above, discrimination against Muslims exists, such as telling Muslims to “go to Pakistan.” However, despite these instances, according to a survey conducted in 2020 by the Pew Research Center, about 89% of Muslims said that they are “very free to practice their faith,” and about 95% said that they are proud to be Indian, which indicates the resilience of religious pluralism in India regardless of which political party holds office.
