'The New Hitler': Why 200 Million Muslims Fear the Outcome of India's Elections?

More than 200 million Muslims across India are eagerly awaiting the results of the general elections, which began on April 19, 2024, and will last for 44 days, conducted in 7 phases. With 969 million Indian voters heading to the polls to select 543 members for the federal parliament, and two additional members appointed to join, bringing the total membership to 545. The elections witness competition from 6 major national parties, 57 state-level parties, and 2597 smaller parties.

Known as the "world's largest," India's general elections involve nearly a billion participants. New Delhi has relied on electronic voting since 1999, saving time, especially during the vote-counting process. The expenditure for the 2024 elections exceeds $14 billion, a significant increase from the $8.7 billion spent in 2019.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his rivals have heated up their campaigns, focusing on contentious issues like religious discrimination, Muslim minorities, and taxation. Campaigns have intensified, with Modi and the opposition Congress Party clashing over sectarian issues.

Accusing the opposition of favoring the Muslim minority, Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) adopts an extreme Hindu agenda against Muslims. A BBC survey on April 18, 2024, indicated a lead for Modi's BJP and its allies.

The ruling party faces fierce competition from the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), which includes more than twenty opposition parties, including the Congress Party, which ruled the country for decades before the Bharatiya Janata Party, which came to power in 2014.

However, the BJP's progress, according to the BBC, is not due to democratic practices but other avenues.

Negative Vibes

Negativity prevails as opposition parties claim they've been denied equal opportunities due to federal law enforcement agencies' practices, including raids on many political leaders, especially Muslims. The opposition Congress Party stated that its bank accounts were frozen for six weeks, hampering its electoral campaign financing.

Some opposition leaders, including Chief Minister of Delhi Arvind Kejriwal, have been jailed to investigate corruption charges, which he denied, attributing the reason to undermining his chances of electoral success.

The other dilemma facing the opposition is that in recent years, the BJP has transitioned from being a party of the elite and upper classes to gaining popularity among India's middle and lower classes, solidifying its presence. Its leader, Modi, remains widely popular among the majority Hindu population, particularly its extremist factions, making his hostility towards Muslims more than just ideological but a key factor in his continued rule and vote acquisition.

This has significantly increased Modi's chances, with the opposition suffering significant disarray, despite coalescing in the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance with 28 parties, whose primary goal is to overthrow Modi's government.

Even before the current elections, this alliance has witnessed significant divisions regarding candidate nominations and the sharing of voting constituencies, weakening their chances of success. This led Indrajit Roy, a political science professor at York University, to tell the American site Alhurra on March 17, 2024, that there is a complete lack of vision and an inability to work together.

Meanwhile, a survey conducted by Pew Research Center in March 2024 showed that 80% of Hindu Indians have a positive view of Modi.

Theocratic State

On April 20, 2024, Deutsche Welle (DW) published its report on the general elections in India and their impact on minorities, including the largest minority in the country, the Muslim minority.

The report emphasized that since the re-election of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ten years ago, tensions between Hindus and the Muslim minority have escalated, especially as the party relies on a Hindu nationalist agenda that has previously helped it gain the favor of voters.

It noted that the party's extremist nationalist rhetoric not only threatens Muslims but also endangers secularism, which is a cornerstone of the country's constitution.

Clearly, India is heading towards becoming a "theocratic state" (a political term meaning rule by divine authority), especially if the BJP amends the constitution based on its majority.

Constitutional amendments represent one of the biggest fears in India, with possibilities of increasing suppression campaigns.

The opposition alliance, led by the BJP government, is accused of diverting India from democracy and failing to combat inflation and rising prices.

Enemy of Muslims

Modi primarily built his electoral campaign on targeting Muslims. In a speech to a large gathering in Rajasthan on April 14, he delivered a racially charged speech against Muslims, referring to them as "infiltrators" and "intruders" in the country.

He provocatively suggested that "the opposition party seeks to grant Muslims the right to the nation's wealth, so if they win the elections, the wealth will be distributed to those with the highest number of children, distributed among infiltrators," implicitly referring to Muslims.

"Do you think your hard-earned money should be given to infiltrators? Will you accept that?" he asked.

In January 2024, Modi began his election campaign by inaugurating the Rama Temple, built on the ruins of the historic Babri Masjid, in one of the most provocative steps to incite the feelings of the Muslim minority in the country.

At that time, Pakistani political analyst specializing in Indian affairs, Huzaifah Farid, posted on X (formerly Twitter), stating that the inauguration of the Rama temple is closely linked to the general elections, which are crucial in Indian history.

It is a message to the Hindu voter and an attempt to win them over by shedding the blood of Muslims and encroaching on their mosques and sanctuaries, as he said.

'New Hitler'

Modi's racist policy against Muslims can be traced back to his upbringing steeped in Hindu nationalism.

Born on September 17, 1950, in Gujarat, Modi was influenced by Hindu nationalism during his youth when he joined the quasi-military organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

In the 1970s, Modi emerged as a supporter of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, an extremist right-wing Hindu social movement.

In 2001, he led the government of Gujarat, representing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). During his tenure, riots erupted between Hindus and Muslims, resulting in the deaths of over a thousand, mostly Muslims.

In one of the country's worst instances of violence, Muslims accused Modi of failing to do enough to stop the crimes against them. The United States and the European Union even boycotted Modi at the time for his refusal to apologize for the crimes in Gujarat.

On July 15, 2012, The Times of India quoted Keshubhai Patel, a veteran Indian politician and former Chief Minister of Gujarat, likening Modi to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

The similarities between Modi and Hitler lie in the theory of "Aryan race," with extremist Hindus believing India was the land of the Aryans, termed "Aryavarta." Modi believes that Indians are a unified people descended from the Aryan race and that India is only for Hindus.

In July 2013, Modi sparked widespread outrage when he likened Muslims who fell victim to Hindu violence to "puppies" crushed by cars on the streets.

Extremist Party

To understand the rising fear from the current 2024 election results, we need to look back at the previous 2019 elections and their implications.

On May 24, 2019, after legislative elections marked by unprecedented competition spanning seven phases, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) achieved a historic victory under Modi's leadership, solidifying the nationalist movement's control over India's political system.

One of the BJP's key strategies to garner Hindu votes was to highlight the alleged marginalization and exclusion of Hindus from decision-making circles over decades of Congress Party dominance. Modi was accused of favoring Muslims over Hindu beliefs (as seen in the 2024 elections).

Advertising campaigns linked voting for the party with protecting Hindu beliefs, leading to the establishment of over 45,000 branches of the extremist Hindu nationalist organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh across states to rally Hindu voters for the party.

On April 5, 2023, Human Rights Watch accused the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of using Hindu festivals to incite violence against Muslims.

The organization stated that the BJP increasingly exploits these religious festivals to rally supporters for violence and incitement against Muslims, calling on authorities to investigate violations and hold perpetrators accountable.

Human Rights Watch affirmed that Hindu protesters' encouragement of violence against Muslims stems from their sense of political protection, which grants them impunity, pointing to the ruling BJP as a sponsor of continuing violations.

It cited records showing that Muslims are often unjustly targeted by authorities, with the ruling party's agencies failing to deter incitement and Hindu assaults and instead punishing targeted Muslims by demolishing their properties, arresting them, or subjecting them to public flogging.

Human Rights Watch criticized Hindus brandishing weapons and chanting anti-Muslim slogans as they pass through Muslim neighborhoods during Hindu religious festivals, with the latest being the Ram Navami festival, coinciding this year with the holy month of Ramadan.

It also condemned sectarian violence erupting in Bihar state in the east, resulting in injuries and dozens of arrests, where a crowd of Hindus set fire to the Madrassa Azizia, founded over a century ago.

Human Rights Watch described India as a "dictatorial state" due to escalating violence against minorities and the suppression of Muslim civilians.