India’s treatment of its Muslim minority has entered a perilous new phase, evolving from isolated executive actions to a systemic, institutionalized project rooted in legal and bureaucratic mechanisms. This strategy aims to criminalize religious identity, disenfranchise communities, and suppress dissent, potentially normalizing exclusionary policies under the guise of legality, thus threatening constitutional safeguards and democratic pluralism.
A recent example of judicial impunity was the acquittal of Hindu nationalist leader SadhviPragya Thakur and six others in the 2008 Malegaon mosque bombing case. This verdict, following a trial marred by allegations of a weakened prosecution, highlights the growing asymmetry in justice application faced by Muslim activists in the wake of aggressive prosecution under stringent anti-terror laws, while cases of violence against Muslims increasingly end in exoneration.
In Bihar, the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter rolls, presented as an administrative update, is seen by civil rights organizations as potentially a covert implementation of the National Register of Citizens (NRC). This process, particularly severe in the Muslim-majority Seemanchal region, appears to be designed to disenfranchise millions, especially Muslims, through onerous documentation requirements. This bureaucratic approach, again, strategically achieves exclusionary outcomes similar to the politically contentious national NRC.
Concertedly, legislation continues to advance draconian laws. For example, Uttar Pradesh’s amended anti-conversion law, passed in 2024, introduces penalties up to life imprisonment and allows third-party complaints, effectively criminalizing religious freedom and empowering vigilante groups. Proceedings in the Indian Supreme Court have highlighted the highly undemocratic aspects of this law. Meanwhile, the pushback campaign of deporting Bengali-speaking Muslims continues, with a Human Rights Watch report documenting the expulsion of over 1,500 people, many of whom are Indian citizens, and detailing abuses by security forces, elevating the issue to an international human rights crisis.
Under BJP rule, India’s legal and administrative systems are being systematically co-opted to disempower and endanger its largest minority, the Muslims.
● The state’s campaign against Muslims has shifted into a systemic war waged through its own legal and administrative institutions.
● A two-tiered justice system grants impunity to Hindu nationalists while using anti-terror laws to criminalize Muslim faith and activism.
● Narrative is Leverage: Winning the global narrative requires institutionalized,
evidence-based lobbying through think tanks, academia, and media, not just
activism.
● Administrative tactics, like voter roll revisions in Bihar, are being used as a backdoor NRC to disenfranchise millions of Muslims.
● The forcible expulsion of Bengali-speaking Muslims, including Indian citizens, continues and is now documented as a human rights violation by International Human Rights organizations.
● This assault is fueled by an ecosystem of hate, driven by engineered violence, crisis and inflammatory rhetoric from top government and political officials.