Minorities

Latest National Family Health Survey (NFHS) data challenges stereotypes to reveal a declining trend in polygamy across religious communities in India, debunking prejudiced narratives oft spewed against religious minorities

Several recent videos of Muslims being forced to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’ while getting beaten, abused and humiliated have emerged.

United Christian Forum report provides alarming and increasing incidences of violence against Christians, lives lost in Manipur; meanwhile Union denies any accountability in the Supreme Court

Incidents of forced closure, threats, and intimidation against meat shop owners persist as vigilante groups belonging to Hindu extremist organisations run a campaign against meat.

Declining Representation of Muslim MPs in India raises serious questions about representation and voice for the marginalised in India given that the disturbing trends reveal that regions and seats, in parts of the country where Muslims are significant in number, are reported to have near zero representation of the community. 

One of India’s most highly regarded former Home Secretary says “secular Hindus are uncomfortable, frustrated” adding “and don’t know what should we do in Modi’s India”. Gopal Pillai said if the present treatment of Muslims is not checked and reversed then India could be 10 years away from danger point which he described as “civil disturbance”. At one point in the interview he even briefly accepted India could face “civil war”.

PM Modi has taken up the cause of ‘Pasmanda’ Muslims in order to woo them to the BJP fold in the run-up to the 2024 elections. Ironically, it was his government too that refused reservation benefits to Pasmanda Muslims and Dalit Christians: infamously the BJP’s official stand under Modi has been that, since “Islam and Christianity were egalitarian religions, did not have untouchability, hence no need to accord SC status to ‘Dalit Muslims’”

The Dalit Pasmanda Justice Collective (DPJC) has, in a tweet, strongly objected to a prevalent instance of casteism by the Puthoorpally Muslim Jama-ath" mosque in Changanassery, Kerala; a letter sent by the Secretary of the Masjid Committee directs exclusion of Dalits Muslims from a meeting, stating that “traditionally your ancestors were prohibited from attenting the general meeting”

This incident comes days after Maharashtra Assembly speaker had asked the state police to ensure there is no transportation of cattle from neighbouring states, no attack on 'gau rakshaks'

Muslim women are in favour of gender-just laws, but Muslim women’s groups recognise that the women have to contest both the Muslim Personal Law and the politics around the demonisation of everything that is Muslim.