addressing-persecution-complex-among-indian-minorities

There has been phenomenal growth in the population of minorities in India, particularly among the Muslims. The percentage of Muslim population in India in 1947 was 9.8 per cent. After 77 years of independence, the Muslim population percentage is 14.22. But a perception is being created, particularly since 2014, after the Bharatiya Janata Party government came to power, that minorities were being persecuted. A ‘persecution complex’ has developed among different minorities, seeking to make everyone believe that India is no longer safe for the minorities, even though such perception is not backed with any corroborative evidence. Rather, the evidence is quite contrary to the narrative of minorities being unsafe and under threat.

 

There are deliberate attempts to peddle such a narrative. When Col Sophia Qureshi was chosen to brief the national and international media over India’s strikes on Pakistan terror bases, it was described as “mere optics” by someone highly educated and privileged and whose family was earlier a staunch supporter of Pakistan. At the time of partition, they went to Pakistan but returned to India after getting disillusioned there.

 

It is a fact that communal riots have taken place in India where minorities have suffered a lot. There have been incidents like the 1984 anti-Sikh Delhi riots and 2002 Gujarat riots. Even lynching of some of the minority community members have taken place. But those are rare aberrations and not a general rule. Culprits have been duly punished. It may have taken time, but the rule of law does eventually prevail. Moreover, there is no institutional discrimination, leave aside persecution of any sort, seen anywhere.

 

Imagine how minorities live in India? Some would even suggest that they live like “second class citizens”. Had that been the case, their population rate would not be the highest. They wouldn’t be asserting themselves as aggressively as they do it in India. Members of the minority community openly call for beheadings of those they feel have insulted Prophet Mohammad. One tailor in Rajasthan belonging to the “majority” community was lynched for only extending his support to a person who had been accused of having insulted Prophet Mohammad.

 

Racial killings take place in a country like the United States also. But nobody says that the racial minorities are unsafe or under threat there. Obviously, no lynching, for that matter, no killing in any manner, should be acceptable in any civilised society. And it is not acceptable in India, either.

 

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There are organisations and institutions, which play and blow up issues to fit in and fan the narrative of “minority persecution”.

 

Take the example of two gangsters who were killed in Uttar Pradesh, where the government has launched a ruthless war against organised crime. One gangster belonged to an “upper caste” Hindu community and another was a Muslim. First was Vikas Dubey, who along with his henchmen killed several cops when they raided his hideout in UP. He died in a “police encounter”, within a few days. Nobody raised any questions.

Then there was another gangster, equally dreaded. His name was Atiq Ahmed, a Muslim. He, like Dubey, was killed while he was under police escort, being taken back to jail. But his killing was described as the planned killing of a “Muslim”, while in Dubey’s case it was celebrated as a killing of a dreaded gangster. This narrative was peddled by those sitting in Delhi and belonging to a particular ecosystem. There were otherwise no sympathies for Atiq from his own community members who were equally his victims.

 

Another example being cited is that there are no Muslim MPs in the Lok Sabha from the BJP. The party gave tickets during the last Lok Sabha to a very few Muslims and none of them could win. But how many people from amongst the Muslims do vote for the BJP? There is rather a blunt and general opposition to vote “against” the BJP, no matter for whom you may end up voting.

 

It is something similar that happened with the Congress during the freedom struggle. The Muslims boycotted the Congress ‘en masse’ and preferred the Muslim League of India. During that time, the Muslims would describe the Congress as a Hindu communal party. Only the Muslim community in North West Frontier Province under the leadership of Khan Abdul Gafar Khan supported the Congress. Though Punjabi Muslims did not support the Muslim League, they did not support the Congress either and instead they supported the Unionist Party.

 

While the onus on reaching out to the minorities and addressing their insecurities and persecution complex does definitely lie on the government, the leaders and representatives of the minority community also need to introspect as how fair it is to blindly oppose one political party that has been voted to power multiple times, and recently thrice in a row. Rejecting that party on the mere perception that it is communal or anti-minority will do no good to them. After all, the majority of the Indian electorate has voted that party to power. And that majority cannot be communal and anti-minority. Had that been the case, the situation on the ground would not be what it is otherwise.

 

How many people belonging to the minority community have sought asylum in a foreign country to escape “persecution” in India? Possibly none. Though Punjab is a different story, where people keen to emigrate abroad have used the “asylum” route, after having failed the normal route. And all those who took permanent residences or citizenship in different countries, want to visit India. Nobody would like to visit a place s/he has been persecuted in. Have there been any Muslim refugees from India having sought shelter or protection anywhere else? Rather, the Muslim refugees from Myanmar have sought refuge in India to escape persecution there. Majority of them did not go to Bangladesh, a Muslim majority country and geographically closer to Myanmar than India.

 

Magnifying an isolated incident and blowing it out of proportion to prove that minorities are persecuted in India has become a routine. Anyone cross-checking or fact-checking would be damned as one belonging to the ‘godi media’, a derogatory term used to describe those who do not buy the fake narrative.