Anti-Muslim rhetoric and violence increase in India

Tchachoy Yadav, Deputy Chief Minister of the Indian state of Bihar, accused officials of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of sabotaging India’s interests and its links with Arab and Islamic countries in light of extremist calls for boycotting and attacking Indian Muslims, according to media reports.

A wave of incitement and violence against the Muslim minority is escalating in India, which represents, for many, a major setback for what is described as the largest democracy in the world.

Many blame the rule of Prime Minister Narendra Modi of the Hindu Nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for increasing the rift and allowing extremists to take center stage, but the party denies this.

On the other hand, researchers say that hostility to the Muslim minority is at the core of the party’s ideology or the Hindu nationalist creed that today finds itself in power to the test of politics and secular rule according to the constitution.