Strain on Indian secularism

Once citizens begin seeing each other primarily as Hindus and Muslims rather than fellow Indians, constitutional secularism becomes hollowed out from within

The most revealing political statement post elections this month has come from a newly elected BJP MLA in West Bengal, Ritesh Tiwari, who told an audience: “They didn’t vote for me, I won’t work for them,” referring to Muslim voters. An elected representative in a constitutional democracy was effectively suggesting that governance and citizenship rights should now depend on religious voting patterns.

What should have caused national outrage instead passed with barely a ripple. And perhaps that is the most worrying part of all. Because what we are witnessing in India today is not merely communal politics – India has seen that before. What we are witnessing is the normalisation of communal politics. Statements that would once have ended political careers are now shrugged off as routine election rhetoric. Open religious mobilisation is no longer whispered from the shadows; it is increasingly performed in broad daylight.

Which is why Union minister Kiren Rijiju describing the Congress as “the new Muslim League” must also be seen in this larger context. This was not merely a partisan attack. It reflected a deeper shift in political language itself. The argument goes something like this: Because Muslim candidates have won elections under the Congress banner in states like Assam and West Bengal, the Congress has somehow become a communal party.

Yes, in Assam, 18 of the Congress’ 19 MLAs are Muslims. Yes, both Congress MLAs in Bengal are Muslims. And yes, in Kerala, the Congress ally, the Indian Union Muslim League, remains electorally influential. But here is the inconvenient fact that gets buried beneath the rhetoric: across India, the Congress still has more than 650 MLAs, the overwhelming majority of them non-Muslims. So what exactly makes it a “Muslim League”?

The answer lies not in arithmetic but in political messaging. The objective is to make Muslim political representation itself appear suspect. The moment Muslims win elections in visible numbers under a mainstream opposition banner, the party is branded communal. Minority representation becomes de-legitimised while majoritarian consolidation is projected as nationalism. This inversion is profoundly dangerous.

Take Himanta Biswa Sarma, whose politics increasingly revolves around sharp Hindu-Muslim polarisation. Or Suvendu Adhikari in Bengal, who openly appeals to Hindus outside polling booths and thanks Hindus after electoral victories. Imagine for one second the reaction if an opposition leader appealed exclusively to Muslims outside a polling station. There would be primetime outrage, accusations of communalism and endless lectures on secularism. But majoritarian communalism today is often packaged as cultural pride or electoral realism. The danger lies precisely in this double standard.

India’s founders rejected the two-nation theory in 1947 because they believed religion could not define citizenship. India consciously chose another path: a secular republic where every citizen, irrespective of faith, enjoyed equal constitutional rights. That constitutional compact is now under strain.

Critics often ask: why should the burden of protecting secularism fall disproportionately on Hindus? Why are Muslims increasingly voting for Muslim candidates? Could a Hindu realistically win in a Muslim-majority constituency today? These are legitimate questions. But the answer lies in recognising a simple political reality: in a country where Hindus constitute nearly 80% of the population, only a confident and secure Hindu majority can prevent India from sliding into majoritarian nationalism. To put it bluntly, only secular Hindus can ensure India never becomes a Hindu Pakistan.

And let us not pretend the crisis of secularism began with the BJP alone. So-called secular parties made two historic mistakes. First, they often treated Muslims as a fixed deposit vote bank instead of empowering them socially or economically. Whether it was the Congress overturning the Shah Bano case judgment under pressure from conservative Muslim clerics, or regional parties cultivating Muslim insecurity through symbolic politics, the message frequently was: vote for us because we will protect you from the Hindu right. Protection became politics. Empowerment rarely followed. Even in Bengal, where Mamata Banerjee consolidated large sections of the Muslim vote for over a decade, the average Muslim’s socio-economic condition did not dramatically improve. Muslims may have felt politically protected, but protection alone cannot substitute for genuine development.

The second mistake the secular parties made was equally damaging. Terrified of losing Hindu votes to the BJP, they often tried to compete on soft Hindutva terrain instead of defending secularism with conviction. Remember Rajiv Gandhi opening the locks of the Babri Masjid site in the 1980s. Or Rahul Gandhi temple-hopping during the Gujarat campaign in 2017. Once secular parties themselves began signalling the need to flaunt Hindu credentials, the ideological battle had already shifted decisively.

Into that vacuum stepped identity politics from both sides. Leaders like Asaduddin Owaisi and the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen have built their politics around Muslim political assertion and grievance. Many young Muslims, feeling politically cornered, are increasingly drawn towards explicitly Muslim identity-based politics. And thus the vicious cycle deepens.

Hindu majoritarian rhetoric creates insecurity among minorities. Minority insecurity strengthens Muslim identity politics. That, in turn, is used to justify even sharper Hindu polarisation. Both sides feed off each other. Meanwhile, the constitutional centre keeps shrinking.

Perhaps the clearest sign of this shift is how religious identity increasingly determines political acceptability itself. Years ago, an A R Antulay could become chief minister of Maharashtra. In 1989, Arif Mohammad Khan won from Hindu-dominated Kanpur on a Congress ticket while another Muslim candidate emerged runner-up. Would such outcomes be imaginable today?

In fact, in a country with over 200 million Muslims, not a single state has a Muslim chief minister (J&K remains downsized as a Union territory despite the promise of statehood), 18 states don’t even have a Muslim minister, the BJP won a two-third majority in West Bengal, a state with a 28% Muslim population, without a single Muslim MLA in its ranks and after three terms in power, the BJP doesn’t have even one Muslim MP in the Lok Sabha. It is almost as if the Muslim is being ‘invisibilised’ in political India by the relentless march of Hindutva.

(Rajdeep Sardesai is a senior journalist and author.)