Road ahead for Indian Muslims

By Aijaz Zaka Syed “Where do we go from here?” asked a US-based Indian Muslim friend the morning after India lurched further to the right with the smooth passage of the Citizenship Amendment Bill. Yet another ostensibly wild and crazy idea on the Parivar’s agenda has been ticked off and with such ease.   Who would have thought that it would take less than 72 hours for the world’s largest democracy to dump the much-vaunted Idea of India? Out go the window all the blessed Gandhian ideals of inclusivity and tolerance and naïve Nehruvian notions of secularism, pluralism along with Dr B R Ambedkar’s much-celebrated secular Constitution and its absurd principles of equality before law. Clearly, as Orwell would have put it, all are equal in Indian democracy but some are more equal.
Modi’s BJP But give credit where it’s due. Only Modi’s BJP and its clever Parivar could have pulled off the impossible feat of selling indefensible legislation that so brazenly discriminates against Muslims as a law to save the “persecuted religious minorities” with a straight face.   Listening to the repeated interventions of Modi’s doppelgänger, Amit Shah, in Parliament you would be forgiven to think the BJP chief is perhaps the best friend and well-wisher religious minorities could have hoped for. Suave, soft spoken and ever reasonable, Shah repeatedly assured “our Muslim brothers and sisters” that they have nothing to fear but the fear itself.
What is most galling about this whole charade is the conduct of the so-called secular parties like the Janata Dal (United) of Nitish Kumar, YSR Congress and AIADMK, who chose to go with the BJP despite the openly discriminatory nature of this legislation.