Rising insecurity among muslims in India

The dissenting religious voices in India under the incumbent BJP led NDA government headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi are upset to see the majority community, Hindus having a sense of belongingness, ownership and entitlement and the single largest minority community, muslims feeling insecure due to rising intolerance instigated by the fanatic hindu communalist affiliates of the ruling BJP at the centre. The rising intolerance in India under the Modi is not a trivial issue but a rising concerns for the minorities particularly muslims in India. Though muslims constitute 12 -14% of the total population in India, but on almost every measure of success — number of Muslims in the IAS, the police, and the army; the number of Muslim-owned companies in the top 500 Indian firms; the percentage of Muslim CEOs or even, national newspaper editors — they lag far behind their statistical entitlements. The educational backwardness and proportionately lesser role of muslims in public institutions are the two basic issues left unattended by the previous government and the Congress party having ruled the country almost for more than sixty year is responsible for the educational backwardness and proportionately very lesser role of muslims in institution connection to governance and socio-economic upbringing of the generations. This in fact shows increasing alienation of the muslims from the Indian mainstream under the present Modi government. Once Farooq Abdullah the three time former Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir the only muslim majority state of the country and son of Shiekh Mohammad Abdullah the man responsible for the accession of Jammu & Kashmir with India once in an interview said “You have a muslim name and they think you are a terrorist till you prove otherwise”. For an ordinary muslim it is very difficult to be an outspoken liberal in the middle of this alienation particularly under the present Modi government which is not allowing attacks by cow vigilantes on muslims running cow slaughter outlets within and outside Jammu & Kashmir state.
The religious intolerance brewing up in rest of the country is also showing rising tendencies in Jammu region where the ratio of the hindu and muslim population is according to rough estimates believed to be 60:40. The inaction of police against the goons responsible for rape and murder of a Bakerwal minor girl in a village in Kathua district last month is by all standards of understandabilities shows the increasing tendency of religious polarization even in the law enforcement institutions obliged to punish the criminals for the purposes of smooth working of the justice delivery system. So much is the influence of polarizations on institutional working that Mehbooba government preferred the survival of its alliance with BJP than contemplating action against the police officer including district SP Kathua and the Dy SP of the area in whose administrative jurisdiction the rape and murder of the girl took place. Only after a huge uproar in the assembly presently in session the Mehbooba government ordered the suspension of the SHO. Keeping in view the helplessness of the Chief Minister of muslim majority state in taking a routine law and order decision over the demand of the opposition for the suspension of just two police officers, the increasing tendency of the state and the central governments to run law enforcement institutions is the reason of growing insecurity brewing up among muslim in India including muslim majority Jammu & Kashmir state.