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https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2022/05/narendra-modi-india-religion-hindu-nationalism/630169/

When the british withdrew from the Indian subcontinent in 1947, paving the way for the independence of the newly partitioned nations of India and Pakistan, the Muslims of the region had a choice. They could resettle in Pakistan, where they would be among a Muslim majority, or remain in India, where they would live as a minority in a majority-Hindu but constitutionally secular state. For Shah Alam Khan, whose great-grandparents were among the roughly 35 million Muslims who opted to live on the Indian side of the Radcliffe Line in the aftermath of Partition, his familys decision was in many ways a political gamble. They didnt want to go to a theocratic state, Khan told me from his home in Delhi. Indeed, when Pakistan finally adopted a constitution, nine years after Partition, it enshrined Islam as the state religion. For his family, the promise of a pluralist India, as envisaged by the countrys founders, trumped the warnings of the pro-Partition Muslim League (which went on to become the party of Pakistans founders) that a Muslim minority would inevitably be subordinate to the Hindu majority. Seventy-five years later, those warnings have gained a new prescience. For Indian Muslims, in particular, the situation is dire. During the recently passed holy month of Ramadan, they saw their houses and shops bulldozed, their businesses boycotted, and their religious gatherings heckled by Hindu-nationalist mobs.

Open calls for genocide against Muslims have become commonplace, as have violent clashes and lynchings. Although the authorities generally avoid the appearance of explicitly endorsing these kinds of actions, they rarely go out of their way to condemn them. A recent open letter signed by more than 100 former civil servants accused the Indian government of being fully complicit in the subordination of the countrys religious minorities as well as in the undermining of the countrys constitution. Whenever I used to go meet my mom, she used to give me food, Khan said. But ever since [Modi] came to power, she stopped giving me that food, because a large part of that food used to be meat. Cows are considered sacred to the Hindu faith, and their slaughter has been proscribed in most statesa rule often enforced by vigilante mobs. If Khan were stopped by a hostile crowd on suspicion of carrying beef, his mother feared, he could be arrested, even lynched. Akifwho asked to be identified by only his first name for fear of persecutiongrew up in what he describes as comfortable circumstances in Aligarh, southwest of Delhi. But that comfort has slipped in recent years. He wont leave home wearing traditional Islamic attire if he is going to an unfamiliar neighborhood. His wife, who works in academia, has been asked by colleagues about why she wears a hijab, the Muslim headscarf, and why she doesnt work at an Islamic institution. Some of the most incendiary comments, Akif says, have come from people he considered friends. These restrictions, compounded by public debates at the local, state, and even national levels over whether Muslim students should be allowed to wear headscarves in school or how loudly mosques should broadcast the call to prayer (known as the azaan), have left many Indian Muslims feeling unwelcome in their own country. Initially, they came for our dietary habits, now the azaan, Rana Ayyub, an Indian Muslim journalist and author, told me. Every day you wake up and its like, Okay, what part of our identity are you going to attack today?