The crucial Budget session is going on in Parliament. The Trump Administration is daily humiliating India and hurting India's economic interests. Even as Elon Musk and his economic empire are facing a huge backlash in the US, the Modi government is spreading out the red carpet for Musk's ventures in India. The share market is inflicting massive losses on investors in India while foreign investors are migrating to more stable and profitable markets in other countries. Yet there is little public discourse around this looming economic crisis and the Modi government's spineless capitulation to US imperialism as India has been plunged deeper into anti-Muslim hate and violence by the Sangh brigade and the Godi media with fuel supplied by Bollywood.
Ever since the BJP managed to secure a dubious victory in Maharashtra, the Sangh brigade has been working overtime to turn the state into a laboratory of hate. For quite some time the BJP has been systematically whipping up anti-Muslim frenzy by vilifying the sixth Mughal emperor Aurangzeb who had been in power more than three centuries ago. The recently released Bollywood blockbuster Chhava, which elaborately picturises the brutal killing of Shivaji's son and the second Maratha ruler Shambhaji by Aurangzeb, added fuel to this fire. Several BJP ministers and leaders including CM Devendra Fadnavis have also helped promote this frenzy of hate by making frequent statements against Aurangzeb and endorsing the demand for removal of his tomb. And this has finally led to the first instance of communal violence in Nagpur, which is also the Maharashtra CM's own constituency.
History tells us that back then Shivaji's descendants had no problem with Aurangzeb's tomb or other Mughal monuments. There are records of Shambhaji Maharaj's son Shahu I, the fifth Chhatrapati of the Maratha Empire, visiting Aurangzeb's tomb to pay his respects and even commissioning a mosque in memory of Aurangzeb's daughter Zinat-un-Nissa (Begum Masjid of Satara). The relationship between the Maratha and Mughal empires was not one of blind unmitigated conflict, it was much more nuanced where clashes coexisted with collaboration, and war did not permanently disrupt diplomacy. Mughal monuments were not destroyed by the Maratha rulers. But today the Sangh brigade is busy rewriting the Maratha history and redefining the Maratha legacy and identity on the basis of contemporary calculations of Islamophobia.
The heightened hate campaign targeting Aurangzeb's tomb and the entire Mughal legacy - the history of Mughal rulers is being obliterated from the history syllabus - is part and parcel of the Sangh brigade's orchestrated anti-Muslim agenda that increasingly targets the Muslim community over every aspect of life and livelihood. Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh are the key laboratories of this hate politics where with every passing day new excuses are being discovered and new tools of oppression are being developed. Even as tension continues to simmer in violence-hit Sambhal in UP, a relentless campaign is on to target more mosques and mausoleums or dargahs across the country. And this year even the celebration of Holi was turned into a toxic hate campaign against Muslims by pitting Holi against the Jumma prayers.
Instead of ensuring a peaceful Holi celebration, DSP Anuj Chaudhary of Sambhal asked Muslims to stay indoors. His call was quickly endorsed by Yogi Adityanath, and set the tone for provocative hate speeches and acts across north India. In Sambhal mosques were covered with tarpaulin sheets and BJP leaders taunted Muslims by asking them to protect themselves with tarpaulin robes. With the police looking away, teams of Holi revellers even felt empowered to throw mud at Muslim funeral processions. It took a lot of courage for people from both Hindu and Muslim communities to display sanity and celebrate harmony in this hate-filled toxic environment. Dalits too found themselves at the receiving end of feudal violence in the name of Holi. In Bihar's Aurangabad district a Dalit minor girl Komal Paswan was reportedly crushed to death for refusing to accept colours.
The Modi government's legislative agenda is aimed at legitimising this campaign of hate and violence on the street. To take two examples, the Uniform Civil Code which has already become law in Uttarakhand and the Waqf Amendment Bill which is awaiting parliamentary passage will make Muslims vulnerable to a permanent climate of fear, insecurity and persecution. The Uttarakhand model of UCC threatens the constitutionally protected freedom for two adult individuals to have interfaith and intercaste marriages or enter into live-in relationships of their own choice. And the Waqf Amendment Bill, if made into law, will effectively subject the entire Waqf board jurisdiction over Muslim charitable properties, mosques and mausoleums to state control.
It is such a shocking irony of history that today when the world is celebrating the return of Indian-American astronaut Sunita Williams and Butch Willmore from their extended space mission to earth, the Sangh brigade is pushing India into its hate-filled politics of excavation. The nondescript tomb of an emperor who had passed away more than three hundred years ago has become the focal point for the world's most populous country in 2025 which languishes at the lowest rung of every major gobal index of social progress and people's welfare. Let us remember that communal hate was one of the biggest colonial weapons to keep India in subjugation for two centuries before subjecting it to the trauma of Partition. The replication of this colonial era strategy of 'divide and rule' can only be a recipe for disaster. India must steer clear of this dangerous trap by all means.
