‘Gujarat Ka Lalla’

The 2024 General Elections are being held in India in seven phases to elect 543 members of the lower house, referred to as Lok Sabha. The legislative assembly elections in Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Sikkim, and Arunachal Pradesh, along with by-elections for 25 constituencies in 12 legislative assemblies, will also be held simultaneously. Narendra Damodardas Modi, the incumbent Prime Minister and the supreme leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is running for a third consecutive term, thanks to his massive popularity among the predominantly Hindu electorate.

However, questions are being raised, particularly about the future of the country’s religious minorities, particularly Muslims—India’s largest minority of over 200 million people. Although the state of Muslims has never been ideal after the country’s independence from British rule in 1947, the stellar rise of a right-wing populist as well as a staunch RSS activist in the premiership of the world’s largest democracy has not been auspicious for Muslims who happen to be the world’s most persecuted religious minority after the displaced Rohingyas of Myanmar. Boasting a political edifice that revels in raising ‘Jai Shri Ram,’ now a murderous chant to kill Muslims, the Modi-led dispensation does not shy away from its anti-Muslim rhetoric and often stoops to the extent of comparing their fellow Muslim citizens to ‘puppies,’ ‘infiltrators,’ ‘invaders,’ ‘child-producing machines,’ ‘cancer,’ ‘Jews of Germany,’ ‘nali ka kida,’ ‘terrorists,’ and the rest of the hateful analogies and similes one could dare use out in the open. Several petitions have been filed against mosques, suspected cow traders are lynched at the hands of Hindu vigilante mobs, and burqa and hijab-clad women are harassed and humiliated. Mainstream media outlets fuel Islamophobia day and night with concocted accusations of ‘jihad,’ ‘land jihad,’ ‘jungle jihad,’ and notably, ‘love jihad,’ falsely accusing Muslim men of converting young Hindu women by marriage.

In a Hindu-dominant India, Muslims are deprived of due representation in public employment and are bereft of any political representation in the legislative process with no likelihood of any improvement considering the unstoppable rise of Modi-led sarkar. Contrary to popular belief, the likes of Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Kahan, Aamir Khan, Javed Akhtar, Shabana Azmi, Muhammad Shami, Sania Mirza, and the rest do not represent the real India as the plight of Indian Muslims lurks under the debris of Babri Mosque along with many other Muslim religious sites being bulldozed by the BJP government. Yet again, the ‘Gujarat’s Beloved,’ fondly dubbed ‘Gujarat Ka Lalla’ by the local populace, will expectedly be gifted another 4-year term. Howling like a proverbial banshee, the morning of June 4, when the results of the general elections will be announced, will pose no less than a doomsday scenario for the religious minorities of India, particularly Muslims. One hopes Narendra Modi, one of the most celebrated leaders among millions of Indians, can live for a long time. Still, he must exhibit some statesmanship and exude a tad grace to elicit equal respect from the country’s minorities, too. No doubt, he has the potential to become a great leader well-liked both by Indians and the rest of the world. But to attain this stature, he should behave like one!