Are we witnessing the steady marginalisation of Indian Muslims? Is it the case that politically they increasingly don’t count and in public life they increasingly don’t matter? As Najeeb Jung, the former Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, puts it, are Indian Muslims “knocking on the doors of being second-class citizens by the way they are being treated by the state”? I’m deliberately posing the issue as a set of questions, not as a statement. And I will not share my personal answer to these queries. Instead, I’ll give you the facts, as I see them, and leave you to decide for yourselves.

For the first time since Independence the Indian government doesn’t have a single Muslim minister. Indeed, the Bharatiya Janata Party doesn’t have a single elected Muslim MP in Parliament. These facts may be academic for many, but can you deny they have deep meaning for our Muslim brothers and sisters?

Of Bengal’s population, 27% is Muslim; in Assam, it is 34%. Yet, the BJP fought and won a two-thirds majority without fielding a........

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