THE rising tide of hatred against Muslims is no longer a fringe phenomenon in the contemporary landscape of Indian democracy; it is being spread systemically through the very institutions meant to protect constitutional equality. From the normalization of inflammatory rhetoric in political rallies to discriminatory citizenship laws, the state machinery is increasingly being used to treat India’s 200 million Muslims as second-class citizens. One of the most insidious tools in this arsenal of marginalization is the tactical redrawing of electoral maps which is a process known as gerrymandering, which is currently unfolding with surgical precision in the northeastern state of Assam.

The recent delimitation exercise in Assam, ostensibly a routine administrative update to reflect population shifts, has been exposed as a calculated move to dilute the political potency of the........

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