On October 15, 1947, two months after Independence and Partition, India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, wrote to the chief ministers of provinces saying: “Whatever the provocation from Pakistan and whatever the indignities and horrors inflicted on non-Muslims there, we have got to deal with this minority in a civilised manner. We must give them security and the rights of citizens in a democratic state.”

Nehru’s commitment to secularism and equal rights for minorities was not universally shared even within his Congress party, which had its fair share of conservative Hindus. However, as prime minister, he himself worked assiduously to marginalise the forces of Hindutva as represented in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Jana Sangh.

It was only in the decades after his death that the RSS and the Jana Sangh’s successor, the Bharatiya Janata Party, grew rapidly in influence. As a result, our nation, which after August 1947 hoped to chart a different, more inclusive, path from its neighbour, is now coming ever closer to Pakistan with regard to the merging of faith and state.

The majoritarian cast of India today is manifest in the fact that of the over 800 members of Parliament elected on a BJP ticket in the last three general elections, not one is a Muslim. Under Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, the BJP has sought to create a Hindu vote bank, fighting and often winning elections on the basis of the support of Hindus alone. Once a Hindu-first politics propelled them to power, the sangh parivar has consolidated its dominance socially, through harassing and demonising Indian Muslims (and on occasion Indian Christians too).

Once, Muslims held important cabinet posts, ran major government departments (including the diplomatic corps and the Intelligence Bureau), headed the Supreme Court and the Indian air force. Indeed, within living memory, two cities in Narendra Modi’s home state sent Muslims to represent them in Parliament. Now, however, there is hardly any Muslim in a position of prominence in public life.

As for working-class Muslims, they are subject to discrimination in housing and employment, and to routinised taunting and humiliation, which quite often takes the form of targeted violence (as in lynchings and house demolitions).

The notification of CAA rules sparked protests in Assam.https://t.co/9YYy6OesgD pic.twitter.com/jPp81pROiU

Hindu majoritarianism is also........

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