India is home to about two hundred million Muslims, one of the largest Muslim populations in the world, but they are a minority in a predominantly Hindu country. Since India’s independence, this community has faced discrimination and violence, despite constitutional protections. The risks have increased since the 2014 election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist BJP government, whose leaders have often made statements promoting Hindutva supremacy.

These comments have frequently triggered violence by party supporters, who enjoy political protection. This insight, therefore, examines how the legal and political sidelining of Muslims in Modi’s India threatens their rights and has serious implications for regional stability in South Asia.

Since Modi’s re-election in 2019, the government has legislated laws that undermine Muslim rights and threaten to disenfranchise millions. Key among these are the Citizenship Amendment Act of 2019 (CAA), the abrogation of Articles 370 and 35-A in IIOJK, and the Waqf (Amendment) Act of 2025, among others.

Building on this trajectory, in 2019, the Modi administration enacted the CAA. Under the amended Section 2(1)(b) proviso, for the first time in India, a secular state, religion becomes a basis for acquiring citizenship. The law specifically fast-tracks asylum claims of non-Muslim immigrants from neighbouring Muslim-majority countries, explicitly excluding Muslims from its purview.

This concern becomes even more alarming when the CAA is considered alongside the government’s plans to update the National Population Register (NPR).
The NPR is a database that collects demographic data for each resident of India, including information such as the date and place of birth of parents, even if........

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