Rising Islamophobia in India

Muslims make up about 15% of India’s total population. For years, these Muslims have dealt with religious violence and as of late, Anti-Muslim activity in India has risen exponentially.

Anti-Muslim mobs target innocent Muslims with false accusations and hatred. They destroy religious structures and mosques, murder innocent people, threaten the lives of wellbeing of children and women, but are barely condemned for their unjust actions.

Hundreds of Muslim women have been posted online to fake auctions, and the creators of these auctions openly issued rape threats towards them. This past January, a fake auction was posted on the GitHub website and received global social media backlash. The auction mainly targeted Indian-Muslim women who were public activists and their goal was to ‘silence those who are vocal on social media,’ according to Qurat-Ul-Ain Rehbar. The Indian government did the bare minimum for the safety of these women.

There has also been a rise in bans on hijab in colleges and high schools. The southern Indian state of Karnataka prohibits their female students from entering school campuses with their headscarves on. Some of these students asked for permission from the High Court to continue wearing hijab, and their names and addresses were publicly posted. Social media posts have garnered worldwide attention and give these women the moral strength to withstand the torment they are experiencing.

The government does not only acquit criminal and unjust activity against Muslims, they allow one of their major political parties to openly express their support for Muslim genocide. The Bharatiya Janata Party posted a political cartoon of Muslim men being hanged, which has been reposted across all social media platforms.

These countless acts of hatred towards these innocent Muslims make their lives unnecessarily difficult. The women being posted on auction sites, the students being forced to remove their hijab, the people who experience physical abuse and torment, are all examples of strong human beings that are persevering through this unjust world.

These innocent Indian-Muslims are trying their best to stand firm and have faith in Allah SWT through this time of struggle, and they rely on the rest of the world to make their voices heard