There was a time when India prided itself on its brand of secularism, which did not privilege any one religious tradition but was not hostile to religion either and, indeed, was open to engagement with all of India’s diverse religious traditions. Such is no longer the case and since the accession of the BJP to power there has been an increasingly strident Hindu nationalism which has taken the place of Gandhi’s and Nehru’s vision of a multi-religious society.
The Muslim community (the largest Muslim minority in the world) has been a special target of the extremists, with accusations, often unfounded, of the slaughter of the sacred cow and of proselytisation of Dalits. An undercurrent of feeling is being created that Muslims belong in Pakistan and that is where they should all go!
