Nayabans isn’t remarkable as northern Indian villages go. Sugar cane grows in surrounding fields, women carry animal feed in bullock carts through narrow lanes, people chatter outside a store, and cows loiter.

But this week, the village in Uttar Pradesh state became a symbol of the deepening communal divide in India as some Hindu men from the area complained they had seen a group of Muslims slaughtering cows in a mango orchard a couple of miles away.

That infuriated Hindus, who regard the cow as a sacred animal. Anger against Muslims turned into outrage that police had not stopped an illegal practise, and a Hindu mob blocked a highway, threw stones, burned vehicles and eventually two people were shot and killed – including a police officer.

The events throw a spotlight on the religious strains in places like Nayabans since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power at the national level in 2014 and in Uttar Pradesh in 2017. Tensions are ratcheting up ahead of the next general election, due to be held by May.

The BJP said it was “bizarre” to assume the party would benefit from any religious disharmony, dismissing suggestions that its supporters were largely responsible for the tensions.

“In a large country like India nobody can ensure that nothing will go wrong, but it’s our responsibility to maintain law and order and we understand that,” party spokesman Gopal Krishna Agarwal said. “But people are trying to politicize these issues.”

Nayabans, just about three hour’s drive from Delhi, has about 400 Muslims out of a population of 4,000, the rest are Hindu. Relations between the communities began deteriorating around the Muslim holy month of Ramadan last year when Hindus in the village demanded that loudspeakers used to call for prayer at a makeshift mosque be removed, local Muslims said.

“For 40 years mikes were used in the mosque, calls for prayer were made five times a day, but no one objected,” said Waseem Khan, a 28-year-old Muslim community leader in Nayabans.

“We resisted initially but then we thought it’s better to live in peace then create a dispute over a mike,” he said. “We don’t want to give them a chance to fan communal tensions.”

Reuters spoke with more than a dozen Muslims from the village but except for Khan, no one else wanted to be named for fear of angering the Hindu population.

Several among a group of Muslim women and girls standing outside the mosque said they have been living in fear since the BJP came to power in the state in 2017.

They said that Hindu groups now hold provocative processions through the village during every Hindu festival, loudspeakers blaring, something that used to happen rarely before. They said they felt “terrorised” by Hindu activists.

“While passing through our areas during their religious rallies, they chant ‘Pakistan murdabad’ (down with Pakistan) as if we have some connection to Pakistan just because we are Muslims,” Khan said.

HINDU PRIEST CHIEF MINISTER

The subcontinent was divided into Muslim Pakistan and Hindu-majority India at the time of independence from British colonial rule in 1947.

During the violence on Monday, many Muslims in Nayabans locked themselves in their homes fearing attacks. Some who had attended a three-day Muslim religious congregation some miles away stayed outside the area that night to avoid making themselves targets for the mob.

Muslim villagers say they are particularly fearful of the top elected official in Uttar Pradesh, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who is a Hindu priest and senior BJP figure. Hindu hardliners started asserting themselves more in the village after he was elected, they say.

Uttar Pradesh sends 80 lawmakers to the lower house of parliament, the largest of any state in the country.

Considered the county’s political crucible, it has also been the scene for spiralling Hindu-Muslim tensions.

Adityanath said the lead up to the rioting in Nayabans was a “big conspiracy”, but did not elaborate.

In the only statement from his office on the incident, Adityanath ordered police to arrest those directly or indirectly involved in the slaughter of cows and made no mention of the death of the police inspector. He announced 1 million rupees ($14,110) as compensation for the family of the other dead man, a local who is among those accused by police for the violence.

Both men were Hindus and died of bullet wounds, although police said it was not yet clear who shot whom.

Police say they have arrested up to five people for the cow slaughter but have not given their religion. Locals say all the arrested people are Muslims. Four Hindu men have been arrested for the violence leading to the deaths.

“All invidious elements who may have conspired to vitiate the situation will be exposed through a fair and transparent investigation,” Anand Kumar, the second highest police official in Uttar Pradesh, told Reuters.

Asked if there was any bias against Muslims, Uttar Pradesh government spokesman Sidharth Nath Singh – who is also the state’s health minister – told Reuters: “We believe in equality and our motto is sabka saath, sabka vikas”, using a Hindi phrase often used by Modi that means “collective effort, inclusive growth”.

RELATIVE HARMONY

The two communities in Nayabans have lived in relative harmony for years, residents from both groups said.

But now Hindus in the village, who mostly say they support Yogi, accuse the Muslims of trying to turn themselves into the victims when they weren’t.

“Can’t believe they are raising our processions with journalists!” said Daulat, a Hindu daily wage labourer who goes by one name. “They are making it a Hindu-Muslim issue, we are not. Their people have been accused of killing cows, so they are playing the victim.”

At a middle school, metres from the police outpost near where the two men got killed, two women teachers, sitting on a veranda soaking in the winter sun, said its 66 students stopped coming for classes in the first few days after the violence.

“We worship cows and their slaughter can’t be accepted,” said one of the teachers, Uma Rani. “Two Hindus died here but nothing happened to the cow killers.”

Both teachers were Hindus.

Political analysts say relations between the two communities are likely to stay tense ahead of the national vote, particularly in polarised states such as Uttar Pradesh.

The BJP made a near-clean sweep in Uttar Pradesh in 2014, helping Modi win the country’s biggest parliamentary mandate in three decades, but pollsters predict a tighter contest next year because of a lack of jobs and low farm prices.

“Facing economic headwinds and lacklustre job growth, Modi will rally his conservative base by selectively resorting to Hindu nationalism,” global security consultancy Stratfor said last month.

Muslims say they increasingly feel like second-class citizens in their own country.

“The BJP will definitely benefit from such incidents,” said Tahir Saifi, a Muslim community leader a few miles from the area of violence who supports a regional opposition party in Uttar Pradesh. “They want all Hindus to unite, and when religion comes into the picture, other issues like development take a back seat.”

Some of India’s most prominent scientists have signed a petition and returned awards to draw attention to India’s growing intolerance.

The petition accuses the governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of curtailing free speech and stoking Hindu nationalism.

Signatories include Ashoke Sen, who won the Fundamental Physics Prize, the world’s most lucrative academic award in 2012. Pushpa Bhargava who founded the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyderabad. D Balasubramanian, former president of the Indian Academy of Science. And Dr Vineeta Bal of the National Institute of Immunology in New Delhi.

The statement reads: “It is the same climate of intolerance, and rejection of reason that has led to the lynching in Dadri of Mohammad Akhlaq Saifi and the assassinations of Prof Kalburgi, Dr Narendra Dabholkar and Shri Govind Pansare.”

Professor Malleshappa Kalburgi’s murder shocked India. Who would murder a “straight-talking, rationalist researcher of ancient Kannada literature”? As local media described him. One theory is that Hindu nationalists murdered him in response to his criticisms of idol worship.

The founder of the right-wing Hindu group Sri Rama Sene, Pramod Muthalik, rejected any links to Kalburgi’s murder. He also threatened to cut off the tongues of writers if they continue to “insult” Hindu gods.

In February, Communist and rationalist Govind Pansare died from gunshot wounds near his home in Kolhapur, in the state of Maharashtra. The main suspect in Pansare’s murder is Samir Gaikwad, a member of the Hindu nationalist group Sanatan Sanstha. In the past, members of Sanatan Sanstha took part in a bombing campaign in Thane and Vashi in Maharashtra and Madgaon in Goa.

In 2013, unknown individuals murdered rationalist campaigner Narendra Dabholkar. It took two years to identify any suspects.

More worrying, however, is the possibility that all three murders are linked.

Critics point to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s silence on the issue and interpret it as tacit approval – as he shares their ideology of Hindutva. A product of this ideology is anti-Muslim prejudice. It fuses cultural norms and the trauma of partition in north India and Bengal. The misuse of history allows these groups to reconfigure the frustrations of the Hindu middle classes. As Pankaj Mishra noted, Modi stokes this false sense of victimhood and chauvinism with the “old Hindu rage-and-shame over what he calls more than a thousand years of slavery under Muslim and British rule“.

Jyoti Punwani accused Modi of stoking anti-Muslim tensions during a recent assembly election rally. In his speech, Modi made various references to beef export figures and Bangladeshi ‘infiltration’.

Turning Islamophobia into a normalised, everyday prejudice is nothing new. Sumanta Banerjee highlighted this in 1991. For Banerjee, Hindu nationalists need this external enemy to justify their Hindu superiority and support base.

For the BJP, Hindutva has “awakened the Hindus to the new world order where nations represented the aspirations of people united in history, culture, philosophy, and heroes.

Hindutva successfully took the Indian idol of Israel and made Hindus realize that their India could be just as great and could do the same for them also“. The logic is also peppered with numerous anti-Islamic refrences.

Mohammad Akhlaq’s murder, on the belief that he and his Muslim family had consumed beef, in early October made global headlines.

Some Hindu nationalists came close to justifying Akhlaq’s murder. Sadhvi Prachi, a leader of the extremist Vishwa Hindu Parishad, told local press that “those who consume beef deserve such actions against them”. It took days for Modi to break his silence on the murder and call for religious tolerance.

Mahesh Sharma, India’s culture minister and a local MP, told the Guardian that Akhlaq’s murder was a ‘misunderstanding‘. Sharma is no stranger to controversy. Last month he told India Today that the Bible and Qur’an are not central to India’s soul. Yet there are 172,245,158 Muslims (14.23 per cent) and 27,819,588 Christians (2.3 per cent) in India. Nor has India been immume from Islamisation conspiracies.

The furore over beef (though banned from export) risks damaging the profitable buffalo meat trade. Hindu mobs have attacked suppliers of buffalo meat on suspicion of possessing cow carcasses in recent weeks.

Graffiti advocating the hanging of beef eaters recently appeared in a Mumbai suburb. Within the state of Maharashtra, where Mumbai resides, a ban on the slaughter and consumption of beef has existed since March. This caused tensions during the Islamic celebration of Eid-al-adha. To breach this ban in Maharashtra can result in a 5 year prison term or a fine of 10,000 rupees. A minority of states permit cow slaughter – including Kerala – which had its own recent beef scandal.

On a cultural note, organisers of a film festival faced government pressure to drop a documentary on the beef industry. The documentary, Caste on the Menu Card, was the only film the Information and Broadcasting Ministry did not clear.

Critics like Amartya Sen have accused the BJP of filling public and cultural institutions with party loyalists. Though the reasons are a little more complex. Other Hindu nationalists have lobbied to ban Muslims and other religious minorities from participating in festivals like Navratri.

More than 40 Indian writers have also returned their literary awards or written letters of protest in response to the “rising intolerance and growing assault on free speech”.

In a statement, the poet Surjit Patar said: “The practice of killing writers and thinkers in our multilingual, multicultural and multi-religious country is disheartening”.

The post Why Hindu nationalism threatens India’s free speech and secularism appeared first on Religious Reader.

The festival of Navratri (nine nights) celebrates the triumph of good over evil. Navaratri begins around harvest time in October, and, celebrations last for nine days.

Navarati sits within the wider festival of Durga Puja, which honours the mother goddess Durga. In one retelling of the triumph of good, a demon named Mahisha, who took the form of a buffalo, threatened the gods. To meet this threat, the gods pleaded with Durga to do what they could not – kill the demon Mahisha.

Bestowed with the weapons and strength of the gods, including Shiva’s trident, Vishnu’s disc, Yama’s iron rod, and Indra’s thunderbolt, Durga took on this mission. But it did not prove an easy victory. For the demon Mahisha’s blood created new demons to attack Durga. A prolonged battle ended with the demon’s decapitation.

Another popular story in northern India concerns the slaying of the ten-headed demon King Ravana. In a final and epic battle with Rama, who pursued Ravana in his chariot. Rama’s golden arrows, which transformed into serpents as they reached the demon King. The arrows had decapitated Ravana’s many heads but they regrew in an instant. This prolonged the conflict for many nights as Rama fired hundreds of arrows.

Matali, Rama’s charioteer, advised that he use the divine arrow to end this battle. The ‘dreaded arrow of Brahma’ was a gift presented to Rama by Agastya. Its divinity stems from its capacity to never miss its target. That divine arrow, powered by the gods, pierced the demon King’s heart and killed him. Ravana’s ten heads represent the ten days of the festival. And Hindus use the each day to remove bad characteristics – such as jealousy and lust.

Motherhood is an important festival theme. Stories allude to Shiva’s decision to allow Durga to visit her mother for nine days of the year. Families attempt to follow this tradition and return on the tenth day.

To propitiate the nine planets and harvest season, nine different kinds of food grain seeds are grown in small containers and then offered to the goddesses.

Some devotees fast and offer prayers relating to health and prosperity. Others seek introspection. In Tamil Nadu, celebrations extend to the goddesses Lakshmi and Saraswati.

Durgashtami, Mahanavami and Vijayadasami are the names of the final three days of Navarathri. In Kerala, those celebrating worship Saraswathi as the goddess of knowledge. The deity of Gayathri represents the fountain of fine arts and science.

Diverse celebrations take place across India.

Vijayadasami marks the end of the nine-day festival. Across India, effigies are burnt and idols are cast into rivers in the hope of rekindling of the soil’s fertility.

The spectre of a growing Hindu nationalism continues to haunt parts of India. It morphed into a paroxysm of anti-Muslim anger and violence last year. Police had arrested 140 people after violence between Muslims and Hindus broke out in the state of Gujarat.

That violence came in a climate where radical Hindus, spurred on by the success of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), lobbied to ban Muslims and other religious minorities from participating festivals like Navratri.

Before his electoral success, the United States had denied him entry in 2005. The State Department can deny foreign dignitaries visas on grounds of “severe violations of religious freedom”. Narendra Modi remains the only person ever denied entry to the United States under this provision.

Modi faced allegations that he failed to stop deadly riots by Hindus against the Muslim minority in the state of Gujarat in 2002. At least 1,000 people died as a result of the riots that lasted a matter of days.  Though the courts later found that Modi had no case to answer.

A reminder of the faultlines of exploited religious tensions appeared in Bishara, near Delhi last week. A mob murdered Mohammed Akhlaq, a 50-year-old labourer, on the belief that he and his Muslim family had consumed beef, an animal considered sacred in Hinduism.

The seductive narrative of religious nationalism can undermine religious cohesion, even in times of celebration.

The post What is the Hindu festival of Navratri? appeared first on Religious Reader.