India is home to one of the largest Muslim populations in the world. More than two hundred million Muslims live across its cities, villages and regions, forming a community older than many of the states and borders that define South Asia today.
They are not a newly arrived population, nor can their presence be reduced to migration from neighbouring countries. Muslims have lived in the Indian subcontinent for more than a thousand years. They contributed to its scholarship, languages, architecture, agriculture, commerce, military history and political institutions. They helped shape India long before the establishment of the modern republic in 1947.
Yet in contemporary India, this deeply rooted community increasingly finds itself portrayed as foreign, disloyal or threatening.
The pressure does not appear in one form alone. It is visible in citizenship disputes in Assam, forced expulsions of Bengali-speaking Muslims, demolitions of Muslim homes and businesses, restrictions affecting Islamic institutions, mob attacks, anti-Muslim hate campaigns and political language that presents an entire religious minority as a demographic or national-security problem.
The present crisis is therefore not simply a series of isolated communal clashes. It is the result of a longer transformation in which Hindu nationalism has moved from the political margins into the machinery of the state.
Islam’s Long History in India
Islam reached the Indian subcontinent through several routes.
Muslim merchants established connections with the western and southern coasts of India during the earliest centuries of Islam. Arab traders travelled across the Indian Ocean, building commercial and social relationships with local communities, particularly along the Malabar Coast.
Political expansion occurred later. In 93 AH, corresponding to 711 or 712 CE, the young Umayyad commander Muhammad ibn al-Qasim entered Sindh. Over subsequent centuries, various Muslim dynasties governed large parts of the subcontinent, including the Delhi Sultanates and later the Mughal Empire.
Muslim political rule was neither uninterrupted nor uniform, and Muslims did not govern every part of India at all times. Nevertheless, Muslim-ruled states became a central component of Indian history for several centuries.
During those centuries, Muslims remained a numerical minority across much of the subcontinent. The survival of India’s overwhelming Hindu majority itself contradicts simplistic claims that Muslim rule amounted to a continuous programme of forced religious erasure.
The period witnessed conflict, political violence and injustice, as did other empires of its time. But it also produced long periods of coexistence, cultural exchange and shared economic life. Indian civilisation developed through the interaction of Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and numerous linguistic and ethnic communities.
To portray Muslims today as strangers to India is therefore not merely discriminatory. It requires the rewriting of India’s own history.
Colonial Rule and the Reshaping of Muslim Society
British colonial dominance transformed the political position of Indian Muslims.
Following the decline of Mughal authority and the expansion of British rule, Muslim political institutions weakened considerably. Colonial authorities reorganised education, law, land ownership and government employment. Muslim endowments and traditional centres of learning faced new pressures, while English-language education and colonial bureaucratic systems reshaped the routes to influence.
Muslim scholars responded by attempting to preserve the religious and social foundations of their community.
Educational and reform movements emerged across the subcontinent. Scholars established seminaries, renewed the teaching of the Qur’an and Sunnah, strengthened community institutions and sought to protect Muslim identity after the collapse of Muslim political authority.
Abul Hasan Ali al-Nadwi رحمه الله later praised the scholars of India for their religious strength, detachment from worldly power and determination to preserve Islam under foreign rule.
This scholarly leadership helps explain why Indian Muslims, despite their regional, linguistic and ethnic diversity, retained strong religious institutions and a recognisable shared identity.
Partition and the Muslims Who Remained
British India was partitioned in 1947 into India and Pakistan amid extraordinary violence and mass displacement.
Millions crossed the new borders. Muslims travelled toward Pakistan, while Hindus and Sikhs moved toward India. Entire communities were uprooted, and massacres occurred on all sides.
Yet a vast Muslim population remained in India.
They did not all regard Pakistan as their homeland, nor did they see their religious identity as incompatible with Indian citizenship. Their families, properties, mosques, shrines, languages and histories were rooted in the places where they had lived for generations.
The Constitution of independent India formally committed the state to equality before the law, religious freedom and citizenship not determined solely by faith.
For decades, Indian Muslims nevertheless experienced recurring communal violence, political marginalisation and socioeconomic disadvantage. Major episodes included the violence in Gujarat in 2002, in which Muslims formed the overwhelming majority of those killed and displaced.
Still, India continued to present itself internationally as the world’s largest democracy and as a plural society capable of accommodating its religious diversity.
That self-image has come under increasing strain.
The Rise of Hindutva
The political ideology driving much of the current transformation is commonly known as Hindutva.
Hindutva should not be confused with Hinduism as a religion. It is a modern nationalist ideology that seeks to define India primarily as a Hindu civilisation and political nation.
Under this worldview, religious minorities may be tolerated, but often only on the condition that they accept a subordinate understanding of belonging. Muslims are frequently portrayed as descendants of invaders, beneficiaries of political appeasement or members of a population whose loyalty to India is inherently questionable.
The Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, rose to national power under Narendra Modi in 2014. Modi subsequently secured a second term in 2019 and a third term in 2024.
During this period, Hindu nationalist organisations gained wider influence over political debate, education, media narratives and public institutions. Language that would once have been associated primarily with extremist movements increasingly appeared in election campaigns, religious processions and public speeches.
The result has not been a single decree removing Muslims from Indian society. It has been a cumulative political process that gradually makes discrimination appear normal.
The Citizenship Amendment Act
One of the most controversial developments was the Citizenship Amendment Act, passed in 2019.
The law provides an accelerated route to Indian citizenship for undocumented Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan who entered India before the end of 2014.
Muslims are excluded from this religiously defined pathway.
The Indian government argues that the Act is intended to protect persecuted religious minorities from neighbouring Muslim-majority states. Critics respond that the legislation introduces an explicitly religious distinction into India’s citizenship framework and excludes persecuted Muslim groups.
The law does not directly revoke the citizenship of Indian Muslims. That distinction is important.
The deeper concern is its potential interaction with citizenship-verification exercises such as the National Register of Citizens. A person unable to prove citizenship through documentation could face severe consequences. A qualifying non-Muslim might potentially obtain protection through the CAA, while a Muslim in comparable circumstances would not have access to the same route.
The government formally notified the rules for implementing the CAA in March 2024, nearly five years after the law was passed.
This renewed fears that citizenship could increasingly be organised through a hierarchy in which religious identity determines who is offered inclusion and who remains exposed to exclusion.
Assam and the Politics of Belonging
Assam has become one of the central battlegrounds in India’s citizenship crisis.
Migration from what is now Bangladesh has long been politically sensitive in the state. Questions involving language, ethnicity, land and demographic change predate the BJP’s rise to power.
However, Bengali-speaking Muslims have increasingly been portrayed collectively as illegal migrants, even when their families have lived in India for generations and possess documents supporting their citizenship.
The final Assam National Register of Citizens, published in 2019, excluded approximately 1.9 million people from the register. Those excluded were not all Muslim, and exclusion did not automatically mean immediate deportation. Nevertheless, many were pushed into prolonged legal uncertainty and required to defend their status before tribunals.
Citizenship disputes carry consequences far beyond paperwork.
A declaration that a person is a foreigner may lead to detention, loss of rights, family separation or attempted deportation. Poor families face particular difficulty because documents may have been lost, contain spelling variations or use inconsistent names and dates.
In 2025, Human Rights Watch reported that Indian authorities had expelled hundreds of ethnic Bengali Muslims to Bangladesh without adequate due process. The organisation said that some of those expelled were Indian citizens and that people were removed without a meaningful opportunity to challenge the allegations against them.
The issue had therefore moved beyond the fear of future exclusion. For some Muslims, displacement and expulsion had already become a reality.
When Demolition Becomes Punishment
Another major development has been the use of demolitions against Muslim homes, shops and places of worship.
Authorities usually justify such operations by describing the properties as unauthorised or illegally constructed. Illegal building is a genuine urban issue across India and affects communities of different backgrounds.
The controversy arises from the timing, selection and public presentation of certain demolitions.
In several cases, Muslim-owned properties were destroyed shortly after communal clashes, protests or accusations involving members of the community. Officials and supporters sometimes presented the demolitions as immediate punishment, even before courts had established individual guilt.
This practice became widely described as “bulldozer justice.”
Human-rights organisations have argued that demolitions have been used disproportionately against Muslims and, in some cases, without adequate notice or legal process.
The principle at stake is fundamental: no state governed by law should punish a family or destroy a home merely because a resident has been accused of wrongdoing. Guilt must be proven individually, and penalties must be imposed through lawful judicial proceedings.
When bulldozers replace courts, property law becomes an instrument of collective intimidation.
Mob Violence and the Regulation of Muslim Life
Indian Muslims have also faced violence connected to cow-protection campaigns.
The cow is sacred to many Hindus, and several Indian states restrict cattle slaughter. Hindu nationalist vigilante groups have used these laws and sentiments to stop vehicles, attack traders and assault Muslims accused of transporting cattle or possessing beef.
Some victims were killed before any allegation was properly investigated.
The issue extends beyond cattle. Muslims have faced campaigns involving:
- Claims that Muslim men seek to convert Hindu women through marriage, commonly labelled “love jihad”
- Opposition to Muslim street vendors and businesses
- Calls for economic boycotts of Muslim traders
- Disputes over mosques and historic religious sites
- Restrictions or controversy surrounding Muslim prayer in public spaces
- Campaigns against the hijab in educational institutions
- Accusations that Muslim population growth threatens India’s Hindu majority
Each campaign differs in its legal and political form. Together, however, they reinforce the same message: Muslims are to be treated as a population whose everyday presence requires suspicion, regulation or containment.
The Waqf Controversy
Muslim religious endowments, known as waqf, have also become a major area of dispute.
Waqf properties may include mosques, cemeteries, schools, charitable institutions and land dedicated for religious or public benefit.
India adopted extensive amendments to the legal framework governing waqf properties in 2025. The government presented the changes as measures intended to improve transparency, accountability and property management.
Muslim organisations and opposition figures argued that provisions of the law gave the state excessive influence over Islamic endowments and weakened the community’s ability to administer its religious affairs.
The legislation was challenged before India’s Supreme Court. In an interim ruling, the Court declined to suspend the entire law but paused or limited the operation of certain disputed provisions while litigation continued.
The controversy illustrates a broader concern. Muslim institutions increasingly face state intervention under the language of reform, security, transparency or land regulation. Each measure may be defended separately, but their cumulative effect can reduce the institutional independence of the Muslim community.
Hate Speech and Political Permission
Violence does not begin only when a weapon is raised or a building is destroyed.
It is prepared through language.
Anti-Muslim speeches in India have included allegations that Muslims are infiltrators, demographic invaders, terrorists or enemies within the nation. Public events have featured calls for exclusion, economic boycotts and, in extreme cases, violence.
A research group monitoring hate speech documented 1,318 anti-minority hate-speech incidents in 2025, an increase from the previous year. Most occurred in states governed by the BJP or its coalition partners.
The Indian government and BJP reject allegations that they systematically discriminate against Muslims. They argue that government welfare programmes apply across religious communities and that international criticism frequently misrepresents India’s internal affairs.
That response must be recorded.
But it does not erase documented attacks, expulsions, demolitions or the repeated failure to hold influential speakers accountable.
When inflammatory language is rewarded electorally and rarely punished, extremists understand that the political environment permits escalation.
Why Are Indian Muslims Being Targeted?
There is no single explanation.
The targeting of Muslims in India results from several overlapping forces.
First is the ideological project of Hindutva, which seeks to redefine national belonging around Hindu identity.
Second is political mobilisation. Presenting Muslims as a threat helps consolidate sections of the Hindu electorate across differences of caste, class and region.
Third is historical revisionism. Muslim dynasties and rulers are presented not as part of India’s complex past, but as a single foreign occupation whose alleged crimes may be politically transferred onto Muslims living today.
Fourth is demographic fear. Exaggerated claims about Muslim birth rates or a supposed future Muslim takeover are used to generate anxiety, despite Muslims remaining a clear national minority.
Fifth is institutional weakness. Police, courts and public authorities do sometimes intervene to protect Muslim rights, but accountability is inconsistent and legal remedies may arrive only after homes have been destroyed, families displaced or lives lost.
Finally, international interests play a role. India’s economic power, strategic position and geopolitical importance make many governments reluctant to place sustained pressure on New Delhi over the treatment of minorities.
Indian Muslims Are Not Without Agency
It would be a mistake to portray Indian Muslims only as passive victims.
They have challenged discriminatory laws through the courts, organised peaceful protests, built legal-aid networks, documented abuses and worked with Hindu, Sikh, Christian and secular citizens who reject majoritarian politics.
The protests against the CAA in 2019 and 2020 were among the most significant popular movements in recent Indian history. Muslim women played a particularly visible role, with Shaheen Bagh becoming a national symbol of peaceful opposition.
Indian journalists, lawyers, students, scholars and activists continue to resist the erosion of constitutional equality, often at considerable personal risk.
The courts have also issued important rulings against arbitrary state action. Judicial intervention cannot by itself reverse a wider political culture, but it remains one of the institutions through which unlawful citizenship decisions, demolitions and discriminatory measures may be challenged.
The future of Indian Muslims will not be determined solely by those seeking to marginalise them. It will also be shaped by their own resilience, organisation, faith and alliances with other Indians who understand that the destruction of equal citizenship ultimately threatens everyone.
A Struggle Over the Meaning of India
The question facing India is larger than the treatment of one minority.
It is whether citizenship belongs equally to all who lawfully possess it, or whether national belonging will increasingly be graded according to religion.
Indian Muslims are not asking to be treated as guests.
They are citizens of a land their ancestors cultivated, defended, governed, taught in and helped build. Their mosques, schools, families, languages and memories are woven into the fabric of the subcontinent.
Their present struggle is therefore not merely a struggle for minority protection.
It is a struggle over whether India will remain a constitutional republic in which religion does not determine the value of citizenship, or become a majoritarian state in which more than two hundred million Muslims must repeatedly prove that they belong.
The methods have changed since the earlier waves of communal violence.
Today, exclusion may arrive through a tribunal, a citizenship document, an eviction notice, a bulldozer, a property law, an inflammatory speech or an accusation repeated until it becomes politically useful.
The form may differ from one state to another.
The underlying message remains the same.
Indian Muslims are being pressured to accept that their history is foreign, their faith is suspect and their citizenship is conditional.
Their history proves otherwise.
