Why India’s election has stoked conflict

India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, has galvanised voters with an appeal to Hindu nationalism. But rising Hindu-Muslim violence is putting India’s historic secularism at risk.

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India, the world’s biggest democracy. 29 states, seven territories, 900m voters and one age-old fault line – nationalism.

It’s pitting Hindus against Muslims and other minorities, and putting India’s long tradition of secularism under threat. Anamika is one of the 1bn Hindus living in India. She’s 23 and studying for a degree in physics. Today she’s leading a rally to get students to vote in the country’s upcoming general election. But Anamika doesn’t want these students to vote for just anyone. She’s actually the modern face of a vast Hindu nationalist group.

Anamika lives in Uttar Pradesh. It’s one of the most socially divided and religiously diverse states in India. Alam is one of the 190m Muslims living in India. A father of three, his family have been butchers in Uttar Pradesh for generations. Hindu-Muslim tensions are on the rise in 2019. But they’re by no means new.

These tensions run deep into the country’s history. In 1947, with India preparing for independence from British rule, the country was hastily partitioned into two separate nations. The creation of Pakistan was a response to Muslim nationalists anxious about living under a Hindu majority. Millions were killed or displaced as people fled to the new Muslim state or to India which portrayed itself as a secular alternative.

Today that secular alternative is under pressure. Not least in a conflict embodied by the Hindu faith’s most sacred animal. Over the past few years India’s Hindu-led government has pressed for strict enforcement of laws against anyone slaughtering cows or selling beef. The more hardline approach has hit Muslim and minority communities hard. Businesses that deal with any kind of beef have been shut down. They’ve been accused of flouting the law and some have faced even worse consequences. Across the country cow vigilante gangs killed 44 people, 38 of them Muslim, between 2015 and 2018.

Last year India saw a rise in hate-crime attacks against minorities. It was the largest number of incidents in a decade.

Then early in 2019, another historic flashpoint stoked tensions further. In February a Pakistan terror group claimed it launched an attack in the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir, killing 40 soldiers. India responded by bombing what it said was a terrorist training camp in Pakistan.

It had a profound effect across India. Prime Minister, Narendra Modi and his party the BJP have nurtured the sense of threat to Hindu security and culture. Ahead of the national election, Modi was trying to galvanise Hindus who make up 80% of India’s population.

Anamika and the Hindutva nationalist movement that provides Modi’s powerbase are taking that message out. In Uttar Pradesh, Alam’s now trying to run a fruit-juice business where his butcher shop once stood. But he’s struggling to pay the bills. He’s recently had to take his sisters and children out of school.

Modi first came to power as a moderniser with the promise of jobs and prosperity for India. But as the economy slowed, unemployment began to rise, so too did his support for the nationalist agenda.

Where he leads India next, to further division or back towards the country’s historic secularism, remains to be seen.

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