'Invisible in our own country': Being Muslim in Modi's India

Six years ago, a Muslim boy returned red-faced from a well-known school in the northern Indian city of Agra.

"My classmates called me a Pakistani terrorist," the nine-year-old told his mother.

Reema Ahmad, an author and counsellor, re the day vividly.

"Here was a feisty, little boy with his fists clenched so tightly that there were nail marks in his palm. He was so angry."

As her son told the story, his classmates were having a mock fight when the teacher had stepped out.

"That's when one group of boys pointed at him and said, 'This is a Pakistani terrorist. Kill him!'"

He revealed some classmates had also called him nali ka kida (insect of the gutter). Ms Ahmad complained, and was told they "were imagining things… such things didn't happen".

Ms Ahmad eventually pulled her son out of school. Today, the 16-year-old is home-schooled.

"I sensed the community's tremors through my son's experiences, a feeling I never recall having in my own youth growing up here," she says.

"Our class privilege may have protected us from feeling Muslim all the time. Now, it seems class and privilege make you a more visible target."

Ever since Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept to power in 2014, India's 200 million-odd Muslims have had a turbulent journey.

Hindu vigilante mobs have lynched suspected cow traders and targeted small Muslim-owned businesses. Petitions have been filed against mosques. Internet trolls have orchestrated online "auctions" of Muslim women. Right-wing groups and sections of mainstream media have fuelled Islamophobia with accusations of "jihad" - "love jihad", for example, falsely accuses Muslim men of converting Hindu women by marriage.

And anti-Muslim hate speech has surged - three quarters of incidents were reported from states ruled by the BJP.

"Muslims have become second-class citizens, an invisible minority in their own country," says Ziya Us Salam, author of a new book, Being Muslim in Hindu India.

But the BJP - and Mr Modi - deny that minorities are being mistreated in India.

"These are usual tropes of some people who don't bother to meet people outside their bubbles. Even India's minorities don't buy this narrative anymore," the prime minister told Newsweek magazine.

Yet Ms Ahmad - whose family has lived in Agra for decades, counting many Hindu friends amid the city's serpentine lanes and crowded homes - feels a change.

In 2019, Ms Ahmad left a school WhatsApp group where she was one of only two Muslims. This followed the posting of a message after India launched air strikes against militants in Muslim-majority Pakistan.

"If they hit us with missiles, we will enter their homes and kill them," the message on the group said, echoing something Mr Modi had said about killing terrorists and enemies of India inside their homes.

"I lost my cool. I told my friends what's wrong with you? Do you condone killing of civilians and children":[]}