[News] India's bulldozer war on Muslim neighbourhoods

[Anti-Imperialist News]

middleeasteye.net
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/india-muslims-undeclared-war-neighbourhoods>
India's bulldozer war on Muslim neighbourhoods
Sara Ather - February 6, 2023
------------------------------
[image: image.png]

Hundreds of Muslim residents of Haldwani, in India's northern state of
Uttarakhand, protested for days, braving the winter cold, after an Indian
court ordered the demolition
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/1/5/india-top-court-stays-demolition-of-over-4000-homes-in-haldwani>
of more than 4,000 homes over allegations they were encroaching on railway
land. While last month the country’s Supreme Court issued a stay on the
order, which could affect 50,000 people, it has not yet ruled on the issue
of land ownership.

While the scale of this demolition drive is uniquely massive, it is not the
first of its kind. Last year, Muslim properties
<https://article-14.com/post/demolitions-as-collective-illegal-punishment-with-mainly-muslim-properties-destroyed-after-riots-6265a9ad591d8>
were targeted for demolition in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, New Delhi,
Gujarat and other areas, with the pretext generally being “illegal
encroachment”.

If we stop existing on the map, do we still exist in the political
community as participants?

The abrupt nature of demolition drives, leaving little room for legal
investigations, is profoundly altering how Muslims perceive normal life in
India <https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/india>, blurring the lines
between public and private space. The demolitions cause Muslims economic
harm, while also damaging their political standing.

Somehow, a belief seems to exist that violence against Muslim homes is less
severe than violence against bodies - a form of “collateral damage” that
demands no urgent action. But this ignores the political dimension of home
demolitions, which aim to eliminate the targeted group’s ability to
survive.

In the Haldwani case, national media adopted a nefarious narrative framing
the Muslim protesters as a “jihadi gang
<https://www.sabrangindia.in/article/times-now-channel-pulled-communal-report-zameen-jihad-haldwani>”
- a conspiracy theory that has been deployed against other Muslims, using
the false claim that they are illegally occupying
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/1/5/india-top-court-stays-demolition-of-over-4000-homes-in-haldwani>
Hindu lands. In recent years, the policy of demolitions has become an
inseparable part of the ruling BJP’s administrative discourse.

This is not Iran or Afghanistan, this is India! Thousands of Muslim women
are protesting and praying in Nainital, India, because Hindu right wing
regime is going to demolish 4500 Muslim homes. pic.twitter.com/2tQm5cuuIq
<https://t.co/2tQm5cuuIq>
— Ashok Swain (@ashoswai) January 1, 2023
<https://twitter.com/ashoswai/status/1609574020592148485?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>

And the road from homelessness to statelessness is not as long as some
would like to imagine. If we stop existing on the map, do we still exist in
the political community as participants? And if we don’t exist in the
political community, what keeps us from becoming mere abstractions?
Narrative of 'encroachers'

While measures such as India’s Citizenship Amendment Act
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/us-city-passes-resolution-against-india-caa-nrc>
and the National Register of Citizens threaten Muslims’ legal status as
citizens in the nation, the narrative of “encroachers” seeks to develop a
similar link of criminality, with Muslims portrayed as “illegally” grabbing
lands that legitimately belong to Hindus. The state of Uttarakhand, which
includes Haldwani, has been the focus of strong Hindutva
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/topics/hindutva> propaganda promoting it as
the “land of the gods”, further pushing the concept that the Muslims who
live there are outsiders.

It is not by accident that during the Covid-19
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/topics/covid> pandemic, Hindutva
nationalists claimed that Muslim neighbourhoods were responsible for
spreading the virus in India. It was described in the national media as “corona
jihad
<https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2020/4/18/how-the-coronavirus-outbreak-in-india-was-blamed-on-muslims>”.
Demeaning terms such as “termites”, “cockroaches” and “leeches” are also
part of the Hindutva lexicon regularly deployed against Muslims. The act of
destroying Muslim homes is thus presented to the masses as a necessary act.

[image: A bulldozer demolishes the residence of a local leader who was
allegedly involved in protests against the BJP in Allahabad, India, on 12
June 2022 (AFP)]
A bulldozer demolishes the residence of a local leader who was allegedly
involved in protests against the BJP in Allahabad, India, on 12 June 2022
(AFP)

BJP politics heavily rely on pushing a reimagination of Indian land as
sacred Hindu territory under a perpetual threat of violation by Muslim
“invaders”. Yet, while this narrative has gained massive popularity in
recent years, its roots are much deeper. Important figures who laid the
foundations of Hindu nationalism, especially Vinayak Damodar Savarkar
<https://www.britannica.com/biography/Vinayak-Damodar-Savarkar> and M S
Golwalkar, emphasised the cultural elimination of Muslim spaces as a
necessary step towards fulfilling nationalist goals.

As the popularity of Hindu nationalism has grown, so too has the violent
reassertion of a monopoly over public spaces, challenging a pluralistic
conception of Indian land. Hindu nationalists have led campaigns against public
Muslim prayers
<https://www.newslaundry.com/2022/04/18/we-dont-want-conflict-dont-want-to-fight-the-battle-of-shrinking-namaz-space-for-gurugram-muslims>
and the use of mosque loudspeakers for the adhan
<https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/bihar-minister-bjp-janak-ram-ban-loudspeakers-azaan-mosques-1934790-2022-04-07>
.

Physical space has become not just a target for Hindu nationalists, but
also the very medium through which an undeclared internal war is being
fought against Indian Muslims. While a traditional war is waged on the
battlefield, this one seeps into every aspect of its targets’ lives,
turning even the most mundane moments into conflicts and militarising
everyday life.
Events transformed

To understand this phenomenon, one needs only to look at the
transformations that the most banal events have undergone. 2022 witnessed a
massive change in how Hindu religious rallies and processions are being
organised, with celebrations marking Ram Navami
<https://thewire.in/communalism/gujarat-ram-navami-violence-fact-finding-report>and
Hanuman Jayanti
<https://www.firstpost.com/opinion/ram-navami-hanuman-jayanti-2022-jahangirpuri-violence-ram-navami-hanuman-jayanti-10622531.html>
divorced from their religious origins and repurposed as occasions for
anti-Muslim political demonstrations of dominance and ownership.

<https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/india-house-demolitions-Israeli-style-war-crime-against-Muslims>

India house demolitions: Another Israeli-style war crime against Muslims

Read More »
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/india-house-demolitions-Israeli-style-war-crime-against-Muslims>

Mobs of men rampaged through Muslim neighbourhoods brandishing weapons and
chanting genocidal slogans, leading to confrontations in some cases. The
neighbourhoods that exhibited minimal retaliation were met with a strong
state response, as properties were bulldozed and families left homeless.

In several such rallies, Hindu mobs reportedly tried to plant saffron flags
atop mosques
<https://www.newsclick.in/hindutva-forces-responsible-planting-saffron-flag-top-mosque-PUCL-bihar>,
comparable to marking conquests in enemy territory - a historical method of
claiming ownership or sovereignty over an area.

While laying the foundation stone for the Ganga Expressway in Uttar Pradesh
in December 2021, Prime Minister Narendra Modi
<https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/political-significance-of-uttar-pradesh-s-bulldozer-demolitions-1118558.html>
endorsed bulldozer politics, saying: “When the bulldozer runs over the
mafia … the bulldozer runs over the illegal building, but the person who is
nurturing it feels the pain.”

This speaks to a crucial aspect of the motivation behind the policy of
demolitions, which is not to attack people physically, but rather on a
psychological level, depriving them of any hope for a safe future.

Architecture, through its illusion of permanence, allows community members
to imagine themselves both in the past and in a future that extends beyond
the lifetime of their bodies. With the collapse of whatever is built, that
link, which reaffirms our belonging to the land, also collapses.
Discriminatory policies

The emptiness that remains after the bulldozer leaves is replete with
contradictions: the absence of meaning left in the debris, and an
overwhelming political significance. The space becomes testament to
political power exercised in excess. What was once a home for a family
becomes a public artifact of nothingness for the city to behold - an
aggressive reminder to Muslims that they no longer hold the right to a
private life.

In a country that has socially ostracised Muslims, it is not difficult to
calculate the devastation that can follow from losing their shelter. The
ambiguous legal status of such acts also makes it much more difficult to
fight back.

Muslims must choose between a life of humiliation or a death of humiliation

The people most affected by targeted demolitions in the Muslim community
are those who are already economically disadvantaged
<https://thewire.in/rights/jahangirpuri-demolition-driver-muslims-target-residents>
and lack the resources and power to retaliate. At the same time,
individuals within the Muslim community who openly speak out against the
government’s discriminatory policies become prime targets
<https://thewire.in/law/explained-demolition-afreen-fatima-house-up-authorities-legal-status>
.

Essentially, law and order are suspended temporarily at the whims of state
authorities. And a larger message is being sent to Muslims: that the state
does not necessarily protect them. Demolitions should thus be seen for what
they truly are, and that is not just an attack on the walls of a home. It
is not solely the rights of Muslims that are under attack, but rather, as
philosopher Hannah Arendt framed it, their “right to have rights
<https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-right-to-have-rights-and-the-plight-of-the-stateless>”
and to defend themselves.

With the introduction of bulldozers, the government no longer has to say
with clarity what is acceptable behaviour. Rather, it can simply push a
narrow framework of possibilities, where Muslims must choose between a life
of humiliation or a death of humiliation.

*The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not
necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.*
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