NEW DELHI –
India’s main opposition party accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of using hate speech after calling Muslims “infiltrators,” some of his most incendiary rhetoric about the minority faith, days after the country began its elections. general one-week sessions.
The comments at a campaign rally on Sunday drew strong criticism that Modi was peddling anti-Muslim tropes. The Congress Party filed a complaint on Monday with the Election Commission of India, alleging that it violated rules prohibiting candidates from engaging in any activity that aggravates religious tensions.
Critics of the prime minister – an avowed Hindu nationalist – say India’s tradition of diversity and secularism has come under attack since his Bharatiya Janata Party came to power a decade ago. They accuse the party of promoting religious intolerance and sometimes even violence. The party denies the allegation and says its policies benefit all Indians.
At a rally in Rajasthan state, Modi said that when the Congress Party was in government, “they said Muslims have the first right over the country’s resources.” When he returns to power, the party “will pool all its wealth and distribute it to those who have the most children,” he said as the crowd applauded.
“They will distribute it to the insiders,” he continued, saying, “Do you think your hard-earned money should be given to the insiders?”
Mallikarjun Kharge, president of the Congress Party, described the prime minister’s comments as “hate speech” and party spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi called them “deeply, deeply objectionable.”
The party sought action from the election commission, whose code of conduct prohibits candidates from appealing to “caste or communal sentiments” to secure votes. The first votes were cast on Friday in the six-week election, which Modi and his Hindu nationalist BJP are expected to win, according to most polls. The results will be known on June 4.
Asaduddin Owaidi, a Muslim lawmaker and president of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen party, said on Sunday: “From 2002 to today, Modi’s only guarantee has been to abuse Muslims and get votes.”
While there have long been tensions between India’s majority Hindu community and Muslims, human rights groups say attacks on minorities have become more brazen under Modi.
Muslims have been lynched by Hindu mobs over accusations of eating beef or smuggling cows, an animal considered sacred to Hindus. Muslim businesses have been boycotted, their homes and businesses demolished, and places of worship burned. There have been open calls for their genocide.
Modi’s comments were referring to a 2006 statement by then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of the Congress Party. Singh said India’s lower castes, tribes, women and “particularly the Muslim minority” deserved to share in the country’s development equally.
“They should have the first right to the resources,” Singh said. A day later, his office clarified that Singh was referring to all disadvantaged groups.
In its petition to the election commission, the Congress Party claimed that Modi and the BJP have repeatedly and with impunity used religion and religious symbols and sentiments in their election campaign. “These actions have been further reinforced by the commission’s inaction in penalizing the prime minister and the BJP for their flagrant violations of electoral laws,” he said.
“In the history of India, no Prime Minister has lowered the dignity of his office as much as Modi,” Kharge, the Congress president, wrote on social media platform X.
The commission can issue warnings and suspend candidates for a certain period of time for violations of the code of conduct.
“We decline to comment,” a commission spokesman told the Press Trust of India news agency on Monday.
In his speech, Modi also repeated a Hindu nationalist trope that Muslims were outpacing the Hindu population by having more children. Hindus make up 80% of India’s 1.4 billion people, while the country’s 200 million Muslims make up 14%. Official data shows that fertility rates among Muslims have fallen most rapidly among religious groups in recent decades, from 4.4 in 1992-93 to 2.3 in 2019-21, slightly more than those of Hindus. with 1.94.
Modi’s BJP has previously referred to Muslims as infiltrators and called them illegal immigrants who crossed into India from Bangladesh and Pakistan. Several BJP-ruled states have also enacted laws restricting interfaith marriage, citing the unproven “love jihad” conspiracy theory, which claims Muslim men use marriage to convert Hindu women.
Throughout all of this, Modi has remained largely silent, and critics say that has emboldened some of his most extremist supporters and enabled more anti-Muslim hate speech.