Open Access Research Article
GODS IN BALLOT BOXES THE DIRTY GAME OF RELIGIOUS POLITICS IN INDIA
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GODS IN BALLOT BOXES THE DIRTY GAME OF RELIGIOUS
POLITICS IN INDIA
ABSTRACT
A
wise man once said, ‘Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the
wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.’ And who could be more qualified to
prove this great wisdom true than our very own esteemed politicians? They have
not only embraced this wisdom but elevated it to an art form—‘neatly’ turning
faith into a campaign tool, division into strategy, and mindless devotion into
a license for power. This grand
display of religion-infused politics has had impressive results—at least for
those enjoying the power. Election after election, the script remains
intact: orchestrated outrage, communal fear-mongering, and the unwavering
promise of religious supremacy. Meanwhile, actual issues like poverty,
unemployment, healthcare, and education are skillfully buried beneath the
weight of religious discourse.
The
consequences are as clear as crystal: an 84% rise in communal riot incidents in
India in 2024 compared to the previous year, as reported by the Centre for
Study of Society and Secularism[3],
and an alarming 74% increase in hate speech cases in 2024, according to India
Hate Lab[4].
Meanwhile, the Global Hunger Index ranks India at 105 out of 127 countries[5]
while the June unemployment rate is on the borderline of 9%[6].
Yet, none of these seem more politically beneficial than stoking religious
passions. The media, always so ready to fit into this role, amplifies these
moves, effective turning political propaganda into prime-time gospel.
Newslaundry reports that 70% of prime-time debates in various channels are
focused on religious topics while subjugating genuine socio-economic
inconsistencies.[7]
Meanwhile, social media, envisioned originally as a forum for democratic
debate, has instead become a field of hate, misinformation, and comfortable
diversions; WhatsApp forwards and AI-generated communal propaganda have come to
dictate the national agenda, superseding actual governance.
And
so, what are the results? The masses enslaved by the false illusion of
righteousness, brainwashed to engage in politically master-minded holy wars,
while the real barons reserve for themselves all private room and perennial
plunder possibility. This study seeks to examine how faith has been
misappropriated as a means of electoral leverage in India, providing a brief
overview of its historical trajectory, its many ramifications, and the dire
future of a democracy hostage to religious propaganda. In addition, however,
there is another crucial issue: How long is it until the box turned into a
sacred idol of politics in which the true democracy is futile?
INTRODUCTION
Religion
and politics stand at opposite poles, but together they have, down history,
been responsible for the shaping of the destiny of nations. In India, this
fusion is now an ideological influence turned political strategy. Instead of
development, policy, or governance, religion has become a predominant factor
defining how one views the Indian political stage. Faith is used as a sort of
ballots box to further widen the social division of communities. Though
secularism happens to be the basic element of the Indian Constitution, yet its
logic, philosophy, and practicality remain starkly contradictory to one
another. The wanting mix of religion with politics is maybe not a fluke, but
neither is this a new situation. There have been a number of occasions a
religion was used to ignite conflict between communities by colonial
divide-and-rule policies or by the post-independence identity-based vote banks.
In modern India, this demands another-level political practice: created communal
conflicts, desperate speeches, and state-sponsored religious posturing
replacing government and policy-driven discourses. Faith is purposely used by
leaders to hide their inefficiency, to distract public attention from real
economic and social problems, and further consolidate their voters along
religious lines.
The fact that this exploitation pervades every
facet of administration, public discourse, and daily life only amplifies the
threat. The country has seen a continuous increase in communal violence, often
peaking around election cycles—strongly suggesting the deliberate orchestration
of religious tensions for political gain. The media, both traditional and
digital, plays a vital role in this, with prime-time debates and social media
campaigns designed to incite outrage, exacerbate divisions, and reinforce
narratives that sustain a climate of perpetual hostility. Political leaders,
rather than acting as unifiers, capitalize on this ignited
political environment, ensuring that religious identity dominates
political debate over actual concerns such as poverty, unemployment, education,
and healthcare.
The revealed purpose of this paper is to open a
window into the value of faith weaponized into electoral preference. In the
analysis, the historical patterns that have paved their way for such
manipulation were looked at: new techniques of sustaining it that are being
practiced at present; deep impact on governance, society, and democracy. This
study has used data analysis, case studies, and public opinion surveys to
expose the chilling reality of a democracy ever-more-increasingly held hostage
by religious propaganda. As the machinery of politics further fine-tunes the
auteurism of faith-based mobilization, there arises one question with
apocalyptic undertones: What time limit is set for religious authoritarianism
to completely undercut democratic principles? When do the reputable boxes
exemplify nothing more than some sort of modern-day political bauble? In
candor, the research involved critically grappling with these questions: can
India salvage its secular, democratic foundations, or is it headed toward some
irreversible point of majoritarian rule?
INDIA BEFORE THE BRITISH
Long before religious politics drove a wedge into
the Indian subcontinent, Hindus and Muslims lived in relative harmony, sharing
interdependence within one society. With the Arab traders being welcomed by
Hindu rulers such as the Cheras from the 7th century, there was civilizational
integration. For the Delhi Sultanate and the concurrent Islamic kingdoms,
Hindu-Muslim reconciliation and not animosity occurred in that Hindu elites
were appointed into key positions. The Sufi and Bhakti movements spanning over
the 8th century to the 16th centuries further muddied ecclesiastical lines, unifying
souls while detaching themselves from orthodoxy. Under Ibrahim Adil Shah II in
Bijapur, Hindu poets did not become extinct but thrived patronage from the
courts of Sufi noblemen, while matrimonial alliances were wedged based on
strategy and interfaith considerations. Joint Hindu-Muslim military activity
was inordinate proof of collective solidarity against the Mongol invasions,
showing a pragmatic rather than an exclusive bent on identity. Though the
initiation of prejudices of religions was conducted by Firuz Shah Tughlaq,
these events were exceptionally rare. The Mughal dynasty (1526-1857)
undoubtedly encouraged the widespread acceptance between the two religions,
unlike British colonial practices of overcome and rule. Akbar institutionalized
religious pluralism, appointing Hindu administrators and abolishing the jizya
tax. Likewise, his successors Jahangir and Shah Jahan upheld this
all-inclusiveness, with Hindus occupying key administrative positions. Mughal
architecture, illustrated gildedly by the Taj Mahal, proved Indian art's
arduous collaboration of Hindus and Muslims. Aurangzeb (1658-1707) diverged,
balancing orthodox religious policy with stout Hindu generals and officials
under the Umbrella of the empire. Despite periodic flare-ups of communal
tensions, the pre-colonial history of India is mostly characterized by
amorphous Hindu-Muslim group relations determined more by political interests
and economic ties rather than sectarian motives. With the British, however,
came the conscious effort to dismantle such unity, thus successfully providing
grounds for communal grudges that would come to occupy a central place in
confronting the political landscape of India in the ensuing ages.
THE ARRIVAL OF THE BRITISH AND THE SEEDS OF
DIVISION
The British first came to India as merchants but
quickly morphed into imperial conquerors. Notably, the East India Company,
masquerading as a commercial entity, acted ruthlessly in mainlining the
political dominance it had all along sought: Bengal was acquired by treachery
after the Battle of Plassey (1757) and was then consolidated after the Battle
of Buxar (1764). With this began a supervenience that ruled shocking economic
exploitation and led Bengal into famine in 1770.[8]
Right into the 19th century, the British rule had crippled the Indian
industries and kingdoms. Their interference in civil and religious affairs bred
resentment and insurrection that came later in the 1857 War of Independence.
The revolt of 1857 brought about a unique and short-lived moment of
Hindu-Muslim unity against colonial tyranny, modeled after Bahadur Shah Zafar,
Rani Lakshmibai, and Nana Sahib. For a brief period in history, the rebels took
control of important cities, but the British retribution was severe in the
extreme. Mass killings, public executions, and the burning of Delhi showed the
colonizer's brutality: This was the steroid of the 1857 revolution. The failure
of the rebellion ensured British supremacy in India, and it also raised their worst
nightmare: a unified India.[9]
In order to stave off future revolts, the British
turned to the Divide and Rule formula. For that, Muslims were made the
scapegoats of the insurgency, alienated from administration, and consistently
pushed to the sidelines. Thereafter, British rulers scuttled Hindus and Muslims
in opposition to each other and established a firm belief of their
irreconcilability, all for the colonial project. One of its prime instruments
was Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, a British stalwart who started discouraging Muslims
from participating in the nationalist movement. His exhortations to a separate
Muslim identity lent themselves to the Two-Nation Theory, later wielded by the
British in ensuring permanent communal conflict. This approach led to the formation
of the All-India Muslim League in 1906 and the 1909 Morley-Minto Reforms, which
created separate electorates for Muslims, that is, institutionalization of
religious segregation in politics. By 1933, with tacit encouragement from the
British, Chaudhary Rahmat Ali gave the first formal articulation to the
philosophy of Pakistan-a separatist vision. Instead of opposing these divisive
forces, the colonial rulers nurtured them, keeping India divided, and thus
paving the path for Partition.[10]
Savarkar and Jinnah: Two Sides of the Same
Communal Coin
The British, while nurturing a Marxist separatism
held very well aware that one single community force won't serve to fracture
India, needed such a character as V.D. Savarkar to articulate the Hindu
strategy for a majoritarian Indian political setup. To what later became the
Pakistan demand pushed forth by M.A. Jinnah, Savarkar laid down the ideological
groundwork upon which Hindutva could claim common political ground with
British-imposed communalism, both being two faces of a common coin: communal
strategy let by the British. In contrast, he had become a glorified
"veer" in historical accounts. He was seen, however, as anything but
one. The despair of conversion from the revolutionary ideology found its origin
in the Andaman Cellular Jail in which he wrote multiple letters seeking
submission to the British between 1911 and 1920. His was no mere betrayal on a
personal level but at an ideological level, for after being released, he
abandoned the struggle for independence and concentrated on the polarization of
politics in India into a Hindus versus Muslims proposition.[11]
To declare that Hindus and Muslims were two nations was speaking the same
language as Jinnah and providing became an ally in the game of division set
into motion by the British.
Once a proponent of Hindu-Muslim unity, Jinnah also
underwent some transformation. Disappointed with the mass politics of the
Congress and scared of being left behind in history, he switched to
communalism. The Nehru Report of 1928 and the poor electoral performance of the
Muslim League had made Jinnah depend on an out-and-out exclusive posture that
Savarkar was promoting. The 1940 Lahore Resolution pushed Jinnah's demands for
Pakistan, echoing Savarkar in claiming that Hindus and Muslims could never live
together in unison. Both leaders assisted British interests at crucial
junctures. Even as Gandhi called for the Quit India Movement in 1942, Savarkar
was totally opposed to it and his oft-repeated exhortation to Hindus was to
join the British Army.[12]
Direct Action Day 1946 gave Jinnah communal violence, the horror stories of
which shifted the blame to him for Partition being imperative after all. Each
one, excepting Savarkar's Hindutva, fueled the bloodbath of 1947, playing straight
into British hands. After independence, the shadow of their legacies continues
to stalk the South Asian continent. Savarkar's Hindutva coursed through
sectarian violence and right-wing extremism in India, while that of Jinnah
became another reason for religious intolerance in Pakistan. Both leaders,
however, in spite of appearing to pursue opposed agendas, were fuelled by the
same communal poison that taxed Indian unity-Proving that Hindutva and the
Two-Nation Theory were never enemies but two sides of the same coin of
British-sponsored divisive politics.[13]
British Colonial Policies
Although India had always been prone to communal
tensions, the British upgraded them to a standalone effective political weapon.
With their deliberate policies of separate electorates through communal awards,
the unity that was once born out of Hindu-Muslim fraternity in the colonial
struggle was systematically disintegrated and led to the horrors of Partition
in 1947. The first big attempt to divide was the partition of Bengal, framed as
an "administrative" act yet meant to split the Hindus from the
Muslims.[14]
Although nationalist resistance forced its reversal in 1911, the damage was
done-it had planted the seeds of separatism and led to the birth of the Muslim
League in 1906. The next blow was the Morley-Minto Reforms in 1909, which
instituted separate electorates for Muslims; religious identity, not
nationalism, determined political representation. The British even fragmented
Hindu society. The 1932 Communal Award granted separate electorates to Dalits;
rankling discord among oppressed castes and upper-caste Hindus was done
overtly. Gandhi registered this as a colonial trap; he went on hunger strike
and finally the Poona Pact was signed with Ambedkar. But, alas, the seeds of
communal divides had already been sown.[15]
As early as 1935, the British assured that Indian politics was no longer about
liberation from colonialism, but about rivalries—religious and caste-based.
This deliberate fragmentation made the ground for Jinnah's Muslim League for
raising the demand for Pakistan. By the time the British departed in 1947, they
had turned India's freedom struggle into a pitched communal battleground where
the legacy of division and bloodshed would surely outlast their empire.
Congress’s
Efforts for Hindu-Muslim Unity
The Indian National
Congress envisioned a united, secular India; however, it could not stem the
rising tide of communal divide. Despite the effort of Gandhi, Nehru, and Patel
in promoting Hindu-Muslim unity, their own mistakes, British manipulations, and
the propaganda of the Muslim League only deepened an already growing rift,
often fortifying communal forces rather than neutralizing them. One of the
greatest miscalculations of Gandhi was the support he gave to the Khilafat
Movement (1919-1924), in the hope that it would bring Hindus and Muslims
together under one common cause of nationalism. However, this support backfired
on him; its failure, in turn, disillusioned the Muslims and pushed them further
into communal politics.[16]
The Moplah Rebellion in 1921, which turned into Hindu-Muslim violence, proved
that mobilization on religious bases only fortified sectarian identities.
Another major mistake was the 1916 Lucknow Pact. The Congress granted separate
electorates to Muslims, so it legitimized communal politics rather than fought
against it. Jinnah and the Muslim League used it to prove that Muslims were
indeed a distinct political entity that legitimized their demands for Pakistan
in the years to come. The 1928 Nehru Report tried to provide for Muslim
safeguards, but purely in the way of an appeasement doctrine at which Jinnah
rejected outright. The 1937 provincial elections saw a turning of the tide.
While there was a massive victory for Congress, and the Muslim League could not
gain any ground, instead of tactically engaging Jinnah, INC refused to share
power. This grave miscalculation enabled Jinnah to configure Congress into a
"Hindu-dominated" party, fanning separatist sentiment. Congress was
unable to envision that this would open the doors to the 1940 Lahore
Resolution-the formal demand for Pakistan by the Muslim League. In its attempt
to unite India, Congress in fact empowered the very forces that tore the nation
apart. Unfortunate blundering was compounded by their excessive faith that mere
moral persuasion would be their ace against the steeled communal politics of
Jinnah and the Muslim League, hence accelerating the march toward partition.
Partition of India:
A Blunder of Politics, Ego, and Violence
The Partition of India
in 1947 was no accident; it was the result of decades of failed policies,
political arrogance, and rising communal hatred. While Congress initially took
a stand for unity, a succession of its strategic blunders, growing separatism
by Jinnah, and British manipulations turned Partition into a catastrophic
inevitability.
The 1942 Quit India
Movement created a political vacuum when Congress leaders were jailed.
Meanwhile, the Muslim League worked to strengthen its Pakistan demand in the
political void. Working with the British, it mobilized Muslim support, which
led to the violent Direct Action Day in 1946, providing proof that Partition
was by then imminent.[17]
The 1946 Cabinet
Mission Plan was Britain's last effort to keep India united through a system of
federalism where autonomous Muslim-majority provinces would have existed.
Jinnah had accepted it initially, which suggests that Partition wasn't a view
that he held with certainty. The Cabinet Mission Plan of 1946 was Britain's
last attempt at keeping India together through a federal structure housing
autonomous Muslim-majority provinces, which Jinnah had first accepted, implying
there was some leeway in Partition.
But Nehru publicly
rejected the deal, which led Jinnah eventually to withdraw his support and harden
his position for Pakistan. That was the last real chance to avoid Partition;
Congress's inept handling of negotiations sealed India's fate. However, due to
public refusal to accept by Nehru, Jinnah subsequently withdrew his line of
support and cemented his position for Pakistan. That was the last real
opportunity to avoid Partition, but Congress's incompetence in handling
negotiations sealed the fate of India.
As communal violence
spiraled out of control in 1947, the British were, in their desperate scurrying
away, pressuring for the implementation of the Mountbatten Plan. Thus, in two
months, Partition itself was finalized and acted upon. Thus, with communal
violence spiraling in 1947, the British, in their desperate attempt to oblige,
hurriedly pushed for the Mountbatten Plan, with actual division being done in
two months.
This forced division
resulted in the largest mass migration in history, displaced more than 15
million people, and left at least a million killed in terrified sectarian
violence. The arbitrary borders them stranded millions on wrong sides and
neither Congress nor the British put together any plan to stem the ensuing
storm. The rushed division led to one of the largest mass migrations in
history: over 15 million people displaced; over one million dead in communal
carnage. The arbitrary borders left millions stranded in hostile territories,
and neither Congress nor the British had any strategy for averting the ensuing
chaos.
Gandhiji was
horrified by this carnage that, in his last days, he tried to restore peace.
His insistence on protecting Muslims churned up a storm of anger among the
Hindu extremists, which culminated in Nathuram Godse assassinating him in 1948,
capping his lifelong fight for unity in perfectly tragic denouement, silenced
by the very forces he struggled against.
The Rise of the RSS
and BJP: Hindutva’s Political Takeover
The Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), an organisation founded in 1925 by Keshav Baliram
Hedgewar, did not belong to India's freedom struggle. While Congress leaders,
revolutionaries, and ordinary Indians sacrificed their lives against the
British, the RSS was busy laying the foundation for a Hindutva ideology that
would later dominate Indian politics. Like its intellectual predecessor,
Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, the RSS, while maintaining a distance from mass
movements for independence against British colonialism, disavowed revolutionary
ideals and went on to pledge loyalty to the colonial establishment.[18]
Hedgewar, along with his successor, M.S. Golwalkar, based their RSS on the
assumption that India was essentially a Hindutva nation, in which Muslims and
Christians were "non-people", having no legitimate right to be there.
Golwalkar, in his famous book titled Bunch of Thoughts, commended Adolf
Hitler's ethnic nationalism under the Nazi regime and suggested that India
should take a similar approach toward its minorities. He put this into words:
"The foreign races in Hindustan must adopt the Hindu culture and
language, must learn to respect and hold in reverence Hindu religion, must
entertain no idea but those of the glorification of the Hindu race and
culture... or may stay in the country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu nation."[19]
It was an almost blueprint for an exclusionary Hindutva state, reminiscent of
the very ideologies that fuelled fascism in Europe. But in this case, the RSS
would keep itself on the margins for almost six decades until Congress rule
would begin under India after independence.
The critical
juncture was reached with the creation of the Bharatiya Janata Party in 1980, a
political platform that brought the RSS directly into the channel of
governance. The Jan Sangh—BJP's earlier avatar—had been in the scene since 1951
but had limited political mileage. Under men like Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal
Krishna Advani, the BJP re-styled itself, much more moderate outwardly, but
with great ideological allegiance to the RSS. Only after some time would it be
before the party comes out fully into the open in espousal of its communal
agenda, using religion as a basis for consolidation of Hindu votes.
The Ram Janmabhoomi
Movement
The Ram Janmabhoomi
movement would always remain in history as the single-most important event that
left a permanent impact on the Indian political landscape. Brought about by the
RSS, VHP, and BJP for the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya and its replacement
with a temple for Lord Ram, the Hindu religious claims on Ayodhya go back
centuries, but the issue did not gain much prominence during the history of
independent India. It was only when the BJP was on the back foot electorally
during the late 1980s that it decided to turn the temple issue into a movement.
The then-architect of the movement, L.K. Advani, took out the infamous Rath
Yatra in 1990, a highly polarizing spectacle that traversed across India,
oozing communal rhetoric and friction between Hindus and Muslims. Advani's
speeches dripped with victimhood, vilifying Muslims for their supposed role as
invaders and Congress for its softness toward minorities. As a result, riots
erupted all over the country, killing hundreds of people. The climax of the
Rath Yatra, however, was in December 1992, when kar sevaks (Hindu volunteers)
militantly stormed Ayodhya and brought down the Babri Masjid, standing in the
face of inaction and silence from senior BJP-RSS leaders. The demolition of the
Babri Masjid on 6 December 1992 stands out as one of the blackest pages in the
secular history of India. It was a premeditated act of political vandalism, set
into motion precisely to raise Hindu tempers and permanently polarize the
electorate. The aftermath seared the land from Mumbai to Gujarat and beyond,
with rioting claiming the lives of thousands, mostly Muslims. Rather than
condemning the act of destruction, the BJP celebrated it as a victory for Hindu
pride.
The Babri Masjid
demolition was never just a temple. It marked Hindutva's emergence as the
mainstay of India's politics by exploiting differences in communities along the
lines of religion. In 1984, the BJP won only two Lok Sabha seats, but with Ram
Janmabhoomi movement in its bosom, it began to rise in its political graph. In
1996, it became the sole largest party in the Parliament, and in 1998, under
the leadership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, it created its first ever government.
However, the actual Hindutva explosion came in 2002 in the aftermath of the Gujarat
riots when Narendra Modi-the then Chief Minister of Gujarat-could have presided
over one of the worst pogroms in modern India. Following the Godhra train fire
in which many pilgrim Hindu were burned to death, mobs ran amuck through
Gujarat, leaving behind thousands of Muslims dead through state-supported
violence. Women were raped, children burned alive, and entire Muslim
neighborhoods turned to ashes, while Modi's state government turned a blind
eye. Instead of taking responsibility, Modi, instead, invoked a famous saying:
"every action has an equal and opposite reaction", interpreted by
others as an excuse to justify the killings. Far from being punished, Modi was
rewarded; he was chosen as a poster boy for Hindutva politics and by 2014, repositioned
himself as a "development-oriented" leader through the BJP, clinching
the prime minister's office with massive mandate. Nevertheless, his government
has continued in the same way, in the guise of economic policy, that is:
lynching Muslims on cow slaughter, conspiracy theories about love jihad,
anti-Muslim citizenship laws (CAA-NRC), and abrogation of Article 370 in
Kashmir. The Ram Janmabhoomi campaign, which began simply as a political show,
finally attained realization in 2024 when Modi inaugurated the Ram Temple at
Ayodhya, thereby concretizing Hindutva as the dominant ideology of India's
ruling establishment. This only goes to show that once communalism is born, it
can never die. It becomes only stronger. BJP is a master in converting issues
of religious sentiment into the elections from a battleground in lieu of a
democratic contest. Once India was envisioned to be a pluralistic and inclusive
democracy, today, the country is being ruled by a party that openly
marginalizes its minorities, suppresses dissent, and pushes forward the agenda
of Hindu nationalism as the state policy. What was an extreme ideology of
Savarkar is now a policy that is followed by the government. Jinnah's view of
religious separatism that used to be cited as the reason to form Pakistan is
now getting implemented in India itself, under the guise of Hindutva. In
reality, the true victory of the British divide-and-rule strategy was not in
their partition of India in 1947, but in the communal poison they sowed in
India that still determines Indian politics today. The RSS and BJP have made
sure that the Once, India dreamt of
being secular. That hasn't been stolen by foreign forces but by their own
political opportunists-those who turned hate into votes. It was never about the
temple, although the Ram Janmabhoomi movement was always centered on a temple.
It is to recreate India by injecting in an exclusionary and majoritarian
vision, to replace the pluralistic mindset of India. In this, RSS and BJP have
failed tragically.
FROM MANDIR TO MAJORITY:
HOW BJP HIJACKED DEMOCRACY WITH TEMPLE POLITICS
The BJP's victory in
the 2014, 2019, and 2024 elections was not due to effectiveness in governance,
economic performance, or any democratic ideals but was instead engineered by a
combination of religious polarization, nationalist propaganda, and sheer
deception. Over three successive elections, BJP firmly proved that problems
like unemployment, inflation, corruption, and economic distress did not matter
when drowned out by the resounding cries of Hindutva. Narendra Modi's
ascendance to power in 2014 was never about "development" or
"Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas"-these were just slogans for marketing
purposes, meant to keep the moderates satisfied. What drove the BJP was a
promise of a strong Hindu leader who would wrest India from the clutches of
"secular appeasement" and "minority dominance." The
ideology of Hindu Hriday Samrat, or Emperor of Hindu Hearts, was ruthlessly
sold by the BJP's massive propaganda machine. Modi himself preached economic
transformation while the party reveled in open communal rhetoric. Hate speech
by BJP candidates and RSS-backed outfits intensified, as social media became an
incubator for Islamophobic narratives. The Gujarat model, once considered a
developmental success, was really a manual of how to gain electoral success
through communal polarization. In this manner, the BJP-wide majority proved
that the Hindutva has replaced all the formerly employed currencies in Indian
politics since then.
By 2019, Modi's
economic miracle had unraveled. Unemployment had shot up to a 45-year high,
demonetization had decimated microbusinesses, farmers were protesting, and the
banking sector was crumbling. Any other government would have suffered a
certain demise in elections concerning governance. However, the BJP had
recognized that elections in India were no longer fought on the basis of
governance; instead, they revolved around emotions, fears, and a semblance of
religious supremacy. The Pulwama attack and its subsequent Balakot strikes were
just the right near-perfect cover. Instead of accountability, a leeway for
attaining a hyper-nationalist agenda under branding other commentators as
"anti-nationals" was provided for BJP to weaponize the crises they
created. At the same time, old fires of the Ram Mandir dispute were rekindled
to keep the Hindu emotions on high. Though, while opposition leaders tried to
articulate the economic woes of the country, the BJP set the media narrative,
such that nationalism and religious fervor completely submerged the really very
pressing issues. And with that, the party earned a bigger mandate than in
2014—just to underline that performance did not matter, and obviously only
Hindutva did.
The Indian economy,
which was being virtually bankrupted, surfaced in 2024. Inflation squeezed the
middle class to a great deal; unemployment reached catastrophic levels; and
allegations of corruption against the Adani-Modi nexus were coming to the fore.
Farmers were yet again on the streets, government failures glaring. Under normal
circumstances, it would have been an electoral suicide. But the BJP had set the
stage for its masterstroke—the grand inauguration of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya.
The construction of the temple was finished in 2023, but its opening was
deliberately postponed to 2024, to make it a pivotal election issue. Modi
projected himself not merely as a Prime Minister but also as a divinely chosen
one to fulfill a 500-year-old Hindu prophecy. The entire machinery of the
government was being used to power this storyline, drowning out all discourse
on good governance. The opposition spoke of inflation and unemployment but
pushed these issues into the dust accounts; the BJP ensured none got political
mileage. The mainstream media, an extension of the BJP's propaganda apparatus,
became a temple discussion center hailing Hindu pride instead of asking
critical questions concerning governance inertia. The result? Another BJP
victory, showing elections in India had ceased to be about democracy, but about
religious identity.[20]
For the first time
in a decade, the BJP faced a proper opposition in 2024 from the INDIA alliance.
Unlike in 2019, when the opposition was fragmented, this time it was regional
parties and Congress that came together as a block. As a result, the BJP lost a
lot of ground, not able to have a brute majority on its own. But it wasn't
enough. BJP managed to come back to power with backing from opportunistic NDA
allies, establishing that the deep-rooted communalization of Indian politics
had reached the point of no return. The INDIA alliance put up an admirable
fight, but it simply did not have the machinery, propaganda network, or
religious appeal that the BJP had built up over the years. At most, opposition
unity kept the BJP from achieving a constitutional supermajority but could not
do anything about the decades of systematic Hindutva brainwashing. Indian
democracy would be best labelled by the fact that a government could still come
to power with a dismal economic past riding high on religious sentiments.
In the context of
the 2024 elections, they should have been directed towards the restoration of
the economy but turned towards a temple instead. This was a narrative that the
opposition should have set, but the BJP had its own terms of engagement. In a
way, this was not just the BJP’s win; rather, this was the greatest failure for
Indian democracy. This is the failure of a government, which had no prospect of
coming back due to its failures, coming back into power just by continuing to
play that game—because it knew that the electorate had been made to live with
obfuscation of real issues. The question is no longer if the BJP will continue
invoking faith to win elections—that has already been answered by its conduct.
The question is whether India will ever break out of this vicious cycle of
manufactured religious politics ever or elections will now forever turn into a
battle for Hindutva superiority. If yes, Indian democracy is not merely in
crisis; it is already dead.
Bulldozing UP: BJP’s
Communal Playbook in 2017 & 2022
There was no contest
regarding governance, economic revival, or social development in either the
2017 or 2022 Uttar Pradesh election; it's more of a plebiscite held on Hindu
identity and religious hegemony, driven with a sort of ruthlessness, by the
BJP. It marked the establishment of Hindutva as a political force; for example,
not argument over employment, rise in prices or education could have been more
effective than temple politics, communal scare-mongering, and majoritarian
posturing.
The UP elections of
2017 have redefined the political history of India with the BJP bagging an
immense 312 of the 403 seats.[21]
Their strategy was very clear: demonizing the previous Samajwadi Party
government as a Muslim-appeasing regime and consolidating the Hindu vote across
caste lines.While issues like unemployment, agrarian distress and
demonetization were at the fore of public suffering, BJP's campaign artfully
diverted attention by weaponizing Hindu victimhood.Modern, acme paintings of
the SP administration of Akhilesh Yadav were projected by Modi and the BJP
leaders as that which pampered Muslims with free laptops for madrasa students
and provided scholarships to them while reportedly overlooking the Hindus.A
thinly veiled attempt by Modi himself to incite Hindu grievances was in regard
to his apparent preference for "Shamshan-Kabristan," a state election
fought in the name of religious conflict.However, perhaps the most carefully
planned and dangerous step was that of making firebrand Hindutva fanatic Yogi
Adityanath Chief Minister.This was not caprice; this was a definitive signal:
the state shall hereafter be commanded under Hindu nationalism, not merely the
BJP.
By the 2022
elections, unemployment rates in UP reached an all-time record high, exposing
the sheer incompetence of the government to address the crisis posed by
COVID-19 and denting middle-class savings due to inflation. None of these
disastrous failures of governance mattered in the end of the election floor.
For, the BJP had, once again, skillfully reframed the election narrative from
all·s economic collapse to Hindu pride and the imaginary threat of Muslims. The
bulldozer became a symbol of election: not symbolizing infrastructural
development but as a symbol of Muslim oppression, behind the state's active use
of machinery to demolish properties of Muslims—all purposefully carried out
under the justification of "law and order," per the Yogi regime.
Issues like the Kashi Vishwanath corridor, the Mathura temple, and Ram Mandir
construction were paraded before the public to transfer the attention of Hindu
voters from government inefficiencies to religious revivalism. Though it had
tried to counter this juggernaut of communal mobilization through alliances,
the Opposition failed, and, in the end, the BJP retained a comfortable
majority, even with a slight reduction in its vote share.
Yogi & Owaisi:
The Twin Pillars of Communal Politics in India
Yogi
Adityanath-BJP's saffron-clad mascot-has erected his political empire on the
foundation of aggressive Hindutva, open threats against minorities, and
state-sponsored bulldozer justice. His speeches always tend to blur the lines
between governance and communal incitement, presenting Muslims as the eternal
"other" and glorifying Hindu supremacy. During his rule, Uttar
Pradesh has witnessed an alarming increase in extrajudicial actions, mob
violence, and targeted crackdowns against Muslim localities-all subsumed under
the guise of "law and order." His re-election proved that in the 2022
polls, for the BJP, neither governance nor social development count: it has to
play the Hindu-first narrative to win. Concomitantly, Asaduddin Owaisi thrives
as the programmatic foil to Yogi Muslim hardliner, a needful creation of the
BJP to justify its majoritarian politics. A speech or two, imbued with
religious rhetoric, offer priceless ammunition to the BJP for the war cry of
its Muslim appeasement bogey. Even as he fashions himself as a crusader for
Muslim rights, he has, in the elections, particularly in UP and Bihar, conveniently
divided the opposition vote and indirectly benefited the BJP. Be it intentional
or unintentional, Owaisi as a politician has become an asset for that very
force claims to oppose. While leaders like Arvind Kejriwal might be disliked
for 'freebie politics', he doesn't incite hate into his campaigns, unlike Yogi
and Owaisi, whose very survival as politicians stems from communal
polarization.
THE POLITICAL
CONSEQUENCES OF HINDUTVA
Hindutva and the Targeting of ‘Minorities’
It is Hindutva's
rising doctrine that has shaped not only Indian politics but has also
reconstructed the very social fabric of the country where state policy is
permeated with religious majoritarianism. The brunt of such transformation has
borne the brunt of the Muslims, being subjected to systemic subjugation,
political exclusion, and persecution by the state. The BJP evidently made
Islamophobia into a tool used continuously and actually normally within
politics, so that spectrum Muslims were viewed as either threats to national
security, illegal infiltrators, or obstacles to development.This majoritarian
push has led to consequences that are tangible. The 2019 CAA, along with the
proposed NRC, was an act of glaringly rendering millions of Muslims stateless,
while at the same time, allowing non-Muslim refugees a pathway to citizenship.
The anti-CAA protest, largely led by Muslim women sitting in Shaheen Bagh, was
demonized by the BJP as a conspiracy against the nation; the culmination was
the orchestrated violence of the Delhi riots in 2020, where Muslims faced
losses that cannot be compensated, while the instigator, Kapil Mishra, faced no
consequences for his actions.[22]
Everyday
discrimination had escalated to the extent of violence sanctioned by the state.
The bulldozer, the symbol of oppression, was deployed by BJP-ruled states to
destroy Muslim homes and businesses under the guise of "illegal
encroachment." Lynchings linked to cow vigilantism have already happened
many times, yet most of the culprits never get charged. Openly, calls for genocide,
economic boycotts, and social ostracism of Muslims are made by BJP leaders and
Hindutva goons. Ongoing demonization has reduced an entire community to
second-class citizens; they have a constant threat to live with dignity. The
Hindutva project is not only about exclusion; it erases Muslim history and
existence from the country. The renaming of cities and streets, rewriting
school textbooks erasing the contributions of Mughal and Islamic history, and
ongoing demands to reclaim mosques in Mathura and Varanasi following the Babri
Masjid verdict reflect an even bigger plan of historical amnesia. It is no
accident; it is India's ideological engineering, in which the only identity
acceptable is that of Hindutva nationalism.
Godi Media and WhatsApp University: The Machinery of Mass Manipulation[i]
If Hindutva is a
philosophy, the media and social media are the instruments for its penetration.
The switch to BJP propaganda channels, collectively referred to as "Godi
Media," has been a major force in altering public discourse. Channels like
Republic TV, Zee News and Times Now have bent over backward to demonize
minorities and dissenters while shielding the government from blame. News,
nowadays, serves an inciting rather than informative purpose. Prime-time shows
do not raise issues like mass unemployment, economic mismanagement, or the
crumbling healthcare system; they cite Hindu-Muslim debates: public spaces for
namaz, halal meat, or the "Love Jihad" conspiracy. BJP spokesman will
rattle off communal was without any hassles; while all-inclusive dissenting
voices will either be drowned out by shouting or later selectively edited on
air. This media milieu has conjured an alternate reality in which the greatest
danger to India comes, not in the form of poverty and corruption, but Muslim,
intellectual, and activist. While television channels are quite success, the
scope of social media is to magnify and personalize the term. The BJP's IT
cell, probably the most advanced department of digital propaganda in the world,
inundates Twitter, Facebook, and WhatsApp with unverified content. WhatsApp has
undoubtedly become the locus of modern-day Hindutva radicalization it being the
prime facility for daily forwards of millions in the web full ofopy righted
news; doctored videos and communal hate speech.
During elections,
WhatsApp groups have been bringing forth dangerous, conspiracy-oriented lies
about Muslim population growth theories and false videos about Muslims
attacking Hindus and others claiming opposition leaders are anti-Hindu. Spread
on the intimacy level, this makes challenging or fact-checking nearly
impossible because it goes from friend to friend, family member to family
member. Fake WhatsApp forwards contributed to the lynching of Muslims in
Jharkhand and Maharashtra in 2018, thus providing an instance of how digital
hate actually transforms into real-life violence. One can hardly ignore Big
Tech's complicity in this ecosystem. Leaked internal investigations by Facebook
in 2020 had shown that its operations in India had often turned a blind eye to
hate speech from BJP-linked groups. Twitter has been under government pressure
to routinely suspend accounts that have spoken against the regime while
ignoring Hindutva propaganda. The space designed for free speech has turned
into an enabler of digital authoritarianism, where dissent is stifled and
communal hatred is elevated by algorithms.
Judicial Failures: When the Courts Surrender to the Regime
In a democracy, the
judiciary becomes the last bulwark against the overreach of authoritarian
principles. In India, however, the courts have increasingly behaved as able
assistants to the ruling party’s agenda, whether through active steps or via
rulings that sit well within the Hindutva ideology. The most naked example
remains the Supreme Court of India's verdict regarding Ayodhya from 2019. While
acknowledging that what happened to the Babri Masjid was, in fact, illegal, it
went ahead and allotted the land for a Ram Mandir, effectively rewarding mob
violence. This opened up a Pandora's Box of precedence where the use of brute
force and religious sentiments could trump legal principles. Following that,
the judiciary's silence on major cases suddenly grew deafening. The brazen
misuse of the anti-terror laws to imprison activists, journalists, and students
while allowing Hindutva leaders to roam free has further displayed the system's
hypocrisy. Cases of hate speech against Muslims-common calls for genocide at
the Haridwar Dharma Sansad or inflammatory speeches by BJP leaders-rarely lead
to arrests-and when they do, often such arrests are released within days. Yet
Umar Khalid, a Muslim activist, and Siddique Kappan, a journalist, spend years
behind bars based on flimsy charges.
The courts, too, have
loyally turned a blind eye to the authoritarian policies of the government.
Silence or tacit approval is the response of the judiciary to the abrogation of
Article 370, the crackdowns in Kashmir, the extension of the sedition laws, and
the suppression of peaceful protests. Instances in which courts have acted,
such as the Pegasus snooping case and electoral bond transparency, have lost
their relevance by virtue of the delayed judgment, allowing the government to
operate at will in the meantime. This death of consciousness before tyranny has
indeed presumed to sanction the slow coup against the representative democratic
protocols. The machinery of justice is nothing other than one more element of
the ruling regime's weaponry, instead of being a sentineling presence over
various rights. Where the judiciary ends, democracy ceases and only the
illusion of it exists.
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
AND SUGGESSTIONS
The relationship
between religion and politics enormously dictates electoral outcomes and even
structures of governance across the world. In order to understand the
multifarious influences of religious politics on voting behavior, steps must be
taken toward developing an understanding of policy options available and
country case studies.
1. Secularism in Policy Making: Setting up
secularism within the modes of governance effectively ensures that no religion
or religious affiliation would dictate political decisions. The complete
breakup of the two is imperative for neutrality and orientation toward
collective development goals.
Case Study: The 1905 law of
France regarding Separation of the Churches and the State dictated French state
secularism and also how the state relates to religious affairs. France has also
had laws regulating the showing of conspicuous religious symbols in public
schools that have upheld the principles of laïcité.[23]
2. Secular Educational
Reforms: An education system favored towards secularism would allow for societal
perspectives towards political religion and encourage electorates to more
weightily consider policies ahead of religion.
Case Study: An education reform
in Turkey saw the compulsory extension of secular schooling from five to eight
years in 1997. Evidence indicates that this reform decreased the likelihood of
women applying the religious label to themselves; consequently, this led to the
decrease in voting Islamic parties.[24]
3. Independent Electoral and
Judicial Bodies: Deeply independent executive bodies ensure the
purified governance of electoral rules; thus, they cannot hypocritically instill
communalistic tensions within the party structures toward electoral success.
Case Study: Since 2011, Tunisia
has conducted electoral reforms to prevent the use of religion as the primary
campaign component, effectively stabilizing its democracy.[25]
4. Promoting Inclusive
Development: As long as various groups continue to help support or express desire
toward sustainable levels of economic development, they generally make it
difficult for communalism-based political projects to properly diffuse
purposefully through party loss cases.
Case Study: In Lebanon,
sectarian combat politics keep bringing about stagnation of the economy and
periods of political instability such that it hits home many critical points;
this delivers the huge challenge that requires inter-sectarian policies to
control.[26]
5. Empowering Media and Civil
Society: An independent media and active civil society organizations are of
utmost importance in exposing religious-inspired political propaganda and, at
the same time, providing users with a secular view of discourse.
Case Study: In Germany, strong
social movements and an independent media ensure that issues are not derailed
by religious extremism and identity politics during elections.[27]
6. Legal Frameworks Against
Religious Exploitation in Politics: Implementation and
enforcement of laws that prevent the use of religion for political purposes
could discourage parties from capitalizing on religious viewpoints.
Case Study: In Nigerian
politics, the very presence of Muslim – Muslim tickets raises perennial
controversies that call for regulation to allow inclusivity and bar religion
from being exploited.[28]
7. Provides Some
Recommendations Towards Salvation from Political Appointments Through Religious
Influence: Appointing political members on merit instead of religious ground
promotes good governance and national unity.
Case Study: In
Zambia, President Frederick Chiluba announced that the nation was a Christian
state, which ignited debate about the role of religion in politics and further
buttressed calls for a clear separation between church and state in the
interests of inclusive governance.[29]
Through the critical
review of such case studies and the respective recommendation of orientations,
countries will be able to keep in check the wielding of religious politics over
voting patterns and thus reorient governance systems in the secular
dispensation for a major focus on a holistic national development agenda.
CONCLUSION
This political
milieu of religion in India is not a recent development-It has very deep
historic roots grown from the Mughal period to British colonialism,
post-independence secularism, and now the Hindutva wave. The British had
mastered the craft of "Divide and Rule," generating communal discord
that culminated in the bloodshed and gruesome partition of 1947. While Nehru
and other leaders meant to establish secular democracy post-independence, the
seeds of religious mobilization were already set. From the rise of Hindutva
forces in the 1980s to the demolition of Babri Masjid in 1992, the Ram Mandir
agitation to the Gujarat riots of 2002, India kept trudging to religiously
oriented politics. This trajectory reached its full potential with the rise of
the BJP to power in 2014. Harnessing Hindu nationalism as an electoral vehicle,
the party sought to recast itself as the protector of the majority faith.
Whichever was the contest-from 2014 to 2019 and now perhaps in 2024-economic
distress, inflation, and governance failures were left in the shadows of temple
politics, communal polarization, and identity politics. The media houses became
the mouthpieces of the ruling party, the IT cells flooded the social media with
fake narratives, and hate speech became a normalized nature of political
dialogue. In the shadow of this very aggressive religious politicking, not only
has it thrown the minorities into the dungeons of despair, but also led to the
weakening of democratic institutions, independence of the judiciary, and the
rotting of policymaking whereby governance has solely become a theatre of
faith.
This toxic mix of
religion and politics is the worst that can be imagined. Mob lynchings and hate
crimes, heightened by a state-fed ethos of discrimination, have all but
dismantled the secular character of India, one in which appeal to religious
identity becomes a mode of oppression as well as the basis for electoral
mobilization. Equally horrifying is the economic impact: tensions fuel a loss
of investment, cripple tourism, and elevate social unrest. Meanwhile, India's
image as a pluralistic democracy is crumbling with the onset of diplomatic
confrontations with the Middle Eastern countries in relation to growing
Islamophobia. Urgent reforms are
needed for India to restore its roots of democracy and secularism. Amendments
to the electoral law further strengthen punishment for religious campaigning;
there have to be accountability mechanisms within the judiciary for hate speech
by politicians, independent media must again be allowed to challenge
state-driven propaganda, and, most importantly, the public must build a sense
of critical thinking and historical awareness to prevent itself from being
dragged into the dire trap of religious polarization.
Gods do not belong
to the ballot boxes; faith should not dictate the destiny of the nation. Either
this nation will reclaim its secular and democratic ethos or it will become a
majoritarian theocracy lurking behind the veil of democracy, with the founders'
inclusive dream knelt down underfoot. The choice, therefore, is between
reclaiming secularism and sticking by the disaster of divine rule, in which
democracy itself stands ready to lose.
[3] Centre for Study of Society and
Secularism (CSSS), Annual Communal Violence Report, 2024.
[4] India Hate Lab, Hate Speech and
Violence Report, 2024.
[5] Global Hunger Index, India
Rankings and Analysis, 2024.
[6] CMIE (2024). Unemployment in
India: Monthly Report, June 2024.
[7] Newslaundry, Prime-Time Media
Bias Analysis, 2024.
[8] Sen, A. (1982). Poverty and
Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation. Oxford University Press.
[9] Mukherjee, R. (2002). The War of
1857. Rupa & Co.
[10] Shaikh, F. (2009). Making Sense
of Pakistan. Columbia University Press.
[11] Gandhi, R. (2015). Veer
Savarkar: The Man Who Could Have Prevented Partition. Rupa Publications.
[13] Sarkar, S. (2007). Modern India:
1885–1947. Macmillan.
[14] Chandra, B. (1989). India’s
Struggle for Independence. Penguin Books.
[15] Ambedkar, B. R. (1945). What
Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables. Thacker & Co.
[16] Brown, J. M. (1972). Gandhi and
Civil Disobedience: The Mahatma in Indian Politics 1928-34. Cambridge
University Press.
[17] Jalal, A. (1985). The Sole
Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League, and the Demand for Pakistan. Cambridge
University Press.
[18] Andersen, W. K., & Damle, S.
D. (1987). The Brotherhood in Saffron: The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and
Hindu Revivalism.
[19] Golwalkar, M. S. (1966). Bunch
of Thoughts.
[20] The Wire, Scroll.in, The Print –
Investigative pieces on BJP’s use of Ram Mandir in elections
[22] The Quint. 2020. "Kapil
Mishra’s Hate Speech and the Delhi Riots: A Timeline." The Quint, February
28, 2020.
[23] Baubérot, Jean. The Secularism
of France: Laïcité and Its Challenges. New York: Columbia University Press,
2012.
[24] Erdo?an, Emre, and Gedik, Hasan.
“Secularism and Education in Turkey: The 1997 Reform and Its Consequences.”
Comparative Education Review 62, no. 3 (2018): 350–370.
[25] Singerman, Diane. Tunisia’s
Electoral Reforms and Democratization. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, 2015.
[26] Salloukh, Bassel F. The Politics
of Sectarianism in Lebanon. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2016.
[27] Nolte, Elizabeth. Media and
Democracy in Germany: The Role of Press in Resisting Extremism. Berlin: Springer,
2020.
[28] Federal Republic of Nigeria. The
Nigerian Constitution and Secularism: Sections on Religious Freedom and
Electoral Laws. Abuja: Nigerian Government Press, 1999.
[29] Gifford, Paul. Christianity,
Politics, and Public Life in Africa. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009.
Endnotes.
1.
Jaffrelot, Christophe. 2021. Modi’s India: Hindu Nationalism
and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
2.
Ashraf, Ajaz. 2020. Hindutva’s Hardliners: The Rise of Yogi
Adityanath. New Delhi: HarperCollins India.
3.
The Print. 2022.
"WhatsApp ‘Fake News Factories’ and BJP’s Digital Propaganda." The
Print, November 19, 2022. https://theprint.in/india/whatsapp-fake-news-bjp-it-cell/777914/
5.
People’s Union for Civil
Liberties (PUCL). 2023. "Report on UAPA Cases and Targeting of
Activists." PUCL India. https://www.pucl.org/reports/uapa-2023
6.
Reuters. 2018. "Lynchings
in Modi’s India: A Timeline of Cow Vigilantism Attacks." Reuters,
August 5, 2018. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/india-mob-lynchings/
7.
Supreme Court of India. 2019. Ayodhya Verdict: Babri
Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi Case Judgment. New Delhi: Government of India.
8.
India: The Modi Question, directed by BBC (London: British
Broadcasting Corporation, 2023), Documentary.
Article Information
GODS IN BALLOT BOXES THE DIRTY GAME OF RELIGIOUS POLITICS IN INDIA
Authors: VEDANT SHANDILYA, HARSH TRIVEDI
- Journal IJLRA
- ISSN 2582-6433
- Published 2025/03/21
- Issue 7
About Journal
International Journal for Legal Research and Analysis
- Abbreviation IJLRA
- ISSN 2582-6433
- Access Open Access
- License CC 4.0
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