When, as journalists, we prepare for a job, we think carefully about our questions, locations and equipment. But for one of us, documentary photographer Roshan Abbas, there is an added consideration — how much of his true identity to reveal.
Abbas, co-author of this article, is a Muslim man in India. A country where, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s watch, Muslims are being vilified and evicted from their homes, their freedom of religious expression stifled.
It’s oppression Abbas has experienced firsthand, choosing not to wear a kurta — a loose, collarless shirt — that might point to his identity as a Muslim, when traveling the country for work.
The decision is cautionary. In public spaces, there looms a sense of uneasiness. Mob lynchings of Muslims who look visibly Muslim have arisen in the past.
Likewise, Muslim women wearing hijab can face backlash and discrimination, even though there’s no national ban on religious garments in public spaces.
Abbas also takes care not to disclose that he attends Jamia Millia Islamia — a Muslim university associated with student-led protests against the government. The campus has been closed on-and-off since 2019 amid a tumultuous relationship with the government.
Just one example of the targeted persecution of Muslims is a controversial citizenship law granting Indian citizenship to non-Muslim immigrants, introduced by the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2019.
Prime Minister Modi has previously suggested that people protesting against the law can be “identified by their clothes” — a clear reference to Muslim protesters. Little wonder then, that Indian Muslims feel they have had to change how they dress, eat and speak in public.
Tensions between Indian Hindus and Muslims have been flashpoints for decades, even before the British left in 1947 and the country gained independence. But since Modi’s government came to power in 2014, crimes against the Muslim minority have steadily increased.
Until recently, members of the BJP hadn’t outwardly acknowledged their goal of making India a Hindu nation. Othering Muslims, the country’s second largest religion, has proven to be an effective strategy in the BJP’s majoritarian politics.
Now, India’s roughly 200 million Muslims — just over 14% of the population — are defending their right to live.
Last month, local authorities and bulldozers razed shops and homes in Jahangirpuri — a low-income, predominantly Muslim neighbourhood in Delhi. The demolition followed communal clashes between Hindus and Muslims in the area. It mirrored the manner in which authorities responded to similar outbreaks of violence in other parts of the country — with bulldozers.
