Economic Violence: How Hindutva hurt India's Muslims by targeting livelihoods
Hindutva is inextricably tied to violence. The violent rhetoric espoused by Hindutva against minorities underpins its various manifestations – on the internet, in general society, within institutions, and through state action. Its objectives of furthering Hindu hegemony, converting India into a Hindu Rashtra, and propagating Hindu supremacy run concurrently with efforts aimed at the othering of minorities and effectuating their socio-economic marginalisation. Apart from the direct forms of socio-cultural and physical violence that Hindutva outfits and ideologues inflict on minorities, an insidious form of Hindutva majoritarianism is the economic violence it perpetrates against Muslims.
Hindutva-masterminded hate campaigns calling for the boycott of Muslim-owned businesses, alongside Islamophobic propaganda and alarmism that are parroted and legitimised by states, are spelling an economic disaster for India’s Muslims – especially poor and working-class Muslims, who stand to lose everything in the face of this systemic economic violence to which they are being subjected. The most recent instance of this occurred in Bhopal, but this is not a phenomenon confined to one city or state.
Members of a Hindutva nationalist organisation called Sanskriti Bachao Manch launched an Islamophobic campaign targeting Muslim-owned businesses in Madhya Pradesh’s Bhopal, in the days preceding Diwali. They placed religious markers identifying Hindu-owned shops which read ‘I am Sanatani’ and urged Hindu consumers to buy only from fellow Hindus and to prevent their money from going into the ‘wrong hands’. The president of the Hindutva outfit involved in the incident, Chandrashekar Tiwari, said in a speech, ‘We want to give this message that your money should not go to jihadis, and people who carry out incidents of love jihad should not use it.’
The incident in Bhopal’s New Market, while revolting, is hardly surprising when viewed alongside similar state-sanctioned discrimination in Madhya Pradesh and other BJP-ruled states like Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. In July 2024, the Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand governments issued diktats that mandated eateries along the route of the Kanwar Yatra – an annual Hindu pilgrimage – must prominently feature the names of the establishment’s owners and employees.
Government and police officials of the two states discussing the mandate insisted the directive was a benign move to increase transparency and allow consumers an informed choice. Still, the latent Islamophobia that motivated the decision is glaringly obvious upon scrutiny. Uttarakhand Chief Minister, Pushkar Singh Dhami, rubbishing claims of Islamophobia said, ‘Why should anyone have any problem in introducing themselves.’
The Supreme Court ultimately stayed the decision and held that mandating businesses display the names of owners and staff is discriminatory, but this hasn’t stopped these states from once again attempting to implement these rules, with the Uttarakhand CM going as far as to coin the term took-jihad, alluding to the Hindutva propaganda that Muslims have been contaminating food and other items sold to Hindu customers with saliva as a part of a concerted conspiracy against Hindus.
The Economic Violence of Hindutva
While Hindutva threatens minorities and marginalised groups, especially Muslims, in various, and often systemic and institutionalised ways, economic violence is a frequently utilized but generally overlooked avenue of perpetrating Hindutva violence. What is perhaps especially troubling about this economic violence is its increasingly institutional nature and how it is often state-sponsored and backed. The susceptibility of economic forms of violence to be exploited by far-right governments, and legitimised by enforcing it through legislation and government directives, is of grave concern.
Targeted boycotts, such as the one called in Bhopal by Hindutva outfits, are undoubtedly a blatant form of economic violence with disastrous consequences. However, these instances of economically disempowering and marginalising Muslims can also take on a more structural form when the perpetrator is the state, as seen in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
Following the initial decision to mandate the display of owner and employee names during the Kanwar Yatra, the potential economic impact of the diktat was already evident. The Economic Times reported that an eatery located along the Kanwar Yatra route placed its Muslim employees on ‘forced leave’ following the decision. The establishment's owner told the publication, ‘A week ago, police asked us to write down names of the owner and employees at the dhaba. They said I could not keep them at my dhaba if their names are not displayed. I decided they must stay away for now.’
A Muslim trader from Uttarakhand, speaking to the Times of India, said the Yatra season was his main source of income and expressed concerns over the directive affecting his earnings. Another artisan, speaking to the publication, expressed concerns over the decision affecting sales.
Astonishingly, the Uttar Pradesh government’s affidavit to the Supreme Court acknowledged that the directive was potentially discriminatory. It read, ‘The temporary nature of the directives ensures that they do not inflict any permanent discrimination or hardship on the food sellers, simultaneously ensuring maintaining the sentiments of Kanwariyas and their religious beliefs and practices.’ But despite this acknowledgement of the discriminatory nature of such a mandate and the economic hardship it will inflict, in September 2024, the Uttar Pradesh government once again said it would implement such a rule across the state, citing concerns over food adulteration and other unhygienic practices.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath claimed that instances of food being intentionally contaminated with human waste were reported across the country and the directive followed his remarks regarding spit and urine being mixed in food.
This, predictably, was followed by Uttarakhand instituting similar guidelines which included fines, mandatory police verification of staff, and CCTV cameras being installed in eateries. The move, apparently aimed at curbing instances of food being contaminated with spit, has been labelled as ‘thook jihad’, thereby making it crystalline that these rules have an Islamophobic character. Claims that these measures are aimed at maintaining food safety standards are mere eyewash. The underlying motive is the ostracisation of Muslim-owned businesses by calling into question and manufacturing doubts regarding the quality of the food they serve.
Targeting The Most Vulnerable
Another common thread in all these cases is that even among Muslims, these attempts target the most vulnerable - those who are economically weaker and whose livelihoods and lives are not only threatened by these measures but have the potential to be destroyed. A Hindustan Times analysis revealed that Muslims are the poorest religious group in India and are over-represented in India’s population of the poor. As per data from the last census (conducted in 2011), one in four vagrants were Muslims. The economic violence of Hindutva further targets this already economically vulnerable group, and even within it, the most vulnerable and disadvantaged persons bear the brunt of such violence.
Apart from targeting owners of small businesses like shops and eateries, this mounting attack on the Muslim poor and working class is being intensified by making entire professions and industries that are traditionally dominated by Muslims obsolete through direct bans and overregulation. Uttar Pradesh, a repeat offender in this regard, has found other avenues to perpetrate such economic violence. In addition to using food adulteration scares to force Muslim businesses to identify themselves and open themselves up to boycotts, the state’s meat bans and denial of licences to butchers also contribute to the economic marginalisation of Muslims.
Meat bans in BJP-ruled states citing Hindu sentiments are questionable when the fact that the majority of the butcher shops in the country are owned and operated by Muslims is taken into account. Cities like Mathura in Uttar Pradesh and Palitana in Gujarat are banning meat, which has disastrous consequences for the people in the meat industry and trade there. In Palitana, nearly 250 butchers had to close shop due to the city-wide ban on meat.
Butchers in Uttar Pradesh, speaking to the BBC, claimed their shops have been shut down citing various technicalities since Yogi Adityanath became the state’s chief minister in 2017. Others have had to leave the meat trade over concerns for their safety at the hands of Hindutva outfits. This has brought financial ruin to families whose only means of livelihood has been taken from them with little regard. Yogi Adityanath, following the meat and liquor ban in Mathura, callously suggested traders involved in these industries could sell milk instead.
Attempts at the economic marginalisation of Muslims have been made in states beyond Uttar Pradesh as well. In Karnataka, in 2022, after pressure from Hindutva groups, six temples banned Muslim vendors from setting up stalls in temple fairs and the then BJP-led state government defended their actions by citing an obscure law, with then Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai releasing a statement defending the ban. A Guardian report revealed that the ban spread to nearby temples when BJP government officials began enforcing it. Umar, a local vendor speaking to the publication said he used to make £1500 (INR 1,60,614) annually from his stall at a local temple fair, but as a consequence of the ban, he had only managed to earn about £50 (INR 5353) that year.
A closer reading of the Karnataka Hindu Religious Institutions and Charitable Endowments Act, 1997, reveals a malicious misreading by the state to co-opt it for the benefit of the Hindutva agenda of economic violence. The People’s Union of Civil Liberties (PUCL) – Karnataka wrote to the then chief minister and governor stating as much and clarifying that the act applies to long-term leases to non-Hindus and not to short-term licences for operating stalls. PUCL Karnataka in its letter also raised the question of the unconstitutionality of such bans and boycotts for being violative of Article 15 of the Constitution. But constitutionality is not always an aspect of state-sponsored Islamophobia. While legal channels and loopholes are often exploited to this end, flagrantly illegal and unconscionable state actions are utilised just as frequently.
State-enforced, and blatantly illegal, forms of violence like ‘bulldozer justice’ have been weaponised by Hindutva governments with impunity. Such bulldozer violence has severe economic implications and threatens to render entire families homeless and bring economic ruin upon them. Many targets of bulldozer violence are often low-income families or those living on the margins, and the state’s actions not only displace them and cause economic hardships but can trap them in vicious cycles of poverty. A 2022 Amnesty investigation found that as a consequence of 63 such incidents, 617 people were rendered homeless or deprived of their livelihoods. In July 2023, a Muslim tailor from Lucknow died by suicide as a consequence of financial troubles following his house being razed as part of a demolition drive. The family had been living in a tent since losing their home.
Following a stone-pelting incident in Madhya Pradesh’s Khargone in 2022, the state government razed at least 44 Muslim-owned homes and shops. One of the people whose shop was reported to be demolished for pelting stones was Wasim, a double-arm amputee. Local administration claimed the demolitions aimed to address illegal encroachments, but Narottam Mishra, the then state home minister, said, ‘Jis gharon se patthar aaye hai, unn gharon ko hi pattharon ka dher banayenge (The houses from which stones were pelted will be turned to rubble).’ A People’s Union of Civil Liberties (PUCL) report found that even though the Khargone violence affected both communities involved, only Muslim-owned properties were razed.
On November 13, 2024, the Supreme Court held that bulldozer justice is unconstitutional. However, it is yet to be seen if states will continue to exploit legal loopholes and perpetrate such violence in the guise of addressing illegal encroachments.
Propaganda aimed at the economic marginalisation of Muslims
Speaking to a reporter for the People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI), Mohammad Rafique said locals boycotted his shop for a time following the clashes in Khargone due to a debate on CNN News18 titled ‘Hindu Ram Navami Manaye, Rafique Patthar Barsaye’ which used his name, presumably as a generic stand-in for a Muslim name. Rafique's shop was eventually razed during the Khargone demolitions. Hindutva alarmism and propaganda can result in the economic marginalisation of Muslims, just as often and effectively as direct actions by Hindutva outfits and governments can.
Propaganda about Muslim-owned eateries contaminating food with saliva may seem like run-of-the-mill Islamophobia propagated by Hindutva supporters but the aim is economic violence. Yogi Adityanath’s allusions to food contaminated by saliva to justify UP’s mandate regarding owners disclosing their names is no coincidence; it seeks to exploit the misinformation and panic the long-running Hindutva propaganda has planted.
In 2021, false claims emerged that Muslims admitted that no food can be certified halal (permissible by Islamic law for the consumption of Muslims) unless contaminated with spit, triggering a Hindutva feeding frenzy. While this myth was debunked, the economic repercussions persisted. The foundation for the economic boycott and marginalisation of Muslims was solidified during the Covid-19 pandemic. Following the Tablighi Jamaat event, the propaganda took on a life of its own. Reactionary responses like 'corona terrorism' and ‘corona jihad’ leveraged the climate of health anxiety and uncertainty during the pandemic to create fertile ground for mainstreaming the calls for the economic boycott of Muslims.
TIME reported that the hashtag #CoronaJihad appeared nearly 300,00 times on Twitter in the days following the Tablighi Jamaat news breaking and was likely viewed by 165 million users. Just as the ‘China/Wuhan Virus’ propaganda in the West saw an increase in anti-Asian discrimination and violence, in India, the linking of the pandemic and its rapid spread to deliberate and organised actions by Muslims fuelled not only an increase in Islamophobia but also its weaponisation to lend credence to the calls for economic boycotts.
States, by not only parroting Hindutva propaganda but also legislating based on it and formulating directives to support it, are creating a vicious feedback loop wherein propaganda informs state actions, and state actions, in turn, legitimise and amplify the same propaganda, ultimately positioning it as the truth in the public imagination. Conspiracy theories like love jihad which started as mere propaganda have now taken on an astounding institutional character and conspiracies such as a thook jihad, along with other conspiracies aimed at economic marginalisation of Muslims, are susceptible to being similarly institutionally and structurally propagated.
The raison d’etre behind these moves is Islamophobia, despite whatever flimsy constructed excuses Hindutva actors present as a justification. The underlying motive of economic marginalisation and inflicting economic violence on the most vulnerable sections of Indian Muslims is blatantly clear. The institutional and systemic forms of economic violence that Hindutva perpetrates, if left unaddressed, have the potential to sideline an entire community and create a segregated society and economy in a secular nation that is decidedly not a Hindu Rashtra.
Akshita Prasad is a writer whose work primarily focuses on law and policy, politics, and pop culture.
