The RSS… is aware that Hindu–Muslim couples are only acting out the oldest impulse of our species—the pairing off of two persons attracted to each other. This impulse is not easily curbed. It resurfaces in even the most difficult of circumstances. This means that its prevention requires the constant threat of violence, which can only exist with the tacit and active connivance of a Hindutva state.
Endogamous groups, separated from each other, are what we call jatis today. They are sorted into the larger categorisation of varna, which is hierarchical. The origins of this hierarchy of jatis must date back to somewhere when the period of intermixing came to an end, or shortly after. “The jati system,” Reich states, “involves a minimum of 4,600 and by some accounts around 40,000 endogamous groups. Each is assigned a particular rank in the varna system, but strong and complicated endogamy rules prevent people from most different jatis from mixing with each other, even if they are of the same varna level.”
It is difficult today to ascertain how those relegated to demeaning positions in the hierarchy were so confined. No group was going to accept such a situation willingly. It would have required theological justification and the use of preponderant force to the point where communities felt unable to challenge their subjugation by those who have created the label of “upper caste” for themselves. While any such claim is hypothetical, difficult to verify or obtain evidence for, we now have an instance before us where a similar process is ongoing and has achieved the kind of malevolent success no one could have predicted even a decade ago: the degradation and marginalisation of the Muslims of India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
In varying measure, it bears the mark of almost all the ingredients that segregate populations lower down the hierarchy of castes from those that designate themselves upper castes. These include a clampdown on intermarriage, the ghettoisation of populations, the labelling of dietary choices and deprivation from any participation in the societal power structure.
Drawing upon some existing tendencies in Indian society, this process has seen an abrupt escalation with Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party coming to power. Examples abound. In Uttarakhand, as The Caravan reported in its August 2023 issue, these forces are clearly attempting the ethnic cleansing of Muslims from the state, which they have recast as Devbhoomi, a Hindu holy land. The communal violence in Haryana’s Nuh district, which began in July and stretched over days to other parts of the state, is also a part of this project.
The large extended grouping of the Sangh Parivar and a host of more extreme organisations that share the overarching ideology of Hindutva have been partners in these ongoing crimes. These have been enabled through violence perpetrated by members of such organisations and have been abetted by a number of laws passed by BJP governments since 2014, which lay an ideological foundation and provide a legal basis for the process. The description, scope and execution of these crimes fall unambiguously within the ambit of what are described as crimes against humanity under the 1998 Rome Statute, which established the International Criminal Court.
THE MARGINALISATION OF MUSLIMS is marked by a series of steps that have proceeded in tandem. Here, I look at each of these steps, beginning with the prevention of what Hindutva views as miscegenation….
After the truth-shower 