The capital of India has been plagued in recent days by severe violence against the Muslim community which has left nearly 40 dead and more than 200 injured. The northeast Delhi woke up painfully on 24 February 2020. Deserted streets, closed shops, remains of burned down buildings. The popular suburbs of the northeast of the Indian capital have been subjected to serious violence by armed Hindu nationalists. This outbreak of violence is the worst to hit the capital since the 1980s. Prima-facie, the conflagration lies in the opposition of Hindu nationalists, at the request of one of their local leaders, the blocking of a road by Muslim women to protest a controversial citizenship law passed last December. But more broadly, this violence falls within the context of the rise of Hindu nationalism for several years, embodied by the ruling party.

On December 11, the Indian Parliament amended the citizenship law, which sparked the anger of Muslim populations. The government plans to authorize the naturalization of illegal immigrants from three neighbouring countries, provided that they are not Muslims. The Muslims of this country perceive this amendment as another immigration law. According to them, the objective of this law is not to welcome more refugees, but to make Indian Muslims feel that they are second-class citizens, an opinion shared by many scholars and intellectuals in India. Ever since the amendment of citizenship law, many citizens are on streets in protest against this amendment and in defence of the principles of secularism and equality. Muslims participate in large numbers in these protests not to defend their faith but to defend the constitution of this land.

Since the violence has erupted, we have heard a lot about inter-community riots, but these are not confrontations between Hindus and Muslims, but rather violence committed specifically against Muslims by extreme right groups close to the government. One proof to show that this violence goes beyond community conflict is that, the Hindu neighbours of the targeted Muslims provided them with help and support. This violence is the work of Hindu nationalists to defend the ideology of the Hindutva that wants to make India an exclusively Hindu nation.

This violence therefore takes place in a political context. It is not conjectural, but the fruit of a constructed ideological approach India. The nationalist party in power since 2014 is working to “Hinduize” society. This involves rewriting history books in certain regions, where Muslim rulers are demonized and the pioneers of secularism like Nehru are obscured. The ruling party is therefore indirectly responsible for the violence that has agitated New Delhi in recent days, through the ideas it conveys. The government has taken time to intervene to put an end to the clashes. Only two days after the clashes started, the Prime Minister called on his fellow citizens to live in peace and brotherhood.

During the first days of the violence, several witnesses reported seeing the police watching the violence with their arms folded, without intervening. In this region, the police report directly to the Home Ministry of the Union government. The Home Minister did not deploy the security forces until more than 20 people had already been killed. Several days later, the northeast New Delhi knew a return to calm. But images of Indian Muslims fleeing the city, their belongings on their backs, have been widely circulated on social media. This is exactly the effect sought by the Hindu nationalists; it is a symbolic elimination.