Why India’s Muslim lawmaker faced backlash for raising pro-Palestine chant?

All hell broke loose on June 25 when Asaduddin Owaisi, one of the few Muslim legislators in India’s newly elected parliament, raised a pro-Palestine chant soon after taking the oath of office for a fifth consecutive term.

The 54-year-old fire-breathing politician—who won a parliamentary seat from the southern state of Telangana with support from mainly Muslim and low-caste Hindu Dalit voters—concluded his oath with the words “Jai Falasteen” or “long live Palestine”.

It didn’t take long for the supporters of Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to aim their guns against the Muslim politician.

“Please send him to Palestine,” said one user of social media platform X while tagging the official handle of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP, which has just returned to power for a third term in a row.

The X user also tagged the official handle of the Israeli military, demanding that it should “take care” of the outspoken Muslim politician from India.

Another X user called for Owaisi’s immediate deportation from India, calling him a “traitor” for raising his voice in parliament for Palestine.

Through one of its official X handles, the ruling BJP party of premier Modi called for Owaisi to have “a little bit of shame” for his pro-Palestine chant.

What’s behind this virulence?

Home to 1.4 billion people, India—the world’s largest democracy—recently held a general election that returned Modi’s BJP to power, albeit with a narrower majority than before.

Hindu-majority but constitutionally secular India has descended into a cesspool of majoritarianism, particularly since 2014 when Modi became prime minister by riding on the wave of Hindu nationalism.

The ruling BJP has thrived on communal politics, pitting the followers of militant Hindutva ideology against Muslims who constitute roughly 14 percent of India’s population.

Analysts say Muslims are often otherised in the world’s most populous country, sometimes as “inauthentic Indians” who are either the descendants of invaders from centuries ago or misguided converts who should embrace their Hindu past to reclaim their full status as citizens.

Human rights groups have accused the Modi government of advocating “hatred and violence” against the 200 million-plus Muslim population, thus altering the secular character of India.

Muslims constitute the poorest religious group in India with the worst social and economic indicators. Episodes of anti-Muslim bigotry like demolitions of mosques, arbitrary arrests, mob lynching and changes in the Muslim Personal Law have become commonplace under the BJP government, which is accused of condoning violence against the weakest segments of society.

The BJP-led government also changed the constitutional status of Kashmir, the only Muslim-majority province in the country.

This is the backdrop in which a simple expression of support for Palestine by an elected representative on the floor of the Indian parliament is being confronted virulently by the BJP supporters.

United by anti-Muslim ideology

India’s founding fathers, including Mahatma Gandhi and first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, unequivocally supported the cause of Palestine. Even though India recognised Israel in 1950, its relations with the Zionist state remained lukewarm for the first four decades.

On the other hand, successive Indian governments forged close relations with the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and its leader Yasser Arafat.

New Delhi established a full diplomatic relationship with Tel Aviv only in 1992. That was because India sought at the time closer ties with the United States, a staunch backer of Israel, following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was India’s close Cold War-era ally.

The India-Israel bilateral relationship received a major upgrade under Modi’s government, with New Delhi becoming the biggest customer for Israel’s military equipment like radars, surveillance and combat drones and missiles.

Israel is the second-largest supplier of military equipment to India. Around 42.1 percent of all Israeli arms exports have gone to India since 2014, the year Modi came to power.

In a policy U-turn on October 7, 2023, the Indian prime minister sent out a tweet labelling Hamas as “terrorists”. Modi designated the Palestinian resistance group as a terrorist organisation at once, marking a broader change in India’s foreign policy on the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Subsequently, India not only shied away from supporting a UN resolution for a ceasefire in Gaza but also voted in favour of a resolution demanding the unconditional release of Israeli hostages.

According to Azad Essa, author of “Hostile Homelands: The New Alliance Between India and Israel”, India’s closeness to Israel is connected with the anti-Muslim sentiment, which is deeply entrenched in Modi’s politics.

“Many Indians have become major supporters of Israel because the government has managed to create a narrative that the modernising project in India is closely linked with being partners with Israel and that they both face similar enemies in the form of Muslims,” he said.