Indian Muslims are not immigrants. They do not look different from their Hindu neighbours. Their ancestors have lived on this land for over a thousand years.
Yet they are called “termites.” They are accused of “love jihad.” They are blamed for spreading COVID-19. They are denied housing, jobs, and justice. They live in segregated ghettoes. They are lynched by mobs while police watch.
And according to a landmark new academic study, this is not religious intolerance. This is racism.
In a paper published in The Political Quarterly, University of Ottawa professor Sonia Sikka makes a provocative argument that has global implications: Indian Islamophobia should be classified as racism — even though Indian Muslims and Hindus share the same skin colour.
The study arrives at a critical moment. With 200 million Muslims — India’s largest minority, and the third-largest Muslim population in the world — facing unprecedented discrimination under the Hindu nationalist government of Narendra Modi, the question is no longer academic.
How the world defines the problem determines what solutions it offers.
The Paradox: Racism Without Race
For decades, scholars of racism have focused on the West — on anti-Black discrimination in the United States, on anti-immigrant sentiment in Europe, on the legacy of colonialism and slavery.
The standard definition of “cultural racism” or “neoracism” still assumes phenotype — visible physical difference — as a baseline. Muslims in Europe are targeted because they are perceived as non-white. African Americans are targeted because of skin colour.
India breaks the model.
“There are no physical markers of difference between Muslims and other social groups in India,” Sikka writes. “Non-Muslim landlords in urban centres routinely refuse to rent to Muslims, not because they look different — they don’t — but because of their name, their perceived community membership, their Muslimness.”
This is racism without race. And it is devastating.
Table 1: Indian Muslims vs. African Americans — Striking Parallels of Systemic Discrimination
| Dimension | African Americans (USA) | Indian Muslims |
|---|---|---|
| Historical disadvantage | Slavery, segregation, Jim Crow | Partition elite exodus to Pakistan, inherited poverty |
| Housing discrimination | Redlining, racial covenants, steering | Landlords openly refuse to rent to Muslims; religious segregation |
| Employment bias | Lower hiring rates, wage gaps, “last hired, first fired” | Sachar Committee: Muslim graduates have highest unemployment among all socio-religious groups |
| Policing | Racial profiling, police violence, mass incarceration | Biased policing, custodial torture, no protection from mob violence |
| Wealth gap | White households have 8x wealth of Black households | Muslims significantly below national average on almost all economic indicators |
| Segregation | Black neighbourhoods poorer, worse schools, fewer services | Muslim ghettoes in Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad; poorer infrastructure |
| Political representation | Historically excluded; ongoing underrepresentation | Declining Muslim representation in Parliament; none in many state assemblies |
| Violence | Lynching, church bombings, massacre | Pogroms (Gujarat 2002, Delhi 2020), lynchings, organised mob violence |
‘They Called Us Termites’: The Dehumanisation Machine
On 12 April 2019, Amit Shah — now India’s Home Minister, then President of the Bharatiya Janata Party — stood before a rally in West Bengal and declared:
“Bangladeshi infiltrators are termites. We will throw them into the Bay of Bengal.”
In the Hindutva lexicon, “Bangladeshi infiltrator” is code. Its target is Muslim.
This is not isolated rhetoric. It is systematic, state-sanctioned dehumanisation — the kind David Livingstone Smith identifies as the precursor to pogrom and genocide.
The parallels with Nazi anti-semitism are not accidental. They are structural.
| Nazi Anti-Semitic Trope | Hindutva Anti-Muslim Trope |
|---|---|
| Jews as perverse seducers of Aryan women | “Love Jihad” — Muslim men allegedly seduce Hindu women for conversion |
| Protocols of the Elders of Zion — Jewish world domination conspiracy | Muslims as fifth column, loyal to Pakistan/global Islamist conspiracy |
| Jews as disease, vermin, parasites | Muslims as “termites,” COVID spreaders, “corona jihadis” |
| Jews as foreign to German nation | Muslims as foreign to Indian nation (despite 1000+ years presence) |
| Racial laws prohibiting intermarriage | Anti-conversion laws, “love jihad” laws targeting interfaith marriage |
“There are certainly echoes of Nazi antisemitic propaganda in some recent anti-Muslim Indian discourses,” Sikka writes.
This is not hyperbole. This is documented fact.
The Sachar Report: India’s Own Kerner Commission
In 2005, facing growing evidence of Muslim marginalisation, the Indian government established the Sachar Committee to examine the social, economic, and educational status of Muslims.
The findings, tabled in 2006, were devastating:
- Muslims have lower literacy rates than any other socio-religious category except Dalits
- Muslims have higher poverty rates than the national average
- Muslims have fewer salaried workers in formal employment
- Muslims have less access to bank credit
- The gap between Muslims and other groups INCREASES with education level — Muslim graduates have the highest unemployment rate of any community
The committee was not asked to investigate causes. But the pattern is unmistakable.
As Sikka notes: “It would be hard to find an explanation for this other than employment discrimination.”
Table 2: Indian Muslims by the Numbers — What the Data Shows
| Indicator | Muslim Status | Comparison |
|---|---|---|
| Population | 200+ million (approx 14-15%) | 3rd largest Muslim population in world |
| Literacy rate | Below national average | Gap persists across states |
| Poverty rate | Higher than national average | Only SC/ST communities comparable |
| Formal employment | Significantly under-represented | Declining trend |
| Bank credit access | Severely restricted | Lowest among all groups |
| Graduate unemployment | HIGHEST among all SRCs | Gap widens with education |
| Parliamentary representation | ~4-5% (declining) | 14-15% of population |
| Ghettoisation | Increasing in all major cities | Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad |
| Lynching incidents (2015-2025) | 100+ documented cases | Most perpetrators not convicted |
| Custodial torture victims | Disproportionately Muslim | No official data disaggregated |
‘You Can’t Get a House If Your Name Is Mohammed’
In Delhi’s affluent neighbourhoods, real estate brokers have an open secret.
“No Muslims.”
Sometimes it’s explicit. Sometimes it’s coded: “society people,” “family environment,” “vegetarian only.”
The effect is the same.
Delhi’s Muslims are increasingly concentrated in walled ghettoes — Okhla, Seelampur, Mustafabad, Zakir Nagar. These neighbourhoods have poorer infrastructure, fewer hospitals, worse schools. Ambulances hesitate to enter during riots. Police are hostile.
This is not coincidence. This is policy by inaction.
And it’s not just Delhi. Mumbai’s Muslims are pushed into Nagpada, Jogeshwari, Kurla. Ahmedabad’s Muslims are confined to Juhapura — a 2-square-kilometre ghetto housing over 400,000 people, with one government hospital.
When violence erupts — as it did in Gujarat 2002, in Delhi 2020, in scores of smaller pogroms — Muslims flee to these ghettoes for safety. Their abandoned homes and businesses are looted. They never return. The ghetto expands.
This is how ethnic cleansing works when it’s called “communal violence.”
The ‘Love Jihad’ Lie: Weaponising Fear of Muslim Men
Perhaps no trope reveals the racialised nature of Indian Islamophobia more clearly than “love jihad.”
The theory: Muslim men allegedly seduce Hindu women, convert them to Islam through marriage, and produce Muslim children — a demographic conspiracy to overwhelm the Hindu population.
There is zero evidence. No conspiracy has ever been uncovered. No network has ever been prosecuted.
Yet “love jihad” laws have been passed in multiple BJP-ruled states. Interfaith couples are harassed. Muslim men are arrested. Hindu women are “rescued” — treated as incapable of consent.
This is the Nuremberg Laws by another name.
The 1935 Nazi racial laws prohibited marriage and sexual relations between Jews and Germans. The justification: Jewish men were predators targeting Aryan women.
“The canard of love jihad,” Sikka writes, “recalls the portrayal of Jewish men as perverse seducers of ‘Aryan’ women.”
History does not repeat. But it rhymes.
COVID-19: The ‘Corona Jihad’ Blood Libel
In March 2020, as the pandemic swept across the world, a Muslim missionary group — Tablighi Jamaat — held a gathering at its Delhi headquarters in Nizamuddin.
The event was organised before COVID restrictions were announced. Participants, including some international travellers, later tested positive.
What followed was a pogrom by media.
News channels ran 24/7 segments demonising Muslims as “corona spreaders.” The Tablighi Jamaat was blamed for India’s entire outbreak. “Corona jihad” trended on social media. Fake videos circulated showing Muslims licking utensils, spitting on vegetables.
Muslim food vendors were boycotted. Muslim healthcare workers were harassed. Muslim patients were denied treatment.
Courts eventually dismissed cases against Tablighi Jamaat organisers, criticising the government for malicious prosecution.
But the damage was done. The message was clear: Muslims are disease.
Hindutva and Nazism: The Historical Connection Western Media Ignores
The parallels between Hindutva ideology and European fascism are not coincidence.
They are historically documented.
Eviane Leidig’s research traces the early links between Hindutva proponents and Italian fascism, German Nazism. V.D. Savarkar — the ideologue who coined “Hindutva” — admired Hitler. The RSS — the BJP’s parent organisation — drew inspiration from European nationalist movements.
“Both white and Hindu nationalisms share a conception of race centred on Aryanism in their projects of creating an ethnostate,” writes Ishan Ashtosh.
This is not to say Hindutva is Nazism. But the family resemblance is unmistakable.
| Ideological Element | Nazism | Hindutva |
|---|---|---|
| Nation defined by | Blood, race, ethnicity | Hindu identity |
| Minorities as | Foreign body, internal enemy | Foreign origin, fifth column |
| Solution | Exclusion, expulsion, extermination | Assimilation (conversion) or subordination |
| Historical grievance | Versailles, Weimar betrayal | 1000 years of “Muslim oppression” |
| Global conspiracy | International Jewry | International Islam, Pakistan, “vote jihad” |
Why ‘Racism’ Matters: Diagnosis Determines Cure
Sikka’s central argument is not merely descriptive. It is prescriptive.
If Indian Islamophobia is religious intolerance, the solution is interfaith dialogue, education, secularism.
If Indian Islamophobia is racism, the solution is anti-discrimination law, affirmative action, housing policy, employment equity, police reform, political representation.
These are different remedies. And India has pursued the wrong one.
India’s Constitution established a unique form of secularism — not separation of religion and state, but equal respect for all religions. This framework granted religious communities jurisdiction over “personal laws” — marriage, divorce, inheritance — matters affecting women and children.
This has not helped Muslims.
It has empowered patriarchal religious authorities. It has rigidified communal boundaries. It has done nothing for housing discrimination, employment bias, police violence, or mob lynching.
“The type of recognition granted to Indian Muslims by the state, in the name of secularism, has not only failed to improve their social standing and material welfare,” Sikka writes. “It has had some positively pernicious effects.”
What Anti-Racism Would Look Like for Indian Muslims
If Indian Islamophobia is racism, then India needs:
1. Anti-discrimination legislation — Explicitly prohibiting discrimination on grounds of religion in housing, employment, education, and public accommodation.
2. Affirmative action — Reservation quotas for Muslims in education and government employment, modelled on existing quotas for castes.
3. Police reform — Independent oversight, mandatory recording of custodial interactions, data disaggregation by religion.
4. Housing policy — Enforcement of open housing laws, de-ghettoisation programmes, investment in minority-concentration areas.
5. Political representation — Delimitation reforms to ensure proportional Muslim representation in legislatures.
6. Hate speech prosecution — Enforced against anti-Muslim rhetoric, not selectively applied.
7. Economic development — Targeted programmes for Muslim-majority districts, access to credit, skill development.
None of this is possible under the current government. But naming the problem correctly is the first step toward solving it.
The Diaspora Dimension: ‘Hinduphobia’ as Deflection
As scholarship on Hindutva grows in Western academe, a coordinated counter-movement has emerged.
The charge: “Hinduphobia.”
Organisations like the Hindu American Foundation are suing academics — historian Audrey Truschke, the co-founders of Hindus for Human Rights — for defamation. The accusation: discussing Hindutva as Hindu supremacy is anti-Hindu bias.
“There is no evidence of any widespread animus specifically against Hindus in Western countries, as opposed to a broader cultural racism against the customs and religions of non-white people,” Sikka notes.
The “Hinduphobia” charge serves the same function as accusations of “anti-white racism” or “antisemitism” deployed to shield Israeli policy: deflection, false equivalence, silencing.
It is, itself, evidence of how thoroughly Hindutva has absorbed the playbook of global white nationalism.
Conclusion: 200 Million Reasons to Get This Right
On 26 February 2002, a train carrying Hindu pilgrims stopped at Godhra station in Gujarat. A fire broke out. Fifty-nine people died.
What followed was a state-organised pogrom against Muslims that killed over 1,000 people, displaced 150,000, and destroyed thousands of homes and businesses.
The Chief Minister of Gujarat was Narendra Modi.
Twenty-four years later, Modi is Prime Minister. The machinery of the Indian state is openly aligned with Hindutva ideology. Muslims are called termites from the Home Minister’s podium. Lynching is routine. Ghettoisation accelerates. Representation declines. Poverty persists.
And the world still calls this “communal violence” — ancient hatreds, both sides, religious conflict.
It is not. It is racism.
“For legal, moral and political purposes,” Sikka concludes, “viewing the situation of Indian Muslims through the lens of racism points to solutions different from the ones the Indian state has implemented under the aegis of secularism.”
Two hundred million people are waiting for the world to understand.
Reference: here
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