A year after extremists forced Muslim neighbours from their homes in India, victims live in despair as their tormentors seek to drive Islam from what they consider a Hindu “holy land”.
Mohammad Salim shudders when he remembers the campaign that erupted in May 2023 against his Muslim minority community in Purola, a seemingly sleepy town surrounded by forested hills in the northern state of Uttarakhand.
“If I had not escaped that day, they would have killed me along with my family,” said Salim, 36, a married father of three young daughters.
Salim, whose clothes shop was looted, now lives in basic accommodation with his family around 100 kilometres away in the city of Haridwar, struggling to make ends meet.
But months of online hate speech had divided old friends. “I was threatened with death,” Salim said, adding his shop was looted and the building vandalised — losing assets he totalled at some $60,000. “People said, ‘You should leave the town quickly or these people will kill you’.”
He and his family fled that night, among some 200 other Muslims driven out. Only a few have returned.
Tomar, a full-time activist who heads a self-described anti-Islam “army” of several hundred men, believes his Muslim neighbours are conspiring to seize Hindu women, land, and businesses — none of which he can provide evidence to justify.
He spoke to AFP on a break from a meeting of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), whose millions of members conduct paramilitary drills and prayer meetings.
The RSS campaigns for India to be declared a Hindu nation — rather than a secular one, as enshrined in its constitution — and is the ideological parent of Modi’s BJP. “If a Hindu nation is to be created, it is only possible under the BJP,” Tomar said.
More moderate voices say some of the hatred is driven by jealousy at the perceived business acumen of Muslim traders, with extremists seeking a scapegoat for failing finances.
Indresh Maikhuri, a Hindu and civil society activist based in Dehradun, said political leaders saw benefit in boosting their popularity by sowing division. “Some people want to create a rift between Hindus and Muslims,” he said, warning the “humiliating and segregated treatment” would have “dire consequences”.
As for Salim, he dreams of home. “This is my motherland,” he said. “Where will I go, leaving this land where I was born? “
Mohammad Salim shudders when he remembers the campaign that erupted in May 2023 against his Muslim minority community in Purola, a seemingly sleepy town surrounded by forested hills in the northern state of Uttarakhand.
“If I had not escaped that day, they would have killed me along with my family,” said Salim, 36, a married father of three young daughters.
Salim, whose clothes shop was looted, now lives in basic accommodation with his family around 100 kilometres away in the city of Haridwar, struggling to make ends meet.
But months of online hate speech had divided old friends. “I was threatened with death,” Salim said, adding his shop was looted and the building vandalised — losing assets he totalled at some $60,000. “People said, ‘You should leave the town quickly or these people will kill you’.”
He and his family fled that night, among some 200 other Muslims driven out. Only a few have returned.
Tomar, a full-time activist who heads a self-described anti-Islam “army” of several hundred men, believes his Muslim neighbours are conspiring to seize Hindu women, land, and businesses — none of which he can provide evidence to justify.
He spoke to AFP on a break from a meeting of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), whose millions of members conduct paramilitary drills and prayer meetings.
The RSS campaigns for India to be declared a Hindu nation — rather than a secular one, as enshrined in its constitution — and is the ideological parent of Modi’s BJP. “If a Hindu nation is to be created, it is only possible under the BJP,” Tomar said.
More moderate voices say some of the hatred is driven by jealousy at the perceived business acumen of Muslim traders, with extremists seeking a scapegoat for failing finances.
Indresh Maikhuri, a Hindu and civil society activist based in Dehradun, said political leaders saw benefit in boosting their popularity by sowing division. “Some people want to create a rift between Hindus and Muslims,” he said, warning the “humiliating and segregated treatment” would have “dire consequences”.
As for Salim, he dreams of home. “This is my motherland,” he said. “Where will I go, leaving this land where I was born? “
India’s far-right Hindus seek to drive Muslims out of ‘holy land’
“Uttarakhand is the holy land of Hindus,” says local resident and hardline activist.
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