This type of Hindu Rashtra can also adopt some of the other discriminatory aspects against its religious minorities that states like Pakistan have chosen. For instance, non-Muslims vote in separate electorates, and the apostatised community of Ahmadis cannot call themselves Muslims and have no religious freedom. The BJP MP Subramanian Swamy has proposed that Muslims be disenfranchised, meaning lose their right to vote.
Germany in the 1930s adopted a set of laws that prevented inter-marriage between communities. In India, after 2018, seven BJP states have passed laws that also criminalise marriage between Muslims and Hindus. German laws excluded Jews from citizenship, and India has of course passed the CAA excluding Muslims, and the home minister has promised the NRC, which also targets what he calls ‘termites’.
Many of the things that India has done especially since 2019, with targeted laws and policy on namaz, hijab, beef, bulldozer, talaq and so on would also be something that we can see in an exclusionary Hindu Rashtra.
So, the question is, if we have already excluded Muslims from political office by default, and if we are already harassing them daily through laws, like Nazi Germany did and like Pakistan did, then why do we need a Hindu Rashtra or a change from the present set of laws?
My book concluded that we did not. That the present Constitution and laws give Hindus enough freedom to apply discrimination against non-Hindus legally, while still pretending to be pluralist, democratic and secular. There appears to be no particular advantage or benefit that we get in officially changing our constitutional and legal state from secular to Hindu Rashtra.
