This chapter shows that the current BJP government frames Muslim women’s rights as separate from Muslim men’s rights, and Muslim women as victims of Muslim men. When historical events vitalize stereotypes, as in the two events I will examine in this chapter, the Muslim woman emerges as a subject of rights as part of the Indian nation-state. The Shah Bano controversy in 1985 was a matter of maintenance or alimony for Muslim women after divorce. The resulting judgment denied rights to alimony to Muslim women under Section 125 of the Indian Constitution. This was the first moment where the Muslim woman subject was constructed as one to be saved. Indian National Congress and Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi were the critical actors at that time. More than thirty years later, when India was firmly in the grip of Hindu nationalism, the victimhood of the Muslim woman subject became relevant again with the second Muslim Women’s (Protection of Rights) Bill presented and passed in August 2019 which outlawed instant triple talaq in the Sharaya Bano case.

The introduction underlines the need for this book and lays out the parameters that are important to understand the intricacies of Indian politics that forms the context of this book.

Ramajanmbhoomi, the supposed exact site where Lord Ram was born and where a mosque called Babri Masjid stood for 400 years, has been contested between Hindus and Muslims in India for over eight decades. Lord Ram is a much worshipped and revered god in north India, and the Hindu right, over a period of several decades, claimed that the site of his exact birth had been overtaken by a mosque constructed by the Mughal emperor Babur. The sites and spaces where temples and mosques sit have led to much bloodshed since the country’s independence from the British in 1947. This chapter discusses how the conflict around Ramajanmbhoomi was created through propaganda.

In an effort to “reform” and fundamentally redefine who gets to call themselves a rights-bearing citizen of India, the BJP government introduced the National Registry of Citizens (NRC) and Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). January and February of 2020 saw riots across India over the issue of NRC and CAA. The Indian government made a decision by passing CAA, which stated that Muslims from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh could not become citizens of India. The decision also resulted in the Shaheen Bagh protests where Muslim women organized a dharna, “sit in,” for weeks to protest this draconian decision. NRC/CAA meant that many Muslims who were born in India but could not produce proper documents of being from India would not be regarded as lawful citizens of India. Many Indians below the poverty line have limited access to resources such as literacy that safeguard documentation. These Indians are not limited to their religious backgrounds yet NRC/CAA targets only Muslim citizens. NRC/CAA has led to widespread debate about how citizenship is framed and the legality of the law itself. Leaders of the BJP made several speeches where they framed Muslims as outsiders and “takers” who drain Indian society.

Chapter 1 defines the theoretical homes of this book and shows why and how harm in language has resulted in legislative actions. The chapter creates dialogue between two broad fields: the study of meaning in language and critical studies of South Asia. The chapter provides a brief history of Hindu right in India and an overview of how the government has weaponized language against Indian Muslims in the last three decades. This chapter shows that a critical aspect of understanding the success of the Hindu right in India, a secular democracy whose inception is underlined by massive violence between different religious groups during the partition, is to understand how it slowly and with cunning use of language sowed seeds of sectarian distrust. The chapter argues that while Hindu right has been studied from multiple perspectives, a linguistic perspective is missing. Such a perspective shows how successful the Hindu right has been in taking actions that lead to long-term harm to Muslim communities in India.

By framing Kashmir as a threatened and threatening space and Indian Muslims as Pakistan sympathizers and as threats to the Indian state, the Hindu right supports an increasingly militarized nation-state and maintains the rhetoric of Muslims as the enemy within. The chapter argues that maintaining Pakistan as a perpetual enemy and Indian Muslims as supporters of Pakistan, the rhetoric of the enemy within, that is, the Indian Muslim, continues and becomes self-serving. Muslims become the perpetual other and language about Pakistan and Kashmir places Indian Muslims as outsiders and Kashmiris as an example case of what Indian Muslims could become or already are. Rhetoric and propaganda around Kashmir argues for violent treatment of any rebellion by Kashmiris and militarization of the Indian nation-state.

The book concludes with sober thoughts on how propagandist language use threatens Indian democracy. One of the primary reasons for the book is to underline the urgency of studying and identifying linguistic trickery. While each chapter does so, the conclusion highlights the consequences of linguistic trickery for Indian Muslims. Academic work on language use such as this has argued for studying not just the language but also what is actually does to people.