Aryan saga: ‘Even powerful Muslims are not safe in Modi’s India’

The real motive behind the arrest of Aryan Khan, son of Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan, was to send a clear message that even the most powerful Muslims are not safe under Hindu nationalist rule of Modi-led BJP party, Debasish Roy Chowdhury, a prominent Indian journalist wrote in an opinion piece published in the Hareetz.

Chowdhury opined that it would be a mistake to see the Aryan saga as a mere drama staged for political distraction or motivated by corruption.

“Given the level of capture of governing institutions by Modi’s party and the impunity with which they are used to crush the regime’s targets and push its supremacist agenda, the dramatic arrest clearly had a much larger purpose: sending out the message that even the most powerful Muslims in India are not safe anymore.”

The average Muslim already feels endangered, living under Modi’s Hindu nationalist dispensation that wears its bigotry as a badge of honour.

Lynchings, vigilante terror, open calls for genocide and myriad other forms of hate crime and speech are a daily reminder of their undesirability in the Hindu state that Modi’s party is busy fashioning, replacing India’s secular republic.

Muslim livelihoods and businesses are under attack. Muslim political representation has been decimated, it further read.

Also read: Aryan Khan goes back home after being released from jail

Of the ruling BJP’s 303 members (out of 543) in the directly elected Lower House of Parliament, not one is a Muslim. The political obliteration is matched by an organised disappearance of Muslims from history and cultural and public spaces. Street signs, neighbourhoods and cities bearing Muslim-sounding names are being renamed.

Through Modi’s seven years of mounting Muslim marginalisation in politics, economics and society, Bollywood has remained a stubborn, if not proud, outpost of Muslim presence. Its three famous Khans – Shah Rukh, Amir and Salman – remain the highest rated leading male actors with fan following cutting across religious lines, much to the discomfort of Hindu supremacists.

From script writing to film production, the Hindi film fraternity is populated by Muslims at every level, and is paying the price for it.

In a 2010 film called "My Name is Khan," SRK plays a Muslim man in the United States who challenges the post-9/11 Islamophobia with the refrain of: "My name is Khan, and I am not a terrorist." In Modi’s India, he has stopped pushing back. Having been trolled into silence and made acutely aware of the liability of his Muslim identity, he now keeps his head down. Even his son’s unlawful arrest couldn’t break his studied silence.

Khan’s silent suffering is a reflection of the dire state of both minorities in India and its democracy – the secret sauce of Bollywood’s success.

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