Himal Interviews: India’s politics of fear and division

In June 2025, Himal Southasian launched a podcast series titled Partitions of the Heart in collaboration with Karwan-e-Mohabbat, hosted by the peace activist Harsh Mander. The inaugural season, called ‘Muslim Life – and Death – in Modi’s India’,  focuses on the deepening crisis of Muslims in the country. Since 2017, Mander and Karwan-e-Mohabbat have done the extraordinary and difficult work of documenting a rising wave of hate and crimes against India’s Muslims, and of lending support and solidarity to victims of communal atrocities. In Mander’s words, “We live in deeply troubled times of visceral, everyday hate, violence, fear and division. The first step towards healing our growing fractures is to talk and listen to each other.”

This series is part of the effort to bring forward meaningful conversations on the increasing marginalisation and vilification of Muslims in India. In this conversation with Harsh Mander, we hear from Manoj Jha, a politician and member of India’s upper house, the Rajya Sabha. He is the rare politician who has spoken up about the persecution of Muslims in India and their being pushed into being second-class citizens of the country. Jha believes and has written that Muslims are not mere footnotes but co-authors in the story of India. Jha says that the craving for peace that was once the default template of India has been warped into a politics of hate.