India's far-right Hindus seek to drive Muslims out of 'holy land'

HARIDWAR: A year after extremists forced Muslim neighbours from their homes in India, victims live in despair as their tormentors seek to drive the minority community 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 (60 miles) away in the city of Haridwar, struggling to make ends meet.

Rakesh Tomar, 38, is one of those who celebrated his departure.

The hardline Hindu nationalist activist, based in state capital Dehradun, spouts hate-filled rhetoric against a minority he feels threatens him.

"Uttarakhand is the holy land of Hindus," Tomar said, referring to the shrines around the sacred headwaters of the Ganges river in the state, an area larger than Switzerland.

"We will not let it become an Islamic state under any circumstances, even if we have to sacrifice our lives for it."

Only 13% of Uttarakhand's 10 million people are Muslim, according to the last census in 2011.

Much of the hatred last year was fuelled by "love-jihad" conspiracies, alleging Muslim men wanted to seduce Hindu women to convert them.

Crude but effective, they are shared widely online, poisoning centuries of relative harmony in the area.

Many were shared by activists like Tomar, supporters of the ruling Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The BJP's nationalist rhetoric has left India's Muslim population of more than 220 million fearful for their future.