In an interim order today, India’s Supreme Court has stayed a controversial directive issued by the Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand state governments.
The two states recently issued orders to street vendors and eateries along the route of the ongoing Hindu-Kanwariya pilgrimage to display their names. Both state governments are run by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The apex court stated that food sellers must not be forced to display the names of owners and staff employed. However, eateries along the highway should display the type of food being served.
The court was hearing a batch of petitions filed by NGOs and politicians challenging the divisive directive. It has also issued notice to the state governments for their response.
The directive had raised apprehensions that it would serve to identify Muslim vendors. It has evoked allusions to Nazi Germany, and is seen as a step toward religious profiling, clearly targeting Muslim shops and vendors.
Expectedly, the Uttar Pradesh government’s order had sparked outrage, with opposition leaders like Assaduddin Owaisi drawing parallels with the economic boycott of Jews in Nazi Germany. “In Hitler’s Germany, it was called ‘Judenboycott’,” he posted on X, formerly Twitter. He also compared it to the racial segregation policy of Apartheid in South Africa. By calling on eatery owners to display their names, the Uttar Pradesh government is making sure that “no Kanwadia buys anything from a Muslim shop by mistake,” Owaisi said.
Kanwariyas are devotees of the Hindu god Shiva, hailing mainly from India’s northern states. Every year, about 30 million Kanwariya youth undertake a pilgrimage on foot during the holy month of Sawaan (monsoons), carrying poles to fetch holy water from the pilgrim town of Haridwar in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand to western Uttar Pradesh.
The order was initially rolled out in the Muslim-dominated western Uttar Pradesh districts of Muzaffarnagar, Shamli, and Saharanpur. Despite the public outcry against it, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath extended it across the state, all along the Kanwar route. Uttarakhand issued a similar directive soon after.
Adityanath is a saffron-robed Hindu monk-turned-politician, who is infamous for his divisive policies. He is known as “Bulldozer Baba” for having bulldozed the properties of alleged encroachers and the mafia. The opposition says that the bulldozing is not about ensuring good governance but is aimed at targeting Muslims and minorities.
On a rare discordant note, the BJP’s allies in the National Democratic Alliance have also spoken out against the order. The Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), a party based in Uttar Pradesh, described it as “an unconstitutional decision… that promotes caste and communalism,” and called for its immediate withdrawal. The Janata Dal (United) from Bihar demanded the order be reviewed as it “goes against the PM’s promise of ‘Everyone Together and Development for All.’”
Apart from deepening the communal divide, the profiling encourages an economic boycott of traders who deal in pilgrimage-related items, most of whom are Muslim traders, whose survival throughout the year depends on the business they do during this Kanwar season. Obviously, Hindu traders are seeking to destroy their competition.
Reports from the ground highlight the plight of Muslim vendors who have been forced to change their decades-old shop names and instead prominently display the names of their proprietors.
Independent journalist Ajit Anjum’s video report showed how a tea and snacks stall that was called Five Star Canteen has been forced by the Uttar Pradesh Police in Muzaffarnagar to change its name to Mohammed Hadi Tea stall. The proprietor, Hadi, explained at length that his stall does not sell any meat items and that his employees are all Hindus. Despite that, he was forced to change the board at his stall. It is clear to him that the change is permanent.
Fruit vendors along the highways have had to comply with the order as well. In several places, the police have pasted the names of the Muslim vendors, many of them struggling to eke out a livelihood, on their cycle carts. The directive has dealt them a fatal blow.
The UP administration order stated that its intention was to “facilitate the Hindu pilgrims” as it had created “confusion among Kanwariyas in the past” and hence to “save the law and order situation.”
Uttarakhand’s BJP chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami has defended the move in the interests of “transparency.” He said, “It’s a good decision. Why would anyone hide their identity?” He added, “If someone is working legitimately, why would they use a fake name? This could be to mislead others.”
It remains unclear how stalls selling fruits and vegetarian food could contaminate the Kanwar pilgrims. The underlying message is that Hindu pilgrims are likely to get contaminated simply by interacting with Muslim vendors and sellers.
Pointing out that the controversial order is “creating division in society on the basis of caste and religion,” Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said that it is “a crime against the Constitution.” Akhilesh Yadav, chief of the Samajwadi Party, the principal opposition party in the state, urged the courts to take suo motu cognizance of the clearly communal policy and demanded that the issuing authority be penalized. “What next? Muslims to wear equivalent of Star of David on their sleeve to mark themselves?” an opposition Trinamool Congress parliamentarian asked on X.
Prominent Muslim organization Jamiat-Ulema-i-Hind chief Maulana Mahmood Madani observed, “Just as the Dalit community has been subjected to untouchability and presented as impure for centuries, now there is a deliberate attempt to treat Muslims similarly and relegate them to second-class citizens.” The order is a “clear manifestation of prejudice,” he said.
In their petition to the Supreme Court challenging the order, Amnesty International’s Aakar Patel and Delhi University academic Prof. Apoorvanand stated that the directive violates the Fundamental Rights of citizens. Article 15 of the Indian Constitution guarantees no discrimination on the basis of religion, race, caste, or birth. The petition points out that the order aims to disclose religious or caste identity based on one’s name, which is clearly discriminatory. Several Muslim employees have lost their jobs as a consequence of the state directive.
Since 2014, the BJP’s strategy has involved communal polarization in every sphere of life. In an earlier article in The Diplomat, I elaborated how enforced vegetarianism and increasing meat bans are part of a larger BJP narrative to paint meat-eating as an aberration and impure. However, research data indicates that 80 percent of Indians eat meat. Additionally, the BJP is seeking to fuel Islamophobia even as it economically cripples Muslim businesses like meat shops.
Adityanath is under pressure. He is facing rebellion from the ranks of the state unit for the BJP’s below-par performance in Uttar Pradesh in the recent general elections. The communally divisive order could be the chief minister’s ploy to salvage the party’s plunging credibility.
Despite the waning electoral appeal of its Hindutva agenda, the BJP is not engaging in course correction. It appears that it is only with the intervention of the Supreme Court that the BJP mends its ways.