‘Indian judiciary enables persecution of Muslims’
Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind warns India’s top court is failing constitutional duty, citing pattern of rulings that deepen discrimination against Muslims
NEW DELHI, India (MNTV) — One of India’s most influential Muslim organizations has sharply criticized the country’s judiciary, accusing the Supreme Court and government institutions of enabling systemic persecution of Muslims and eroding constitutional protections.
The Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, among the largest Muslim bodies in India, said recent judicial decisions and legislative actions reveal a coordinated effort to silence dissent and criminalize Muslim identity.
Speaking at the organization’s national leadership meeting in Bhopal, Jamiat president Maulana Mahmood Madani said the judiciary appears increasingly aligned with the political agenda of the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
He argued that several landmark Supreme Court rulings — including the decisions on the Babri Mosque demolition, triple talaq, and anti-conversion laws — reflected political pressure and raised serious questions about judicial independence.
Madani said the Supreme Court’s 2019 ruling that cleared the way for the construction of a Hindu temple on the site of the Babri Mosque, which was destroyed by a mob in 1992, symbolized a turning point.
The judgment, he argued, demonstrated a shift away from constitutional principles of secularism and equal citizenship. He also pointed to the 2017 ruling that struck down triple talaq, saying it was used as political theater to vilify Muslims rather than protect women’s rights.
The Jamiat leadership said India’s expanding network of anti-conversion laws in several states violates the fundamental right to freedom of religion, warning that while new Muslims and Christians are criminalized for changing or practicing their faith, Hindu reconversion campaigns operate freely without scrutiny. The organization described these laws as tools to instill fear and stigmatize minority communities.
Madani also condemned what he called a deliberate distortion of core Islamic concepts. He said campaigns built around phrases like “love jihad,” “land jihad” and similar slogans are designed to equate Islam with terrorism and push Muslims outside the bounds of legitimate citizenship.
Reasserting the theological meaning of the term, he said: “In Islam, jihad means the struggle against injustice and oppression. Whenever oppression exists, there will be jihad.”
According to the Jamiat, a nationwide architecture of discrimination has taken shape, manifested in bulldozer demolitions, mob lynchings, economic boycotts, criminal cases against activists, and coordinated hate campaigns targeting Muslim dress, food, and religious practices.
The group warned that Muslims, despite being equal citizens on paper, now face growing obstacles in education, employment and basic social mobility.
Rights groups and legal scholars have long warned that India’s democratic institutions are weakening under majoritarian pressures. International observers, including UN experts, have raised concern that the justice system is increasingly failing to safeguard minorities from targeted violence and state policies that undermine equality before the law.
The Jamiat leadership urged India’s courts to reclaim their independence and uphold constitutional values, warning that continued institutional collapse threatens not only Muslim citizens but the country’s democratic foundations.
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