The results of India’s 2026 state assembly elections are being called historic. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has captured West Bengal for the first time and tightened its grip on Assam. Television anchors would call it a mandate for development. Newspaper editorials would praise Modi’s popularity. Do not believe any of it.

This was a mandate built on exclusion, fear, and the systematic declaration that 200 million Indian Muslims do not belong in the political life of their own country.

Consider the numbers. Across the four states that went to the polls — Assam, West Bengal, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu — a total of 104 Muslim MLAs were elected to various assemblies. That is 14.36 per cent of the 723 legislators. In a country where Muslims make up nearly 14 per cent of the population, this figure appears almost proportional.

But here is the damning detail that the Indian media will not highlight: not a single one of those 104 Muslim MLAs belongs to the BJP.

Zero. Not one. Not a single Muslim in the entire country was deemed worthy of a BJP ticket in these elections.

In Assam, where Muslims constitute approximately 34 per cent of the population, the BJP won 82 seats out of 126. Yet the party fielded no Muslim candidates in the entire state. In West Bengal, where Muslims make up 27 per cent of the population, the BJP won 207 seats out of 294. Again, no Muslim candidates.

This is not an electoral strategy. This is a declaration of war, a war waged not with bullets but with ballots. And the BJP is winning.

‘Victory for Hindutva’ — the mask is gone

The BJP’s prospective chief minister of West Bengal, Suvendu Adhikari, did not bother with the usual platitudes about serving all communities. He openly celebrated the result as “a victory for Hindutva” — the Hindu supremacist ideology that envisions India as a nation for Hindus alone.

The mask is now gone. The BJP no longer pretends to be a party of development or good governance. It is a religious movement that has captured the Indian state, and it is using that state to systematically marginalise, humiliate, and terrorise Muslims.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah campaigned on a platform of driving out “infiltrators”,  a coded slur for Muslims, particularly Bengali-speaking Muslims in Assam. Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has openly admitted that his government’s 2023 delimitation exercise — which reduced Muslim-majority seats in Assam from 35 to 22 — was designed to “marginalise the influence of the anti-BJP religious group”. Opposition leaders have correctly called it “legalised rigging”.

This is the face of Indian democracy in 2026. A ruling party that openly admits to rigging electoral boundaries to reduce Muslim representation, and then celebrates the results as a victory for Hindu supremacy.

The daily hell of being Muslim in Modi’s India

The 2026 election results did not occur in a vacuum. They are the electoral culmination of a decade of rising violence, state-sanctioned hate speech, and the systematic dehumanisation of India’s Muslim minority.

According to a January 2026 report by the India Hate Lab, India recorded 1,318 hate speech events in 2025 — an average of more than three per day. This represents a 97 per cent increase since 2023.

Of these, 1,289 events contained hateful, violent references to Muslims. The report found that 88 per cent of hate speech events took place in states governed by the BJP or its allies. Among the top 10 individuals responsible for the most hate speech, five are affiliated with the BJP — including Amit Shah, the country’s home minister, who is tasked with protecting all citizens regardless of faith.

The conspiracy theories deployed are not random. They are carefully manufactured: “land jihad” (Muslims plotting to capture Hindu land), “population jihad” (Muslims scheming to outnumber Hindus), “love jihad” (Muslim men conspiring to convert Hindu women through marriage). These narratives are designed not just to win votes but to justify violence.

Union Minister for Minority Affairs Kiren Rijiju — whose job is literally to protect religious minorities — has instead accused the Congress party of becoming the “Muslim League Party,” a slur invoking the party that campaigned for Pakistan’s creation. The BJP’s IT cell chief, Amit Malviya, has echoed this language.

The message is unmistakable: to be Muslim in India today is to be an enemy of the state. To advocate for Muslim political rights is to be a traitor.

Beyond Muslims: The circle of hate expands

The BJP’s majoritarian project does not stop at Muslims. Christians, who make up only 2.3 per cent of India’s population, have become an increasingly visible target.

On Christmas Eve 2025, Hindu hardline groups announced a shutdown in the city of Raipur, claiming “forced conversions” by Christians — a charge repeatedly made despite an absolute lack of evidence. That same day, armed men stormed a shopping mall, vandalising Christmas decorations and disrupting worshipers. Police arrested only six people. They were released on bail within days and greeted with garlands and celebratory processions.

Prime Minister Modi visited a Catholic church in New Delhi on Christmas morning. He did not condemn the violence. He did not mention the arrest. He offered prayers and posed for photographs while his party’s foot soldiers terrorised Christians across the country.

Hate speech targeting Christians rose from 115 events in 2024 to 162 in 2025 — a 41 per cent increase. The “forced conversion” narrative now paints every act of Christian charity, education, or healthcare as a deceptive tool for converting Hindus.

Human Rights Watch: State-sanctioned targeting

In February 2026, Human Rights Watch released its annual World Report, documenting a grim reality that the Indian government has tried to hide from the international community. The report found that India’s BJP-led government “vilified religious minorities” and continued to carry out “unlawful demolitions of homes and properties of Muslims” under the guise of addressing illegal construction.

“Hate speech often linked to Hindu nationalist groups and attacks against Muslims increased,” the report stated. The authorities also cracked down on critics of the government and pressured the media to self-censor.

Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said: “The Indian government has normalised violence against religious minorities, marginalised groups, and critics through discriminatory policies, hate speech, and politically motivated prosecutions.”

This is not a fringe opinion. This is the finding of one of the world’s most respected human rights organisations. And the 2026 election results are India’s answer: we do not care.

The trap of reverse polarisation — and why Muslims cannot win

Muslim voters have responded to this onslaught not with indifference but with desperate fear.

In Assam, the All India United Democratic Front — a regional party that historically drew Muslim support — collapsed from 16 seats to just two. Muslim voters have abandoned their own community-based representatives to rally behind the Congress party.

In Assam, 18 of the 19 Congress MLAs elected are Muslims.

In West Bengal, the Congress and its allies have become the primary vehicles for Muslim political expression.

But this is a trap. Every Muslim vote that consolidates behind the Congress is a weapon the BJP uses to accuse the opposition of “minority appeasement.”

The more Muslims appear to vote as a bloc, the more the BJP can claim that Hindus must do the same to defend themselves against the “Muslim threat.”

It is a perfect machine. The BJP creates fear. It exploits the fear. Then it uses the consequences of that fear to justify more fear. And the Muslim community is caught in the middle — crushed between a party that hates them and a party that is too weak and too scared to defend them.

The BJP’s endgame: A Hindu nation

What does the BJP actually want? The answer is no longer hidden. It wants a “Hindu rashtra”, a Hindu nation where other faiths are tolerated as guests but never treated as equals.

The 2026 state elections have brought that vision terrifyingly close to reality. Across five major states, the BJP won historic victories while refusing to field a single Muslim candidate. Its leaders celebrated in the name of Hindutva. Its campaign was built on conspiracy theories about “infiltrators” and “jihad.” Its state governments have redrawn electoral maps to dilute Muslim political power.

And the world watches in silence. Western leaders shake Modi’s hand. Western corporations invest in his economy. Western universities honour him with degrees. All while 200 million Indian Muslims are being systematically erased from the political life of their own country.

The overturning of India

India’s Constitution promises a secular, socialist, democratic republic. The 2026 state elections have confirmed that this promise is being systematically dismantled, not through a coup, not through a revolution, but through the ballot box. Democratically. Legally. And with the enthusiastic support of a Hindu majority that has been trained to see Muslims as enemies rather than neighbours.

The BJP won the 2026 state elections. But the real losers are not the Congress party or the regional outfits. The real losers are the millions of Muslim families who went to sleep on election night knowing, perhaps for the first time, that India is no longer their home.

For 200 million Indian Muslims, the message of 2026 is clear: you may live here. You may pay taxes here. You may send your children to school here. But you will never rule here. You will never be represented here. You will never be equal here.

That is not democracy. That is apartheid by another name.

The writer is a seasoned journalist covering the economy and international affairs.