The right-wing government of India’s BJP party has set its sights on a new target — a Muslim figure of Turkic origin who died nearly a thousand years ago.
Yogi Adityanath, the chief minister of India’s most populous state of Uttar Pradesh, has called for a “complete ban” on events named after Salar Masud, a warrior-saint who took part in the Ghaznavid conquest of India in the early 11th century.
“Freedom from the slave mentality means a complete ban on events held in the name of Salar Masud,” Adityanath told a public gathering on June 10.
Originating from Central Asia, the Ghaznavids were of Turkic descent. Their conquests from the late 10th to early 11th centuries introduced Islamic governance, architecture, and cultural practices to India.
Masud has become the latest symbol in the BJP’s crusade to reshape the cultural landscape of multi-ethnic India. Revered by many as a Sufi saint, he enjoys a semi-legendary status among Indian Muslims.
Radical Hindu groups, however, view him as a foreign invader who took part in the Muslim conquest of India that popularised Islam in the Hindu-majority subcontinent a thousand years ago.
The subsequent Mughal Empire, which ruled much of India from 1526 to 1857, also traced its roots to Turkic origins, reflecting a continuity of Turkic influence in the subcontinent.
“(The) glorification of foreign invaders should be stopped and the national heroes must be honoured. And 1,000 years ago, such a tale of courage and bravery was written by Maharaja Suheldev on this very soil of Bahraich,” the chief minister said, while referring to the Hindu king who killed Masud in a battle in Uttar Pradesh in 1033 CE.
Conquest by ‘plunderers’
Last month, the Bahraich district administration denied permission for Jeth Mela, an annual festival that draws hundreds of thousands of devotees to the shrine of Masud from May 15 to June 15 every year.
Earlier, authorities in Sambhal, another district in the same Uttar Pradesh state, also refused to grant permission for a three-day festival because it was named after Masud – a person, they said, “looted the country”.
Hindu hardliners have long campaigned for banning events that memorialise Masud and his more famous uncle, Mahmud of Ghazni, claiming that they conquered India to plunder its temples full of gold and silver.
The Uttar Pradesh chief minister also inaugurated the statue of Suheldev, the killer of Masud, and participated in a special programme that marked his victory against the military leader of Turkic origin.
Quoting Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the chief minister said “national heroes” like Suheldev should be honoured. “History may have done injustice to him, but this… government will not allow it.”
The Turkic Ghaznavids, through leaders like Masud, laid the groundwork for subsequent Muslim dynasties by establishing administrative structures and fostering religious harmony.
Hindu-majority but constitutionally secular India has descended into a cesspool of majoritarianism, particularly since 2014 when Modi became prime minister by riding the wave of Hindu nationalism.
The ruling BJP has thrived on communal politics, pitting the followers of militant Hindutva ideology against Muslims who constitute roughly 14 percent of India’s 1.4 billion population.
Analysts say Muslims are often otherised in the world’s most populous country, sometimes as “inauthentic Indians” who are either the descendants of invaders from centuries ago or misguided converts who should embrace their Hindu past to reclaim their full status as citizens.
Episodes of anti-Muslim bigotry like demolitions of mosques, arbitrary arrests, mob lynching and changes in the Muslim Personal Law have become commonplace under the BJP government, which is accused of condoning violence against the weakest segments of society.
“Programmes in the name of foreign invaders will not be allowed. Programmes will be held in the name of Maharaja Suheldev,” the chief minister said, vowing to build a memorial in the name of Maharaj Bijli Pasi, a Hindu ruler of Uttar Pradesh in the 12th century.
