The denial of permission by the Delhi Police, for the Palm Sunday ‘Way of the Cross’ procession, from St. Mary’s Church to Sacred Heart Cathedral in the Capital city-state, citing security concerns, marks the latest push of India’s majoritarian Hindutva-driven state towards invisibilising religious minorities in India.

In a period where communal passions has recurrently reared its head in states – from Maharashtra to Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal most recently, the Indian capital has providentially not witnessed occurrence of violent clashes despite politically motivated provocations from majoritarian Hindutva votaries. 

It thereby appears that the decision of the Delhi Police is chiefly propelled by political objectives, more so as Hindu festivities continued unrestrained through the Navratra (or-tri) period and was followed by several other festivals, like Ram Navami, Mahavir Jayanti and Hanuman Jayanti. 

Ironically, Delhi Police disallowed the city’s Christian population – accounting for less than one percent of the population – from taking out the procession despite it being an important part of the Christian religious calendar, not even two and half months after the Bharatiya Janata Party was elected to power after a gap of 27 years. 

In any case, the law and order machinery and its maintenance are the Centre’s domain and supervised by none other than the top brass of the Union government. After the defeat of the Aam Aadmi Party in the assembly elections in February, the BJP had little justification in disallowing this procession because its call for installing a ‘double-engine ki sarkar’ to ensure seamless governance was endorsed by Delhi’s electorate.

Not permitting the annual procession stands in complete contrast to the stance of the Punjab Police, as the Christian community in Amritsar, was allowed to take out the procession. This was done under the auspices of the Diocese of Amritsar (DoA), Church of North India (CNI), on April 13 – Palm Sunday, celebrated every year as ‘Peace Day’ in the city.

Christian people participate in a Palm Sunday procession in Moradabad, Sunday, April 13, 2025. Photo: PTI.

In Delhi, the annual procession has been taken out regularly after the current Archbishop of Delhi Anil Joseph Thomas Couto, took charge in December 2012 and started this tradition from 2013. 

Last year too, the police did not grant permission to take out the procession although there was barely any reason and the AAP government was in office. The only factor for the denial was that the city was in the grip of electoral campaigning, but then such permissions were routinely granted for Hindu festivals. 

Not being allowed to take out the procession two years in succession raises the spectre of the Christian collective being made ‘permanently’ invisible in public spaces and allowed to congregate only within church premises.

The day after Palm Sunday was a government holiday on account of the 134th birth anniversary of Dr BR Ambedkar. On this day, thousands of people, besides the country’s political elite, paid floral tributes to the statue of Dr Ambedkar at the Parliament House Lawn. 

This day, from the time the event was thrown open to the public, has witnessed serpentine queues of innumerable people from across India waiting patiently – often in rising heat – for their turn to pay tributes to Dr B.R. Ambedkar. But, Delhi Police did not envisage any threat to law and order even in the face of such a large assemblage.

The Ambedkar Jayanti celebrations in fact, marked the end of a fortnight long period of frenzied Hindu festivities. It is necessary to frame April 14 along with purely religiously festivals, because obeisance is paid to Dr Ambedkar by adherents of majoritarian Hindutva in no different a manner.

The birth anniversary of the iconic Indian credited as being the primary driver of the Indian Constitution is embraced by all and sundry of the present regime with a political purpose; furthering Sangh Parivar’s politics of appropriation.

In speeches and social media posts through the day of leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Prime Minister Narendra Modi downwards, it was glossed over that during Ambedkar’s lifetime, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and its offshoots crossed swords with him bitterly.

In this image from PMO on Monday, April 14, 2025, Prime Minister Narendra Modi pays tribute to BR Ambedkar on his birth anniversary, during laying of foundation stone and inauguration of various development projects, in Yamuna Nagar, Haryana. Photo: Via PTI.

Additionally, can one ignore what was not mentioned by a single leader from today’s political regime – that thousands of ardent Ambedkarites who descend on Deekshabhoomi in Nagpur and Chaityabhoomi in Mumbai every year, celebrate his final divorce from Hinduism? 

The former location is where Ambedkar embraced Buddhism in 1956, initiating a massive socio-religious movement. The latter site was where he was accorded a Buddhist cremation later that year, attended by almost half a million people, who were anything but Hindutva supporters. Yet, the charade was played out, during the day and later during primetime on TV.

It is necessary to recall that the fortnight concluding on April 14, began with the start of the Chaitra Navaratri (or -tra) period on March 30, and the next day was declared as the day on which Eid-ul-Fitr (please use the spelling in your style-sheet. I grew up with this one) would be celebrated in most parts of the country on the next day, March 31.

In a country which aims to claim the nametag of being tolerant and pluralistic, this astronomical coincidence of the end of the Holy month of Ramzan and the start of one of the two widely adhered nine-day periods, should ideally be a civilizational showpiece.

Both Islam and Hinduism (Disclaimer: sequenced in this order for no other reason than Ramzan preceded Navaratri this year), call upon its adherents to spend the month or the nine consecutive days in striving to being a better human. 

Ostentation and aggression are consciously supposed to be put on check and devout Hindus, as well as Muslims, spend this period in fasting, contemplating on spiritual matters, exercising self-control and enhancing their devotion to the Divine Being of one’s choice, or what is ordained. 

Unfortunately, the days before the onset of the period this year, was marked by rasping warnings mouthed by rabid Hindu fundamentalists – including many holding official positions, some wearing official uniforms and others who are members of the BJP or other affiliates of the Sangh Parivar – at even the meekest of Muslims to offer namaz indoors and not along with other members of their faith in mosques and its surroundings in the event of the place of worship getting too crowded.

The intention here is not list the litany of threats and macabre directives and pen these down sequentially. Instead, it is to serve a reminder that a enormous section of Muslims gawked blankly at events and vocabulary directed at followers of Islam in hitherto unknown towns like Sambhal, or in much bigger urban sprawls like Nagpur. 

This was not the first time that first time that commonplace Muslims across India realised what being a member of that faith has come to mean in this nation. 

It is not that such chilling sentiments became part of the average Muslim consciousness only after 2014 – the malaise runs much deeper and was present even in the immediate aftermath of partition. 

But it is only post 2014, there is an element of State sanctity behind such hate-mongering. It is also now that making such offensive statements and matching it with equal action often, is no longer considered politically unacceptable by the majority of the vocal populace.

Importantly, this latest drive to further invisibilise Muslims as well as Christians has come in the wake of the Waqf (Amendment) Act receiving presidential assent in the blink of an eye. The attempt to curtail public presence of Christians by refusing permission for the ‘Way of the Cross’ procession comes close on the heels of the controversy over the article published and redacted in RSS periodical Organiser, on the Catholic Church owning land far in excess of Waqf properties in the country.

The targeting of Muslims continues incessantly despite occasional words of reason uttered by the leadership. But these, the words of the likes of Mohan Bhagwat and even PM Narendra Modi, unfortunately remain for record their intent is seen as ‘hollow’ by the Hindutva drummers and the charging brigades.

In the aftermath of the anti-Sikh pogrom of 1984, an inestimable number of Sikhs across India took of their turbans, cut their hair and shaved their beards because they feared being recognized for what they were born as. 

While researching on my book, Sikhs: The Untold Agony of 1984, I came across several Sikh families, including of great eminence, who had chosen to retain these remnants of their ‘original’ identity which was publicly dispensed with, but deep within their hearts, these remnants remain as carbuncles for which there is no cure. 

In today’s India, whichever direction one turns to, the sight is met with any of following brigades – lynchers, bulldozers, sloganeers, those with expertise in increasing the volume of vocal chords on nearing a mosque, fakenews dispensers, and rabid activists with links within every arm of the state. 

In a country where any identity marker is objected to – be it a skull-cap, hijab or pastoral robe, or just the cross, it is very commonplace to use the vermillion mark on the forehead or even brandish a sword, to make its carrier as the new societal mark of forewarning. 

Consequently, India faces the grave danger of hurtling over the brink and straight into the crevice of delirium. 

George Orwell’s 1984 bared open a dystopian future. The Prologue of such a similar work set in an India of the times ahead is currently being enacted, it often appears…

Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay is a journalist and author whose books include Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times and The RSS: Icons of the Indian Right.