Repression against Muslims has increased in the run-up to India’s elections in April and May. The scene of the latest violence against the country’s largest minority is the northern state of Uttarakhand. It is ruled by the Indian People’s Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is aiming to secure a third term in office in the upcoming vote.

On Thursday last week, the administration of the city of Haldwani razed a mosque with an attached Koran school to the ground with bulldozers. Apparently it was built on state property despite the lack of approval. However, the legal issue is still being heard by the highest court in Uttarakhand. When angry residents tried to prevent the demolition, emergency services used live ammunition against them, leaving five people dead. A state of emergency was declared over Haldwani. Police entered Muslim homes, attacked family members, including women, demolished property, and captured several men.

When a journalist from the news site Scroll.in visited Haldwani at the weekend, emergency services denied him access to the Muslim-inhabited Banbhoolpura district. Nevertheless, he went in and found locked houses and destroyed vehicles, while the residents no longer dared to go out on the streets. Many have already fled to other states.

Bulldozing the mosque is not the only anti-Muslim move by the Uttarakhand government. According to dpa, a law was passed in the state one day before the mosque was demolished, which, on the one hand, makes the cohabitation of unmarried people dependent on whether they receive official approval. On the other hand, it does not prohibit polygamy, which was previously permitted for Indian Muslims, for other Indians. The thrust is clear: under the motto “equal rights for all” the aim is to create a mood against Muslims. At the same time, legal options are created to take action against them.

This is not new in India. Rather, it has long been the recipe for success of Modi’s Hindu nationalists, especially before elections, to turn the country’s different population groups against each other and at the same time present themselves as defenders of the rights of the Hindu majority. This had already worked perfectly in 2002, when Modi was still Chief Minister of the state of Gujarat and allowed pogroms against Muslims to take place for weeks, whereupon he emerged as the radiant winner of the election at that time.

However, a polarization of the population and depoliticization of the election campaign is urgently needed this year. Farmer protests are currently being revived in India, as they completely paralyzed the metropolis of Delhi a few years ago. In India, too, fueling so-called ethnic or religious conflicts is a proven means of defusing and diverting legitimate social protest.