It is insensitive to raise an issue not directly connected to the second wave of COVID-19 sweeping across the country. Yet the code of civility must be transgressed to declare without equivocation: Muslims are doomed to become second-class citizens under the Bharatiya Janata Party rule. It is the duty of every conscionable citizen to point out to the nation that when people are coughing to death, when there are queues outside crematoriums to carry out the last rites of those whom COVID-19 felled, for the BJP, the letter H still stands for Hindutva, not Humanity; the letter C stands for Communalism, not Coronavirus.

The BJP’s incurable obsession with Hindutva is evident from the government’s decision to permit lakhs of people to assemble at Haridwar for the Mahakumbh. This decision was not taken under popular pressure, evident from what Uttarakhand Chief Minister Tirath Singh Rawat said: “We are sure the faith in God will overcome the fear of the virus.”