Muzaffarnagar, India – For nearly two weeks, Islah*, a Muslim, has been forced to close his restaurant located next to a highway in the town of Khatauli, in the Muzaffarnagar district of Uttar Pradesh, in northern India.
The outlet, which seats around 100 people at a time and serves vegetarian food to people of all faiths, is under pressure to display the names of its owner and staff members following a controversial order issued by the district administration earlier this month.
On July 2, Muzaffarnagar police ordered restaurants and street vendors to prominently display their names to help Hindu devotees decide which food establishments to avoid as they observe the holy month of Shravan, during which millions of pilgrims walk along the Ganges River, collecting its holy water.
The two-week pilgrimage began on July 22 and will end on August 6. Most devotees do not eat meat or fish during the journey, but critics said the move was aimed at preventing pilgrims from visiting Muslim-owned restaurants.
Police have issued similar orders in neighbouring Uttarakhand, both states ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has been accused of persecuting the Muslim minority since coming to power in 2014. The BJP denies the accusation.
'No names will be displayed'
“My restaurant is named after my father, and neither my name nor my father’s name indicates whether we are Christian, Muslim or Hindu,” Islah, 31, told Al Jazeera. “That’s why I have been ordered to add names like Ali, Alam or Ahmed to clearly identify that the owner is a Muslim.”
Islah said he has 15 employees at his restaurant and only two of them are Muslim. “But I will not reveal their names or their religions. That goes against my principles,” he said. “Doing so is dangerous, as my Muslim identity could become a threat to me and my staff.”
As outrage grew over the move, India's Supreme Court on Monday temporarily blocked the measure, ruling that while restaurants can be expected to declare the type of food they serve, including whether it is vegetarian or not, they “should not be compelled” to display the names of their owners.
Apoorvanand, an academic and activist who teaches Hindi at Delhi University, was among the petitioners who challenged the police order in the Supreme Court. He called the top court's decision “a positive development and a hopeful sign.”
“The suspension order is a clear warning to officials against harassing citizens and creating discriminatory practices through such decisions,” he said.
While the high court will hear the matter again on Friday, the controversial police orders in three BJP-ruled states reflect a broader pattern that has seen some BJP members and other right-wing groups linked to the party call for a boycott of Muslim-owned businesses.
Hindu groups say many Muslim-owned restaurants, tea shops and cafes are misleadingly named after Hindu gods and goddesses, and have demanded legal action against them. They also claim – without evidence – that Muslims “spit, urinate or mix beef in their food” to desecrate the faith of Hindus, many of whom consider the cow sacred.
In a recent letter to Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Dhami, Swami Yashveer, who runs the far-right Yoga Sadhana Yashveer ashram in Muzaffarnagar, claimed that 95 per cent of the “kanwars” (bamboo or wooden poles with two baskets hung at either end for devotees to carry water and other essentials) in the Haridwar area of the state were produced and sold by Muslims.
He said he was concerned about possible pollution and demanded that only Hindus be granted licenses to make kanwars.
Anil Kumar, 48, had been working as a cook at a roadside restaurant in Khatauli owned by the brother of a local BJP politician. He told Al Jazeera that the police order helped him rise to manager after two Muslims were fired from the restaurant.
“Manager Inam and another Muslim staff member were fired because… [district] “The administration has ordered that no Muslim employee can work here,” Kumar said.
Several Hindu restaurant owners on the highway between Khatauli and Muzaffarnagar said police also pressured and threatened them to fire their Muslim employees. They said they were afraid to speak out for fear that their safety or livelihood would be threatened.
When Al Jazeera asked Muzaffarnagar Superintendent of Police Abhishek Singh to respond to the allegations against the police, he said: “I will not comment on this. We have already addressed this issue through the press statement.”
'Absolute hate'
Academic Apoorvanand told Al Jazeera that prejudices among Hindus about Muslims are being used to create a Hindu that is “essentially anti-Muslim, thus making any kind of exchange between the two communities impossible”.
“By fostering suspicions and propaganda – such as that Muslims can mix something in your food, cook it by spitting or feed you with the same hand used for non-vegetarian food, or that they are impure because they consume non-vegetarian food – these prejudices are turning into open hatred,” he said.
“If you cannot kill Muslims by violence, you have to make their lives difficult and miserable by attacking their livelihoods through formal and informal means, such as making cow slaughter and consumption of beef illegal, which also affects the tannery business in which many Muslims are involved,” he added. “There are two objectives: the first is to persecute Muslims and the other is the creation of anti-Muslim Hindus.”
Harendra Malik, a member of parliament from Muzaffarnagar and a member of the opposition Samajwadi Party, told Al Jazeera that he was unaware of the police order until it became a controversy. Malik accused the district administration of not consulting or informing him about the move.
“It is not just in Uttar Pradesh – there is an undeclared emergency in force across the country,” he said, referring to the climate of fear that prevails mainly among minority groups.
But Kapil Dev Aggarwal, a minister in the Uttar Pradesh government and a BJP lawmaker from Muzaffarnagar, rejected criticism of identifying restaurants by religion. “It is a question of faith, emotion and sensitivity; it is not about Hindus and Muslims or fighting or togetherness,” he told Al Jazeera.
Aggarwal said opposition parties or activists speaking out against the campaign “do not understand the sentiments of those who eat only pure vegetarian food.”
“Why should people of other religions have shops in the name of Hindu gods and goddesses? They should use their own names for their shops.”
'Communalization of the police'
Sarwan Ram Darapuri, a retired police officer and human rights activist, called the police orders “unconstitutional and highly discriminatory.” He said the move violates the fundamental rights of Muslim citizens and is actually aimed at an economic blockade of the minority community.
“The police administration, which is a secular organisation according to the Constitution of India, is carrying out these orders. However, it is now functioning as a non-secular political party. They are carrying out these communal activities unofficially. This is communalisation of the police, which is also very worrying,” he told Al Jazeera.
Apoorvanand said Modi's accusation during the campaign for this year's general election – that the opposition would take property and quotas from Hindus and give them to Muslims – was largely rejected by voters in politically crucial Uttar Pradesh, India's largest state.
“Modi is deepening this [fear] and continue to push their agenda more determinedly so that people realize that they have made a mistake. [in the polls]As part of the consequences of their electoral defeat, Muslims face punishment,” he said.
Meanwhile, outside the three-domed red Rana Mosque at Vehalna Chowk in Muzaffarnagar, Mohammad Azeem, 42, runs a small stall selling betel leaves, cigarettes and soft drinks.
He said the police visited his stall and ordered him to put up a sign with his name on it. “I was asked to keep my shop closed until the sign was put up,” he said. “The Hindu brother’s shop next to mine was not given the same order. I eat at their shop and they buy things from me.”
Hindu brother Rahul, 18, runs a rice and lentil stall, a shop his father opened two decades ago. He told Al Jazeera that unlike Azeem, he had not been given any police orders to display his name outside the shop.
“They did not come to us because we are Hindus,” he said.
*Name changed for fear of retaliation.
