Growing alienation among minorities, especially Muslims, reflects rising communal hate and divisive politics in India.
Events like Gujarat riots, lynchings, Hindutva rhetoric, and disputed verdicts have unsettled the sense of security for Muslim communities.
Outlook’s covers and analyses show how politics became more fractious and minorities feel marginalised in recent decades.
The ‘Othering’: How Majoritarian Politics Redefined Belonging in India
Through its archives, reportage and covers over three decades, Outlook traces this journey of othering, charting how fear, faith and politics converged to redraw the boundaries of citizenship, and asking whether this tide has reached its peak or is still rising
Summary
It used to be said that India is secular not because of the minorities but because of the majority. Because an average Indian whether she is Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Bahai or of any other faith innately believes that all can live in peace and harmony, most of the time.
But in the last 30 years, many have started to wonder if this is indeed true. Or are we inherently communal, each one hating the other’s faith, and taking to violence and subjugating the other at the first provocation? While this question is yet to be answered comprehensively, a sense of alienation among the minorities in India, especially the Muslims, has grown over the years.
The Gujarat riots, the rise of strident Hindutva, the lynching by mobs of people suspected of carrying beef, the bulldozer raj, the Uniform Civil Code, stringent laws against bigamy have all unsettled them. Outlook’s covers give a glimpse of the insecurities and fears the minorities faced in these years, as politics became more divisive and fractious.
Voices from the Ground: An exclusive opinion poll in April 2002 recorded the concerns of Muslims in Gujarat who were increasingly worried about their status in the state
What Lies Ahead? Ordinary Muslims felt shortchanged by the Ayodhya verdict in 2010. Voices of a cross-section captured the community’s mood
Politcs of Hate The roots of communal hatred and paranoia against Muslims run deep in Indian society. An incisive account of how hatred has been politicised over the years
The Curious Case of Waqf Is the Waqf Bill 2025 a genuine effort at reform or yet another attempt at the dispossession of Muslim identity?
Increasingly Marginalised: The brutal lynching of Mohammed Akhlaq Saifi by a mob over rumours of cow slaughter in Bisara village in Dadri, UP, in September 2015 shocked the nation and sparked protests. Since then, there have been several incidents of mob violence against Muslims and Dalits related to religious hatred. A decade after Akhlaq’s lynching, the UP government filed a plea seeking to withdraw charges against all the accused. The court hearing was set for December 18, 2025
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Being Muslim: A look at how Muslims navigate a world clouded by Islamophobia and discrimination in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in New York
Divide and Rule: Ground reports and analyses on how hate speech and anti-minority rhetoric have become a regular part of electoral politics as campaigning for the 2024 general elections gathered steam across India
This article appeared as The ‘Othering’ in Outlook’s January 01, 2026, issue '30 years of Irreverence' which commemorates the magazine's 30 years of journalism. From its earliest days of irreverence to its present-day transformation, the magazine has weathered controversy, crisis, and change.
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