Almost a dozen Masajid, including the historic Shahi Jama Masjid in Uttar Pradesh, were covered in tarpaulin sheets ahead of the Hindu festival Holi, which coincided with congregational Friday prayers. The images of these Muslim places of worship, draped in plastic like crime scenes, were haunting and dystopian. It is perhaps the first time that the Hindutva government in India has desecrated Masajid in such a brazen manner. But, this should not come as a surprise when the Indian state has already been bulldozing centuries-old Masajid across the country without so much as issuing a legal notice.

Hindutvadi forces have long been targeting the Shahi Jama Masjid in Uttar Pradesh’s Sambhal district, where last year, at least five Muslim men were killed for protesting a so-called survey aimed at justifying its demolition. The government has been systematically conducting such surveys to falsely declare Muslim places of worship as being built upon Hindu temples, fabricating a pretext for their destruction. Senior police officers in Sambhal, along with the terrorist monk-turned-chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Yogi Adityanath, have explicitly ordered Muslims to stay indoors during Hindu festivals, as if they are prisoners in their own land.

The 250 million Muslim population in India have been relegated to the status of second-class citizens and treated worse than animals. The othering of this minority community is systemic, calculated, and accelerating at a terrifying pace, with the Indian state using every resource at its disposal to erase their identity.

Bulldozing and covering Masajid’s, however, are not the only tools of oppression. Hindu nationalist mobs, emboldened by state protection, have stormed Masajid during religious processions, set ablaze Holy Qurans, beaten worshipers, and desecrated places of worship across the country. Muslim men have been lynched on mere suspicion of storing beef in their refrigerators or transporting cattle. Hindutvadi forces have weaponized their religious festivals as a show of dominance, a spectacle of humiliation to remind the oppressed of their ‘place’ in this fascist order.

There is a great lesson for Kashmiris here. It is only a matter of time before they come after us in the same way. The only thing holding them back is that they are not a demographic majority in our homeland yet. But India has been systematically working to change that. It has been issuing domicile certificates to thousands of its citizens and allocating land for their settlement in Kashmir. Recently, we learned how these domiciles were issued to outsiders in Budgam district, central Kashmir. But these are only the figures that the puppet administration has made public. The actual numbers are far more staggering.

The blueprint is clear. What is happening to Indian Muslims today will be the fate of Kashmiris tomorrow if we do not resist. They are not merely settling outsiders in our land; they are laying the groundwork for demographic erasure, for the complete Hinduisation of Kashmir. Every stone they place, every document they sign, and every law they pass is a step toward turning Kashmir into another Gujarat, another Uttar Pradesh—where Muslim blood stains the streets and Masajid stand as silent graves of a vanished people.

We must understand that this is the occupation of land, identity, faith, and of existence itself. And if we do not stand now, there will come a day when the call to prayer in Kashmir will be drowned out by the same chants that preceded the demolition of Babri Masjid. That day, history will not remember those who remained silent. It will only remember those who fought.