Fascism in Lucknow University and the Criminalization of Prayer in India
February 25, 2026The mask of Indian democracy has finally fallen away and it reveals a dark reality of majoritarian tyranny. The recent targeting of 13 Muslim students at Lucknow University is not just a small administrative mistake. These students were issued legal notices for the simple act of offering namaz. This event is a clear declaration of ideological war. By demanding huge financial ransoms from these 13 students who only wanted to pray the Indian state has sent a loud message to its 200 million Muslims. That message is that your faith is now a threat and your rights are a myth. When a university campus becomes a place to hunt worshippers the world’s largest democracy has officially entered a dark age of religious persecution.
1. The Lucknow Extortion and the Ransom for Rituals
The Lucknow University administration is acting as a tool for state-sponsored intimidation. They have set a dangerous and angry precedent. By targeting the 13 students at the Lal Baradari the authorities have replaced the law with a communal manual.
The demand for a personal bond of ₹50,000 along with two sureties of ₹50,000 each from each of the 13 students is state-sponsored extortion. It is a calculated move to financially break and psychologically terrorize these young people. The police report claims that these prayers created tension but this is the oldest trick in the book. They label the peaceful practice of a minority as provocative to justify harsh repression. It is an open secret that the fencing of the Lal Baradari structure happened right after a visit by RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat. When the policy of a university is dictated by a right-wing paramilitary group the institution is no longer a place of learning. It becomes a laboratory for hate.
2. Selective Secularism and the Rules for the Few
The definition of public order in India is now completely one-sided. While the 13 students are hounded for praying in a quiet corner of a campus the entire country is regularly blocked by massive religious displays of the majority.
The annual Kanwar Yatra involves an estimated 30 to 40 million devotees. During this time the state facilitates the gathering by diverting highways and using massive public resources. Major cities like Mumbai and Pune shut down for hours during Ganesh Visarjan. In these cases the huge inconvenience to the public is called cultural pride instead of a threat to peace. Even slogans like Jai Shri Ram have been turned into weapons of intimidation in trains and streets under police protection. Yet the silent whispers of a namaz are treated like a crime.
3. A Calculated Pattern of Erasing Identity
The incident involving the 13 students in Lucknow is just one part of a much larger and more sinister machine. This is not a random event. It is a pattern designed to scrub the Muslim identity from the land.
In Gurugram between 2018 and 2021 mobs backed by the state disrupted Friday prayers in open grounds for years. Officially approved sites were taken away one by one. In 2022 the state machinery in Karnataka was used to bar Muslim girls from classrooms for wearing a hijab. This was a direct assault on the right to education. Since 2015 civil society organizations have documented a steady rise in mob violence targeting Muslims. The silence of the state has sent a signal that the lives and dignity of Muslims do not matter anymore.
4. The Data of Discrimination and the Evidence of Decay
The statistics from the Indian government’s own agencies provide a grim picture of the current climate. The numbers do not lie even if the politicians do.
According to the National Crime Records Bureau or NCRB the year 2022 alone saw 378 registered cases of communal or religious incidents. These are not just numbers because they represent thousands of lives ruined by hate. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has flagged the treatment of minorities in India every year from 2020 to 2023. Groups like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have repeatedly documented how the space for minority expression is shrinking. At Lucknow University the Lal Baradari is a Mughal-era structure where people prayed for years. The sudden safety concerns are just a transparent attempt to rewrite history by erasing the Muslim legacy of the area.
5. The Death of Equal Citizenship
When the prayer of a student is met with a police report and a place of worship is met with a financial bond the idea of a vibrant democracy is a cruel joke. Article 25 of the Indian Constitution supposedly guarantees the right to practice religion but it is being shredded every day.
If the act of bowing before God inside a university is framed as a threat to the state then the state has already failed. This is no longer just about the 13 students in Lucknow. It is about the fundamental survival of 200 million Muslims in India. A system that only protects the majority is not a democracy. It is a mask for fascism. The international community must stop praising the diversity of India and start looking at the bonds and the fences and the fear. The promise of being an equal citizen is dead and it is buried under the weight of ₹50,000 bonds and a court system that stays silent.
