Moradabad Incident: When Teenage Friendship Collides with Political Polarisation
In the bustling city of Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh, what began as a simple act of teenage camaraderie has spiraled into a police investigation that speaks volumes about our contemporary social climate. Six schoolgirls, bound by friendship and shared dreams, now find themselves entangled in legal complexities after a month-old CCTV footage surfaced, capturing a moment that would redefine their relationships.
The Incident That Changed Everything
According to family members of the accused, the sequence of events was straightforward: five Muslim schoolgirls, several of them minors, were returning from NEET tuition classes with their Hindu friend. The group decided to visit a local eatery for a quick snack, but faced a potential obstacle—the Hindu girl's brother held strict views about loitering after classes. In what seemed like a harmless solution, the Muslim girls helped their friend don a burqa, allowing her to slip unnoticed to the eatery with them.
What might have remained a private joke between friends, perhaps to be fondly remembered in adulthood, has been reframed as something more sinister. Following a complaint from the Hindu girl's brother, the Uttar Pradesh police have booked all six girls under the state's stringent anti-conversion law, alleging coercion and attempted proselytisation.
The Human Cost of Legal Action
The consequences have been immediate and devastating for these young students. At least one of the six girls has dropped out of her tuition classes, while another has been sent away to her grandparents' home. The once tight-knit friendship, built on shared laughter, borrowed clothes, and impromptu plans, has begun to unravel under the weight of accusations and public scrutiny.
While the families of the accused remain hopeful of an amicable resolution, this incident represents more than just a legal case—it reflects a broader political climate where religious identity has become increasingly conspicuous and consequential.
Broader Political Context
This Moradabad incident sits within a larger national narrative where political rhetoric has increasingly framed social relations in adversarial terms. From discussions about "ghuspaithiye" (illegal immigrants) to promises about removing "illegal Bangladeshi" students from classrooms, the language of politics has emphasized threat perception and the need for hyper-vigilance.
In Assam, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma recently articulated a vision of polarization, stating: "Assam is a polarised society, for the next 30 years we have to practise politics of polarisation if we want to live... But polarisation is not between Hindu and Muslim; polarisation is between Assamese and Bangladeshi."
Such rhetoric, while representing an extreme articulation, reflects a familiar logic: that coexistence is provisional and contingent on majoritarian perceptions of belonging.
When Political Rhetoric Reaches Pavements
As India approaches several crucial Assembly elections in states including West Bengal, Assam, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala, the Moradabad incident raises critical questions about what happens when political rhetoric works its way down from podiums to pavements.
Historian Tony Judt, in his book Ill Fares The Land: A Treatise On Our Present Discontents, warned that the deepest damage caused by social and political division rarely appears spectacular or immediate. Instead, it surfaces in the thinning of everyday life's texture, in the slow corrosion of social habits and institutions that once made coexistence unremarkable.
The result is a society that may continue to perform diversity in theory but forgets how to practice it in real life. This diagnosis, though originally about Europe and the United States, travels easily to the Indian context.
Spaces Where Nationhood Is Experienced
We often speak of the nation in lofty, impersonal abstractions, invoking civilizational pride while overlooking the spaces where nationhood is actually experienced viscerally:
- In tea stalls where people gather to argue over sports or politics
- In schools where children sit together, trade lunches and secrets, ignoring rigid boundaries that adults insist upon
- In streets, neighbourhoods, and marketplaces where people live, bargain, joke, transgress, and learn to coexist
It is through these informal solidarities that society renews itself, learning to negotiate differences and build trust. But when every interaction carries a faint menace of risk, when the mundane world of give-and-take is seen through the binary of insider and interloper, cracks begin to appear. Suspicion travels faster, goodwill recedes, and shared universes collapse into silos.
A Message for the Girls and for Society
The girls from Moradabad deserve to know that friendship is indeed bigger than fear. They deserve to understand that ordinary life, with its shared jokes, borrowed clothes, and impromptu plans, is where hope lives and where informal networks of solidarity are built.
As for the rest of society, we must ask ourselves: Can we still imagine a future where their laughter rings out untrammelled? Can we create spaces where teenage friendships aren't scrutinized through political lenses? The answers to these questions will determine not just the fate of six school friends in Moradabad, but the character of our society as a whole.
