Police forcing shops to identify owners during Hindu religious festival causes outcry in India

Critics fear the order will widen the communal rift in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh

Police in northern India have been accused of fuelling an “economic boycott of Muslims” after they asked restaurants to display the names of their owners to "avoid confusion" during a Hindu holy month when thousands of devotees will undertake a pilgrimage on foot.

Police in the Muzaffarnagar district of the most populous northern state of Uttar Pradesh claimed the order was communicated orally and issued yearly during the month of monsoon in the Hindu calendar. The state authorities have also asked food carts to comply with the orders, according to reports.

Hundreds of thousands of devotees of Hindu godShiva undertake the pilgrimage on foot, known as “kanwar yatra”, to holy sites in the northern states of Uttarakhand, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh during the period to collect water from the river Ganga, which is then offered at local Shiva temples. This year, the journey would begin on 22 July.

The police have cited the practice of dietary restrictions among devotees, such as no consumption of meat, to justify the directions given earlier this week.

Abhishek Singh, the senior superintendent of police, said all small and big eateries in around 240km of their jurisdiction have been instructed to display the names of "their proprietors or those running the shops".

He said the decision was taken to ensure "there is no confusion among the devotees" and to avoid any possible law and order situation in the state.

"This time one saint requested us that it should be done in order to avoid eating anything which might corrupt their efforts during this holy month," inspector Rakesh Kumar, Muzaffarnagar police's public relations officer, told Reuters.

The order has been severely criticised by opposition parties and members of civil society for further discriminating against the embattled minorities in the state which was "reminiscent of apartheid in South Africa".

Previous calls for an economic boycott of Muslims by extreme-right organisations in northern and western parts of India had left the minorities petrified of running their businesses.

"Such orders are social crimes, which want to spoil the peaceful atmosphere of harmony," opposition Samajwadi Party's chief Akhilesh Yadav said in a post on X.

Pawan Khera, spokesperson for the main opposition Congress, asked in a post on X, whether the direction was "a step towards economic boycott of Muslims".

“This was called apartheid in South Africa and in Hitler’s Germany it was called ‘Judenboycott’,” said Hyderabad lawmaker Asaddidin Owaisi.

Muzaffarnagar, now ruled by prime minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), had witnessed communal clashes in 2013 that killed about 65 people, mostly Muslims, and displaced thousands.

Although Mr Modi was sworn-in for a rare third straight term last month with the support of his allies, his BJP lost 29 seats in UP, where one-fifth of the 240 million population is Muslim.

BJP and Mr Modi's federal government have, on multiple occasions, been accused by civil society, opposition groups, and some foreign governments of making decisions aimed at fanning religious discrimination. The prime minister, however, says he does not oppose Islam or Muslims and is "resolved" to not discriminate between Hindus and Muslims.

Despite the statements, discrimination runs rife in Uttar Pradesh.

The BJP lawmaker in Muzaffarnagar earlier this month said Muslims should not name their shops after Hindu deities during the yatra. He said when the devotees "come to know [that the shops they eat at are run by Muslims], it causes controversy”, according to the Times of India.

Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath has banned the sale of meat in the open along the routes for the kanwar yatra as a mark of respect for those undertaking the journey.