If one takes a look at the ancient and medieval history of the subcontinent in a rational manner, one would come to the conclusion that the oldest religion of the World, Hinduism seems to be the biggest loser both in terms of loss of territory and followership. The Post Vedic period saw the initial stages of the division of the orthodox Sanatana Dharma into various branches and the medieval era witnessed a much more dangerous open persecution of the Hindus by State sponsored brand of extremist Islam.
In the modern times the narrative has been replaced by Legislative overhaul of the Hindu Law and a divisive policy in terms of an irrational reservation policy whereby the Brahmins and other upper castes have been pitted against the Dalits, OBCs, etc. Hinduism despite producing the most valiant heroes and the sharpest of intellectuals has also managed to produce Jaichands alongside opening the doors of its own extinction. All this combined with the modern Hindu tendency of self bashing has made it a fast declining religion.
Here we list down various phenomenon of the Indian history which testifies the bitter reality of the oppression of the ignorant Indian Hindu.
Islamic invasion of India
The Islamic rulers in the medieval era had only one aim, the expansion of Islam at any cost. Unfortunately India also became a victim of this expansionist population and the most immediate consequence of the Islamic invasion was the mass conversion of the Hindus who then constituted an overwhelming majority or their elimination if they refused to convert.
No matter how much the communists and their eminent historians deny the fact remains that there were mass conversions during the Mughal era and the rule of the Delhi Sultanate apart from the imposition of Jaziya Tax.
A marked feature of this dispensation was the destruction of the Hindu temples of worship and ‘permanent’ replacement of the structures by Mosques given that Hindus have still been deprived of these sanctum sanctorum, the Babri Masjid being the biggest testimony of the same.
These conversions were not a consequence of Sufism or casteism within Hinduism as a Romila Thapar might want you to believe but the consequence of the Islamic sword.
This marked the commencement of the oppression of Hindus, the Indian Hindus over the next 5 centuries or so have become habitual to detrimental state actions and has become completely non reactive.
Post Partition change in demographics
India and Pakistan, both East and West (Present day Bangladesh) was a division of what then constituted India purely on communal lines. According to the Islamic version of Partition, the Hindus along with the other non Muslim minorities were supposed to reside in India and the Muslims were supposed to reside in Pakistan. But the post partition era narrates a completely different story, while a substantial Muslim Population remained within India; there was a major immigration of non Muslims from Pakistan to India.
This has been further aggravated by the fact that while the Muslim population has inflated to 17-18% in India and that of Hindus has fallen below 80% in India and they have become almost extinct in Bangladesh and Pakistan. This pattern has further worsened with large scale illegal migration of the Bangaledeshi Muslims to the adjoining Indian States giving a clear cut message that while the Hindus are constrained to remain within certain territorial limits, their Bangladeshi Muslim counterparts are not only free from such territorial constraints but also have a right to hinder the peaceful existence of the Hindus and to convert them to Islam.
Thus, the Indian subcontinent has undergone vast demographic change in the last 6 decades or so largely to the detriment of Hindus. Hindus have not only lost territorial occupation in terms of Pakistan and Bangladesh but have also lost sizeable portion of their population in the sense that they have been reduced from around 25% to 1% in Pakistan and 33% to a meager 7% in Bangladesh.
Minority Appeasement
This has been the most striking feature of the Indian Politics; the minorities have been given the rights of escaping gender justice, establishing and administering their educational institutes apart from certain reservation benefits in the garb of Minority rights while the Hindus have been specifically denied of these rights for reasons best known to the Indian Legislators. The Indian Hindus are one of its own kind in the sense that they bear the brunt of a being a majority.
Apart from the explicit legal provisions incessantly favouring the Indian Minorities to the detriment of the Hindus, there are certain legislative patterns which hint at the hesitance of the Indian legislature as far as codifying the personal laws of the minorities.
On the other hand, the Hindu Law has been comprehensively changed by legislative process. E.g. the nature of the Hindu marriage itself has undergone complete transformation and it no longer retains its sacramental character but has become somewhat contractual in nature. Similarly, the Hindu Coparcenary and succession laws have also gone complete change and are no longer in consonance with the old Hindu Law.
Compare this with the case of Muslim Law, there are no such changes or even legislative attempts to codify Muslim law or invoke a sense of gender justice, in fact an attempt by the Supreme Court in Shah Bano v Union of India providing for maintenance of a Muslim wife even after divorce was blocked by the Rajiv Gandhi Government.
Conclusion
Even after centuries of persecution and oppression followed by indirect legislative and executive tyranny, there is a sub group among the Hindus which is keen or in fact desperate to prove that the Hindus are the most extremist lot in the Nation even though they surprisingly live in the fear of the minority.
It is also surprising how any conversions to Hinduism are seen as suspicious by the Hindus themselves but some other religions within India have and continue religious conversions of the Hindus in the garb of service to humankind. The Indian Hindus are trying to find terrorists in their own religion and neglecting/ ignoring the threat posed by others.
The unfortunate reality of today is that Hindu is being slowly eliminated but it is somehow ignorant of that and the gradual process of Hindu bashing that had been started centuries ago continues to gain pace and momentum.