Why Asaduddin Owaisi is losing the trust of young Indian Muslims

Fiercely articulate, legally astute and unapologetically Muslim, Asaduddin Owaisi has carved out a space where Indian Muslims can feel represented, not merely as a vote bank but as citizens with constitutional dignity

But he has unleashed a torrent of disappointment with his recent participation in an all-party delegation to the Gulf to explain the government’s position after Operation Sindoor. In news clips, Owaisi can be seen fiercely denouncing Pakistan while insisting that Muslims in India are in a way better shape, has unleashed a torrent of disappointment.

What happens when a voice of dissent begins to echo the narratives of the establishment it once challenged?

Critic echoes the state

It was not Owaisi’s criticism of Pakistan that sparked outrage. Indian Muslims have no illusions about the Pakistani state. Far from offering it support, they do not even have any expectations of it.

Rather, it was Owaisi’s tone and timing, his eagerness to present a sanitised picture of India abroad, at a moment when Muslims at home are being subjected to bulldozer justice, arbitrary arrests and public lynchings by the same establishment he was representing overseas. This made many of those who looked up to him feel abandoned.

Amid this deeply violent landscape, what does it mean for Owaisi to offer the narrative of internal harmony to the world? Participation in such delegations could have been used as an opportunity to highlight the paradox of Indian democracy, its capacity to showcase token diversity while eroding real dissent.

Instead, Owaisi chose to align with the state’s script, insisting that India’s internal tensions are merely political differences. That erasure of Muslim suffering is a wound far deeper than any ideological disagreement.

Thus far, Owaisi’s strength has been his refusal to bend to the Hindutva machinery. He was that rare voice who dared to challenge the ruling Bharatiya Janata party and its mother organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, while also holding secular parties accountable for their token gestures towards ensuring minority rights.

His insistence on constitutionalism, on asserting rights not through communal appeals but legal frameworks, was refreshing. Today, that insistence is becoming performance.

By chanting “Pakistan Murdabad” or death to Pakistan, not as a critique of that nation’s policies but as a means of proving loyalty, Owaisi has crossed a symbolic threshold.

It is not just that he’s critical of Pakistan – it’s that he appears eager to use anti-Pakistan sentiment as a way to buy legitimacy in the eyes of an establishment and a section of India’s people who already view Muslims with suspicion..

For many Indian Muslims, this feels disorienting. This is not because they sympathise with Pakistan – far from it – but because their everyday lives are shaped by being equated with it.

At a time when India’s Muslim neighbourhoods are branded as “mini-Pakistans” and community youth are jailed merely on the allegation of supporting Pakistan in cricket, what does Owaisi’s vilification of Pakistan globally really accomplish? His actions of presenting a united front on an international level play into the BJP’s narratives that project India through a Hindutva lens and marginalise Muslims.

The irony is bitter. Indian Muslims are denounced as being “anti-national” for everything from their dietary habits to their choice of clothing, yet the man they looked to for defense now seems to be parroting the very lines that reinforce their marginalisation.

Owaisi’s nationalist credentials may earn him mainstream support, media space and diplomatic access, but at what cost?

When the bodies of Muslims lie broken in the streets and their homes reduced to rubble, silence is complicity. Owaisi’s silence, dressed in this hyper-nationalist rhetoric, speaks volumes.

Internal discontent

For the BJP, Owaisi is becoming a prized possession. His striking presence in the Parliament, his traditional attire and his eloquence in Urdu, make him the perfect “other”. With his recent international posturing, he becomes even more valuable.

Owaisi has become both figurehead and foil. The more he speaks about foreign enemies, the less he cares about the enmity manifesting itself back home.

Young Muslims, once inspired by Owaisi’s defiance, now feel betrayed. They watch their brothers lynched and their sisters harassed while the man they saw as their advocate poses for photos with those complicit in their suffering. They see bulldozers where schools once stood. They see headlines criminalising their grief.

It is not enough to say that Owaisi is “doing what he must” to survive politically. Representation without resistance is vacuous. If he cannot call out the violence and the state machinery that facilitates it, his voice is no longer that of the community.

This growing sense of alienation could have tangible electoral consequences too, particularly in states like Bihar and West Bengal, where his All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen party has sought to expand its influence. The question now is no longer just about his strategic brilliance, but about trust. Can Indian Muslims still see Owaisi as a bulwark against systemic injustice or is he becoming just another player in a rigged game?

Owaisi once inspired a new variety of Indian Muslim politics, one rooted in legal consciousness, political engagement and unapologetic identity. Today, however, that feels hollow. It speaks at global press conferences, not about the streets. It performs nationalism, not justice, and in doing so, it loses the very people it was meant to protect.

Yes, politics demands compromise. Yes, Muslim leaders walk a tightrope in today’s India. However, there is a difference between walking carefully and walking away. Owaisi’s recent actions suggest he may be doing the latter.

In a nation where Muslim existence is increasingly criminalised, where bulldozers replace courts and where silence is state policy, what Indian Muslims need is not a strategist but a witness: someone who will name the violence – even if it costs him the mic.

Until that happens, Owaisi may not be seen as a political alternative but merely a bearded accessory to an increasingly Hindutva state.

Ismail Salahuddin is a writer and researcher based in Delhi, focusing on Muslim identity, communal politics, caste, and the politics of knowledge, social exclusion and inclusive policy at Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi.

Mohammad Aaquib is a Kolkata-based writer and researcher. He works on communalism, political violence and Muslim identity in contemporary South Asia.

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