بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
The Politics of Hate and the Psychology of Collective Self-Harm: An Analysis of the SMVDIME Closure
News:
India shuts Kashmir medical college – after Muslims earned most admissions. (Al-Jazeera,15 January 2026)
Hindu groups, including the Rashtriya Bajrang Dal and the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Sangarsh Samiti (SMVDSS), along with the BJP, celebrated the closure of the medical college. (The New Indian Express).
“In other parts of the country, people fight to bring medical college to the place, but here they fought to close the medical college," J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah. (The New Indian Express).
Comment:
The Psychology of this Collective self-Harm led and promoted by Hindutva groups has deep basis in the concept of Majoritarianism which under the present Hindutva regime has manufactured a structural hate through bureaucratic, Judiciary, and Media propaganda. This has blinded the masses to ask for their Basic Amenities. The Cost of this Obsession of hate has developed into Self-Harm Psyche. The Dimensions of this Hate goes Beyond Muslims. The roots of this structural obsession of othering and hate have roots in the Colonial Capitalism which at its core has the idea of War on Islam. Kashmir being the Easy Target of this structural hate have many such manifestations.
This news items thus have many such dimensions which shall be discussed and understood under fallowing headings.
1. The News: Merit Denied in the Name of Majoritarianism
The derecognition of the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Institute of Medical Excellence (SMVDIME) is not merely an administrative decision; it is a stark manifestation of the exclusionary politics. For the inaugural MBBS session of 2025-26, admission was conducted via the centralized, merit-based NEET system. Out of 50 available seats, 42 were secured by Muslim students, the vast majority hailing from Kashmir. This should have been celebrated as a triumph of merit but under the current Hindutva-dominated landscape, it was viewed as an "infiltration" of a Hindu-trust-funded institution by the "Other."
The situation escalated when the administration weaponized a convenient pretext: the recent "Delhi blast." Alleged links of some medical professionals to the incident were exploited to cast collective suspicion on all Muslim medical students, framing the young Kashmiri merit-holders as potential "security threats" which rather was a hate for the Muslims. Under this immense political pressure, the NMC revoked the college's permission mere days after the protests intensified just to appease majoritarian sentiment.
2.The Pathetic Celebration: A Psychology of Self-Harm
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this episode was the reaction on the ground. Following the closure, members of the Sangharsh Samiti (Hindutva group) were seen distributing sweets and dancing, celebrating the "victory." This jubilation represents a profound psychological sickness—a "spiteful negative-sum game."
These groups celebrated the destruction of their own healthcare infrastructure. They cheered the loss of a world-class medical college in their own region, simply because keeping it open would have meant allowing Muslim students to study there. This confirms a dangerous state of collective psyche: the satisfaction of denying opportunity to Muslims has become greater than the pain of losing critical assets like hospitals and colleges. It is a psychology of self-sabotage, where the majority is willing to burn down its own house just to ensure the minority “the Other” does not find shelter in it.
3. Structural Hate: Bureaucratic, Judicial, and Media Complicity and propaganda.
This incident is not an aberration but a feature of the Hindutva regime’s structural hate. The hatred against Muslims has been institutionalized across the institutions in India.
The courts have increasingly become tools of majoritarian will, evident in verdicts like the Babri Masjid case, which prioritized mythology over justice, and the permissions for excavations at Gyanvapi and Shahi Idgah, designed to erase Islamic heritage. The administration utilizes "bulldozer justice" to bypass due process, demolishing Muslim homes and businesses as collective punishment. The "Godi media" (regime-compliant news channels) acts as the force multiplier. By broadcasting 24/7 anti-Muslim narratives—terming Muslims as "infiltrators," "Love Jihadis," or "Land Jihadis"—they manufacture the consent required for such closures. They dehumanize Indian Muslims in general and Kashmiri Muslims in particular to the extent that the public views the denial of their education not as a rights violation, but as a "national defense."
4. The Cost of Obsession: Blindness towards Basic Amenities
This relentless focus on "teaching Muslims a lesson" has blinded the masses to their own deepening misery. While the regime mobilizes resources to close colleges and excavate mosques, basic human amenities are crumbling under real crises.
In 2025, India ranked 102nd on the Global Hunger Index, with a "serious" score of 25.8. Over 172 million people are undernourished, and child wasting rates are alarming. The "hate mandate" serves as an anesthetic; it distracts the impoverished majority from their own hunger by feeding them the empty calories of communal hate and religious supremacy. The regime uses communal polarization to divert attention from its abject failure to provide basic amenities.
5. The Growth of the Self-Harm Psyche
The celebration of the SMVDIME closure marks the maturation of this “self-harm psyche” in India. The majority population has been conditioned to support policies, falsely believing that these weapons will only hurt Muslims. They fail to realize that a system which abandons merit for hate will eventually collapse for everyone.
6. Kashmir being The Easy Target.
Occupied Kashmir remains the primary laboratory for this hate. Justifying atrocities here is easy for the regime because of the decades-long subjugation and occupation in the name "security" narrative. By labeling all Kashmiri students as "terrorists" or "anti-nationals" on mere pretexts (like the Delhi blast), the Hindutva hate ecosystem legitimizes their exclusion. The closure of the college is also a tactical move coherent with the present Hindutva regime to prevent Kashmiri Muslims from rising through the ranks of professional merit, keeping the population subjugated and dependent.
7.The extension of Colonial Capitalism and the War on Islam
Although the hate against the Muslims from Hindutva regime and Hindus is deeply engrained but the Modi regime runs a political system which is an extension of the capitalist system and not an indigenous Hindutva political system. Just as the British used "divide and rule," the current regime serves the interests of Western powers and capitalist elites by keeping the masses divided. This hatred is specifically directed at Islam because Islam offers a rival ideological framework—one that rejects the servitude of man to man. The Hindutva project mirrors the colonial desire to destroy the Islam and Islamic system/Khilafah; it views the Muslim identity not just as a demographic variable, but as an existential ideological enemy that must be crushed to maintain the status quo of exploitation.
8. The Dimensions of this Hate go beyond Muslims.
While Muslims are the primary target, this fire of hate consumes others. The drive for a homogenous "Hindu Rashtra" inevitably targets Christians (through anti-conversion laws and church attacks) and Dalits/Lower Castes (through rising atrocities and the dilution of legal protections). The hierarchy that despises the Muslim also despises the Dalit. This casteist and fascist worldview threatens the dignity of all marginalized communities in India.
9. Conclusion: Islam as the Only Path to Social Justice
The failure of secular democracy and the tyranny of nationalism prove that man-made systems cannot deliver justice. They are inherently prone to tribalism and majoritarian oppression.
Only Islam offers true social justice. Under the Khilafah, rights are not subject to the whims of a majority or the results of an election. The Shariah guarantees the protection of life, property, and dignity for all citizens—Muslim and non-Muslim alike. It honors merit without looking at ethnicity or region. The solution to the oppression in Kashmir and the rot in India is not reform, but the re-establishment of the Khilafah Rashidah (rightly guided Caliphate), which will uproot the colonial borders, end the capitalist exploitation, and unite the people under the banner of justice and Tawheed. Allah (swt):
[يَا أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ إِنَّا خَلَقْنَاكُم مِّن ذَكَرٍ وَأُنثَى وَجَعَلْنَاكُمْ شُعُوبًا وَقَبَائِلَ لِتَعَارَفُوا إِنَّ أَكْرَمَكُمْ عِندَ اللَّهِ أَتْقَاكُمْ إِنَّ اللَّهَ عَلِيمٌ خَبِيرٌ]
“O mankind, indeed We have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another. Indeed, the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous of you. Indeed, Allah is Knowing and Acquainted.” [Surah Al-Hujurat 49:13].
Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Mohamad Younis – India