Under Construction Journal Issue 6.1 UNDER CONSTRUCTION JOURNAL 6.1 | Page 78

welfare and rights of all. The rights of minorities should be respected, irrespective of their religion or
ethnicity. This notion of inclusivity—which may regarded as egregiously lacking in current so-called right-
wing democratic states upon examining their mechanisms of accountability and policies —can be found
in classical orthodox Islamic jurisprudence. If a state deviates from its function of protecting the rights of
all, and if it becomes tyrannical, the ruler must be ousted, even if the ruler had been democratically
elected. To illustrate my argument about when we must not obey the state, I will now briefly draw on the
case study of Modi’s India.
Modi was democratically (re-)elected in India. However, his rulership—according to my three-fold
model—impedes India’s progression towards the telos. Modi has committed human rights violations in
Kashmir. Since early August 2019, an ongoing curfew has been enforced upon the Muslim Kashmiris.
Ethnic cleansing is occurring and, as Zia (2019) discusses, systematic rape and torture is being deployed.
Kashmir is a Muslim majority nation, and the inhabitants are fighting for independence. Moreover, Modi
has revoked the Indian nationality of Muslims, and the Indian state under his rule is transforming secular
India into a Hindu-nationalist state. Modi’s regime violently suppressed Muslim Kashmiri protestors in
2016, in which incident protestors were blinded by the Indian military.
Clearly, Modi’s regime is destabilising the region, and his policies are precipitating what could be
characterised as state terrorism . As he is not facilitating India’s natural progression towards the happiness
of all, and as he is carrying out what may be justifiably termed, given the empirical evidence, a genocide
despite hid being democratically elected, adherence to the telos, according to this article’s definition of
the term, negates any political obligation to obey him and the Indian state in its current form. When
considering the legitimacy of political obligation, there should be an a priori assumption that the state
must protect the life and liberties of all. If the state does not protect the rights and liberties of the subjects,
it is nonsensical to obey such a state. The rights and liberties to which I am referring precede politics, as
these rights and liberties are given to us due to the virtue of us being born. Hence, these are natural rights.
The overarching natural right is the right to life. Consequently, while I argue that we must obey the state,
I am not justifying one’s obligation towards a totalitarian regime. Tyrannical regimes contradict the natural
rights of the subjects, and more specifically, the rights of ethnic minorities.
Concluding Remarks
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