Despair during the campaign gave way to hope as the vote totals came in.

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On June 3, the day before India’s election results were to be revealed, most Muslims went to bed worried about their future. The campaign had been like none they had seen before. In April, after India completed the first phase of polling, Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave a speech in Rajasthan that shocked even some of his own supporters.

He referred to Muslims as infiltrators, people who produce more children, who would take away the resources of the Hindu population. He and his party had uttered anti-Muslim dog whistles before, but this was a new extreme. Amit Shah, India’s home minister, said that if he came to power he would hang cow traders and smugglers who slaughter cows and hang them upside down.

Others among Modi’s cabinet ministers and top leaders invoked the specter of “love jihad” (Muslims marrying Hindus) and “land jihad” (land grabbing by Muslims in Hindu dominated areas across India). In another electoral video campaign by Modi’s Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Muslims were depicted........

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