Last week, the National Medical Commission (NMC) withdrew permission previously granted to the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Institute of Medical Excellence in Jammu, to admit students into a medical programme. The medical college has been at the center of protests led by Hindu right-wing groups who objected to the religious composition of the first batch of students. Reportedly, of the 50 students (who were admitted based on their NEET ranks) over 40 are Muslim. The college which has received significant grants-in-aid from the state government is built on land owned by the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi shrine and is reportedly also funded by donations from the shrine.While the NMC has cited “severe findings about non-compliance with minimum standards”, Hindu right-wing groups have celebrated the closure of the college as the consequence of their protests. The mostly Muslim students stuck in the middle of this conflict have found themselves deprived of a college admission they gained after a highly competitive entrance test. College officials have meanwhile said that the NMC’s findings are not factually borne out. It is particularly telling that the NMC itself had granted permission to the college to operate barely four months ago, presumably after completing due diligence.This conflict offers yet another example of a phenomenon that is becoming increasingly commonplace in India today – where dominant sentiments are appeased by weaponising and deploying seemingly neutral administrative provisions and institutions against Muslims. As in the case of “bulldozer justice”, we are reminded that the creation of apartheid-like conditions in India does not necessarily require the enactment of discriminatory laws. When state institutions participate in the appeasement of dominant sentiments, a quasi-official state of apartheid can be created without apartheid laws.On the face of it, quasi-official apartheid appears like a contradiction in terms because apartheid usually refers to a legalised de jure system of discrimination enforced by the state. In India however, this definition can become inadequate for analysis.This is because an individual in India typically experiences the law at two levels. First, they experience the formal sovereign system contained in the written law of the land, and second, they experience a non-formal system, derived from caste, where the norms enforced are those dictated by the local dominant group. The enforcement of caste-based norms goes far beyond social convention. It often operates in practice like a parallel legal system that contains hard rules that are enforced by material sanctions like localised violence (including lynching) and social boycotts ordered by local panchayats. The norms enforced by this non-formal legal system today are not limited to caste norms. Hindutva effectively uses the same non formal system against minorities by redefining the dominant group in terms of religion.The law, as it is experienced in any situation by an individual, is therefore best understood as a contestation between these two distinct legal systems running on contradictory principles. For example, a woman choosing to leave her house to escape a forced marriage or to marry outside of her caste or religion would be perfectly within her formal legal rights to do so, but would risk ostracisation, violence or even death from social and familial punishment, meted out to her or her partner. Similarly, a Muslim family purchasing a house in a Hindu dominated neighborhood has the legal right to do so but risks the neighbors refusing to accept their legal right to live there.When institutions become enforcers of the norms created by the dominant groupIn these contestations, institutions become critical in determining the system of law people really live under. Simply put, on what side does the state act in such contestations? Do they act against sanctions imposed by the dominant group and protect and uphold the rights of the individual granted under the formal legal system or do they themselves become enforcers of the non-formal system and the norms created by the dominant group on ground?Several examples from the last decade suggest that institutions in India have shifted substantially into the latter role. Municipalities in multiple cities have enthusiastically acquiesced to demands for the demolition of Muslim owned homes in the days following communal conflicts or tensions. In cases of inter-faith marriage, instead of protecting the constitutional freedom of adults to love and marry whoever they choose, multiple states have enacted anti-conversion laws. These laws, which on-paper seek to prevent forced conversion, are often used by the police to arrest Muslim grooms, even when the bride has not been forced to change her faith.With respect to cattle related lynching, the police rarely intervene when cow slaughter “vigilante” groups assault Muslim traders transporting cattle. Instead, the victims are often picked up and charged with violations of cattle slaughter laws. In multiple cases, Muslim homeowners have been unable to reside in houses they have legally purchased in Hindu majority neighbourhoods after protests by neighbours. The failure of institutions to protect these property rights has hardened the de facto religious segregation of neighbourhoods in Indian cities, and the ghettoisation of Indian Muslims.In 2020, after stringent protests, the Indian government put on hold plans to create a National Register of Citizens, a move that many feared would lead to the mass disenfranchisement of Indian Muslims. And yet, today, Bengali speaking Muslims are arbitrarily targeted both by local “vigilante” groups, and by the police, who, acting on reports or tip-offs from local dominant groups have picked up people on the suspicion of being Bangladeshi and demanded proof of Indian citizenship. Multiple Muslim owned and Muslim employing small businesses have faced threats from Hindu nationalist groups to oust them from markets, and the state has not stepped in to meaningfully protect them from such threats.This reimagination of institutions as legitimisers and executors of the dominant will, instead of enforcers of constitutional norms, has not been limited to local or executive controlled bodies like the police or municipalities. The judiciary has played its part as well. The Ram Janmabhoomi judgement for example points to a desire to appease dominant sentiments rather than strictly follow the letter of the law. While there have also been cases where the judiciary has attempted to push against this tide, including the Supreme Court’s bulldozer judgment or the recent refusal by an Uttar Pradesh court to accept the government’s decision not to prosecute the killers in the Akhlaq lynching, these have become the exception rather than the norm, and have been treated as such. The bulldozer judgement for example has failed to curb the punitive use of bulldozers on the ground.This evolution of institutions in India is unsurprising given the recent trajectory of India’s democracy. Democratic backsliding can happen in two different ways. The manner of such backsliding often determines how the polity is reshaped by it. The first, best exemplified by Indira Gandhi’s Emergency, relies entirely on tools that exist in the domain of formal laws. While Emergency provisions contained in the Constitution suspend civil liberties and put in place an authoritarian structure, power becomes concentrated at the level of the state. Democratic institutions are suspended, but their legitimacy is not eroded in the public domain. While such authoritarianism also causes untold suffering, in the contestation between the formal legal system and the non-formal one, it strengthens the former.Gradual erosion of democratic institutionsThe second type of democratic backsliding, exemplified by the last decade or so, relies on the gradual erosion of democratic institutions. While rights remain untouched on paper, democratic institutions simply cease to enforce them, or enforce them in an increasingly arbitrary manner. In the contestation between the formal and non-formal legal systems, this erosion of democratic institutions weakens the formal legal system and strengthens the non-formal ones. Over time, institutions become rubber stamps for the dominant group’s rule, and political discourse moves away from the preservation of constitutional values and becomes recast as a race between different groups to attain dominance over the non-formal system.There is a tendency in India today to frame instances of institutional failure as “lawlessness” or a breakdown of the rule of law. In a sense, this framework is comforting because it creates the idea that the formal legal system exists unchanged, and that the issues we face today are simple or individual instances of non-compliance with that system.The actions of the NMC in this case suggest that our problems are deeper. When a wide variety of institutions repeatedly and consistently enforce the will of the dominant group over the letter of the law, the will of the dominant group effectively becomes the law of the land, enjoying both social legitimacy and the enforcement power of the state. The formal legal system, over time, is relegated to the sidelines, unenforced and delegitimised. Specifically with respect to minorities, this means that we risk the perpetuation of apartheid-like conditions under the cover of a legal system that, on paper, guarantees equality.Sarayu Pani is a lawyer by training and posts on X @sarayupani.Missing Link is her column on the social aspects of the events that move India.