New Delhi: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath, now well into his second consecutive term in office, posted a roughly two-minute-long clip of a speech to his over 32 million followers on X on Monday (May 18, 2026). In it, he spoke about offering namaz in public spaces without once using the word ‘Muslim’.Adityanath’s message was posted with the accompanying words, “Namaz padhni hai, aap shift mein padhiye… pyaar se maanenge theek hai, nahin maanenge toh doosra tareeka apnayenge…(If you want to offer namaz, do it in shifts… if you agree politely, that is fine; if not, other methods will be adopted…)”His post has so far been shared over 3.8 lakh times, though it is impossible to say if it is the critics or those who support his views who have done so.Here is a look at what he said and the subtext that the audience did not miss – they responded with applause whenever he brought up the familiar tropes of Hindutva nationalism.Targeting Muslims in the language of ‘law and order’Adityanath frames the issue of prayer in the words of neutral governance, using terms such as “roads are for people” and “rule of law”. But the speech repeatedly singles out namaz. There is no discussion about any other form of public encroachment or religious gatherings, such as Kanwar yatras, whose increasingly ambitious scale and communitarian tilt has repeatedly made headlines.“People ask me, ‘Have you really stopped namaz on roads in Uttar Pradesh?’ and I tell them, ‘We have, and you can verify this yourselves.'”The audience applauds at this point, responding enthusiastically to his claim that namaz had been stopped.Adityanath then thunders, “Arey, what right does he [the Muslim] have to block the road? Which right allows anybody to stop right of way? The place for it, [Muslims] should go there and do it.“And people [Muslims] told me, ‘How will this be possible, we are many in numbers.’ I told them, pray in shifts. If you don’t have room in your house, then control your numbers.”नमाज पढ़नी है, आप शिफ्ट में पढ़िए…प्यार से मानेंगे ठीक है, नहीं मानेंगे तो दूसरा तरीका अपनाएंगे… pic.twitter.com/zDoz6YiqTZ— Yogi Adityanath (@myogiadityanath) May 18, 2026The audience clapped again, apparently recognising the communal subtext – the framing of Muslims as the “problem population”. The applause when the population of Muslims was brought up was loud, suggesting that the audience did not see the issue of namaz on the roads merely as a civic one.Population control, communal codingIt has been a long-standing dog whistle of Hindu-nationalist politics to portray Muslims as threatening the demographic balance. So, when Adityanath said, “You don’t have room in your house, then control your numbers,” he dragged a purely civic issue into the trope about the belonging of Muslims to India being suspect – and he did so without using the word Muslim.He never mentioned any administrative suggestion or tool for crowd management in busy streets or during festivals that his government might be thinking of. Nor did he mention the disruptions of private namaz, even in homes.Once again, there was applause from the gathering, suggesting it understood the communal subtext immediately – they recognised that the chief minister was not discussing the science of demography but targeting a community.Citizenship to conditional belonging“If you want to stay within a system…” said the chief minister of India’s most populous state, with a roughly 20% share of Muslims.“[If] you must read namaz, do it in shifts, we will not stop it, but not on the road. The road is for people, ordinary citizens, for the sick (to reach hospitals), for workers, for artisans, for traders, and we will not let anybody block access to it. The rules of the government are for all, equal to all.”Adityanath’s conditional remark about staying in “a system” implied that a section of citizens – namely, the Muslims who pray, allegedly in the streets, portrayed as disrupting traffic and economic life – must constantly prove their compliance and loyalty.He also used words like “tamasha”, “arajkta” (anarchy) and “blocking roads” to cast Muslim religious practices as inherently disruptive to social and economic life. He contrasted the religious practice of namaz with “workers, artisans, traders”, putting Muslim communities outside of the framework of productive citizenry.Threat, or governance?Adityanath said, “If they agree when asked nicely, that’s good, else we will adopt different means.” He combined this threat with a reference to Bareilly, saying it is where “they saw our strength”. Here, he openly positioned Hindus as the ‘in’ group and Muslims as the Other.In Bareilly in December last year, several Muslims were arrested after a protest related to the ‘I love Mohammad’ controversy erupted in violence. A birthday celebration in a restaurant was interrupted because two of six guests were Muslim men, in the same city that month. Once again, the audience clapped to the chief minister’s remarks about strength.Seen in this light, it is no longer possible to view the chief minister’s remarks as a response to a traffic or crowd management issue.Stark ironyThe irony is stark: while the chief minister speaks of discipline, order and (some) citizens knowing their place, teachers in Uttar Pradesh staged a crawling protest on the same day in the state capital, Lucknow. Reports said they adopted this mode – of crawling towards the state education minister’s residence with their demands – because the government treats them “like insects”. Around 70,000 teachers in the state are currently struggling to be reinstated. Their case is before the Supreme Court.लखनऊ में 70 हज़ार टीचर की नियुक्ति की माँग को लेकर शिक्षा मंत्री के घर के सामने प्रोटेस्ट। इनका आरोप सरकार ने इन्हें कीड़ा समझा इसीलिए रेंग कर प्रोटेस्ट कर रहे हैं।यह मामला सुप्रीम कोर्ट में लंबित है! pic.twitter.com/X6xeBgNhin— Narendra Nath Mishra (@iamnarendranath) May 18, 2026