Muslim Life in India Has Become Dangerously Uncertain
Apoorvanand
The news of a police constable shooting his senior, a Hindu from the ST community and then proceeding to shoot three others, all visibly Muslims in a moving train is scarier than the news of a mob attack. We do not yet know what was the trigger for this police officer to go on a shooting spree. Is it a coincidence that all three murdered by him after he killed his senior, a Hindu, happen to be Muslims and could be identified as Muslims from their ‘clothes’? Did their appearance betray them and trigger the policeman? How do we explain his angry and cold sermon to those whom he had killed to vote for Modi and Yogi? Can we see a connection between the identity of his targets and his apparent loyalty to Modi and Yogi?
In normal times, such questions will be asked and we would expect those who have the skill and resources to investigate such crimes to find the motives behind them. In normal times and normal societies too, such murders take place. Or, we can even say that there is in fact no normal. Abnormalities abound in overtly normal situations. But we can hope to get the right answer to the questions after such horror in those societies. Can we say the same about India, our land? We know the answer.
Were such a crime to happen in a country like the USA, which is the desired destination of many Indians, or in any other country in the West, the head of the state would appear on TV and make a public statement. Especially when the murderer invokes his name as a cover for his crime. The head of state would have denounced it and distanced herself from the murderer. But here in India, neither the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh nor the Prime Minister of India have stirred. What should we conclude from their silence?
That the rulers do not feel responsible for the action of one of their people or do not feel accountable to those whom they are supposed to protect? No remorse even for that? They do not deserve even a word of condolence? Should not the railway minister apologise to those killed by his man? What should be the response from the chief of the Railway Protection Force, whose man has committed four murders? His act has now created a feeling of insecurity among all railway passengers. Would not the sight of a policeman with a firearm make travellers uneasy and fearful? Would they not lose their sleep when they see armed police personnel sitting in their coach?
After all, the seniors of the constable accepted that he was a man of unstable nature. Despite that, they entrusted him with the job of looking after the security of the passengers. How responsible have they been? Do they have no sense of repentance? Why do we see no expression of it?
Should not the state have shown that it feels accountable by announcing extraordinary compensation for the lives lost due to its carelessness, if we accept the claims of the officials that the murderer was mentally unstable? Should not the railway officials have the courtesy, at the minimum, to accompany the dead to their families?
The absence of remorse, shame, or repentance in the state apparatus should worry us. For the murdered passengers, the police officer was the State. He was not a private citizen. He had the power of violence. Which was used against unarmed, non-violent, unsuspecting citizens he was supposed to protect. The State has to take responsibility.
Respected news platforms have censured his words of allegiance to the BJP leaders. They are digging into his past to establish that a psychiatric disorder and not politics should be held responsible for the murders. Why did they edit out the uncomfortable part of the story, which exposes the political ideology behind the slaughter?
Can we say that the constable tried to cover up the murder of his senior by killing three Muslims? Because now, murdering Muslims is seen as normal in India. It is perfectly normal for Hindus to get offended by a Muslim’s very appearance. How do we explain that persons with no criminal history get provoked by visible Muslim-ness?
Just before the circulation of the video of these murders, we watched another video in which a Muslim man is surrounded by Hindus. We are informed that he was silently offering namaz. The sight of a Muslim performing namaz provoked the Hindus so much that they opened their mobiles and read aloud Hanuman Chalisa from their devices, in responding to his namaz! One can say that these two incidents are not related. But we know they are. The namaz, a Muslim act, or the beard or cap or burqa, can now trigger perfectly normal Hindus of a loving nature. It must be the fault of the Muslims who provoke non-violent, ever tolerant Hindus to resort to what they would never do normally: hate and violence.
It was again a coincidence that the news of these murders came with more news of violence from the Mewat region of Haryana. A VHP procession was stopped by a group of Muslims and pelted with stones. The procession was not religious. It was taken out after violent anti-Muslim announcements by the organisers. It was also announced that Monu Manesar, who is the main accused in the murders of two Muslim youths Nasir and Junaid a couple of months ago, would be part of the procession. It was meant to anger Muslims. A man who openly announces his desire to eliminate Muslims, who is a murder accused, who is wanted by the Rajasthan police, was to participate, which is nothing but open humiliation of Muslims.
Why was this procession allowed? Why is a person accused of the murder of two Muslims allowed to hide in the open by the Haryana government? Why has it not handed him over to the Rajasthan police? Would people committing violence against Muslims not be considered criminals anymore?
All these incidents are related.The murder of Muslims in the train would not have been possible if Monu Manesar was apprehended and brought to justice. It would not have happened if the Prime Minister had not asked Hindus to identify those who oppose the government by their clothes. It would not have happened if the killers of Mohsin Sheikh were not let off by the courts with the explanation that it was his appearance which invited the attack on him.
What does this attack do to us? Who is affected by it? Definitely Muslims who have already been feeling that public spaces are not safe for them. Now, even in crowded spaces like a moving train, they would feel more vulnerable.They have to keep guessing who among the co-passengers would get provoked by what. What caution do they have to exercise to remain safe?
I recall a note written by a Muslim woman three to four years ago. Travelling on a train, a child asked her husband if he was a Muslim. When he said, yes, the child said that he should be shot. The Muslim woman wrote that after that they almost gave up travelling by train. It was costly for them but they changed their mode of travel.
This incident has shown two things: Muslim life in India has become dangerously uncertain and Hindus have been radicalised to such an extent that now you do not need organised violence. Violence against Muslims and Christians has become part of Hindu life. People would object to the generalisation but is it not a fact now?
Hindu society will have to reverse this trend to save itself. It is the most urgent task it cannot ignore or delay.
(Courtesy: The Wire & Galileo Ideas.)
Fear, Depression in Indian Muslims Is Palpable Even Among Those Who Are ‘Privileged’
Rakhshanda Jalil
For some time now, we have been thinking of buying our own home, our “forever” home where we would grow old together. We found one after much diligence. It was in a very tony part of South Delhi: wide roads, well-maintained parks, lush greenery, ample parking, in fact everything that comes together rather felicitously to make these neighbourhoods so scenic.
The only fly in the ointment, so to speak, was the presence of a mosque a few houses down the road – an old one, not especially architecturally significant, but one that has existed in that spot for a long time though clearly refurbished and modernised. Also, one that is evidently in use and, according to the estate agent, a bit of a “nuisance” – but only on Fridays, he hastened to add, and also “they” don’t use any loudspeakers for “their ajaan”. However, to compound matters, every floor in that three-storey apartment block happened to be occupied/owned by a Muslim family. After several visits, I eventually chickened out from buying that perfectly lovely apartment in a perfectly lovely neighbourhood.
There seemed to be a giant, invisible yet perfectly legible ‘X’ marked on that building. The proximity to the mosque, and the presence of Muslim homeowners on every floor of that house in an otherwise entirely non-Muslim neighbourhood, brought visions of Ahmadabad, of the Gulbarg Society, of the brutal killing of Congress MP Ehsan Jafri and at least 35 others inside that ill-fated housing society. Well-meaning, liberal friends made me feel small and silly for my chicken heartedness. ‘Oh come, on!’ they chided, ‘That was Gujarat! It can’t happen in Delhi.’ Or, ‘That was a long time ago! It can’t happen now!’ (Though, if anything, recent events in Gurgaon 21 years later prove otherwise.) The rational ones rationalised, ‘Gulbarg was in Chamanpura, a Muslim-dominated neighboured; this is a safe neighbourhood. It can’t happen here.’ And worse still, there was the shaming: ‘You too? You with all your privileges? You can’t think like this!’
Yes, with all my privileges – of education, of class, of having friends in ‘high places’ – I feel scared, more scared than I have ever been in my entire life. I am 60 years old and confess to a crushing fear, one that weighs my chest with an inexorable weight and makes it difficult to breathe sometimes. I must also confess to an almost persistent depression, like a low-grade fever, over the past many months, that doesn’t quite halt the daily rhythm of life; it just slows you down by its continuous, relentless presence, making you feel sad and empty and hopeless.
I suspect I am not alone in this. I feel this fear and depression among a great many Muslims in urban India. I hear it in their silences. I sense it in their steadfast refusal to get drawn into political debates. I notice it in their stoicism in the face of virulent hate swirling about in school and college WhatsApp groups. I spot it in the hastily withdrawn social media posts drawing attention to some recent communal outrage or atrocity. I recognise it in their zeal to distance themselves from instances of any sort of violence, be it a Muslim man killing his Hindu girlfriend and chopping her into pieces or a Muslim man killing his non-Muslim partner in a business dispute.
If my own fear and despair, and that of others like me, is so palpable and pronounced, what of those Muslims who are doubly marginalised by their poverty and illiteracy? Or vulnerable because they don’t have the safeguards and barriers, however flimsy, that ‘people like us’ have in our gated communities and cushioned lives? What of those who live on the edge of survival because they must perforce go out into the real world every single day to eke out a living? What of the plumbers, electricians, painters, carpenters, maids and sundry service providers who don’t give their real, Muslim-sounding names for fear they will not be hired? Or the vegetable vendors who festoon their carts with saffron flags after every call to boycott small Muslim businesses? Or the biryani vendors, kebab sellers, quilt makers, car mechanics who have traditionally plied these trades for generations but now fear for their lives? What of the meat sellers whose makeshift stalls happen to be along the routes taken by the kawariyas? What of the imams and naib imams, often from the poorest of families, who are hired by Wakf boards to serve as custodians of small, isolated mosques surrounded by hostile neighbours?
I don’t ‘look’ like a Muslim so, to an extent, I am safe. Unless called out to chant ‘Jai Shree Ram’ to profess my Indianness, I am largely safe. But what of my name? How can I camouflage that on a railway booking chart? Or hide it when asked to provide proof of identity? While my first name can afford some benefit of doubt for it might pass as a Parsi’s, my surname is a dead give-away. When push comes to shove in the New India that is Bharat, not even speaking English will give me an exit pass if a mob baying for Muslim blood were to gherao me. All my so-called privileges can be brought to naught by a lumpen crowd. The realisation is chilling.
And if I were a man? Imagine, 70 years after partition and after reading all the gory stories penned by Manto and other chroniclers of communal violence, having your pants pulled down to check whether you are a ‘katua’ or not? But what if I did ‘look’ like a Muslim? What if I chose to offer namaz perfectly peacefully and quietly while sitting on my berth in a train? Worse still, what if I had a beard, wore a topi or a hijab? What if I worked as an imam in a mosque? So what if I had just assured my family that all was well, that I was safe given the police presence all around me? What then? What if I, as an Indian, have been conditioned to believe that the tattered fabric of secularism will be held up no matter what? The events of the past days prove these are no longer hypothetical scenarios. This is a lived reality for countless Indian Muslims.
‘Jab mulle kaate jaainge/Ram Ram chillainge’, ‘Hindustan mein rehna hoga/Jai Shri Ram kehna hoga’ and even ‘Goli maro saalon ko…’ by someone who is now a Union minister are no longer isolated instances of random, unrelated personal biases and prejudices. These are dog whistles, a clarion call to a large, restive majority that is being brainwashed to believe they are second-class citizens, perhaps even lower, in their own land. All this is part of a larger narrative, a grand design.
Since we have clearly turned into a nation of ‘whatabouters’, each of these hate-filled, terror-inducing slogans will be instantly and viciously countered with those raised by the PFI or other fringe minority outfits. When rapes, murders, corruptions, scams and scandals are thwarted in Parliament by elected representatives of the people by instances of whatabouts, how can these rising incidents of bigotry and hate not be similarly countered? It’s easier to come back with counter-accusations, to point fingers, to obfuscate, to fling more filth, to parry hate with hate than it is to understand fear, to acknowledge militant, muscular majoritarianism, to call out the elephant in the room.
As we spiral inexorably downwards, as every fresh instance of bigotry is outstripped and outdone by even bigger, bolder, more blatant, more bare-faced occurrences, we don’t seem to pause to think of the consequences. This rampant whataboutery – both at the political and the individual level – is exhausting, predictable and eventually empty. It will derail the India we have known and loved – probably forever.
[Rakhshanda Jalil is a Delhi-based writer, translator and researcher. Her recent book is But You Don’t Look Like a Muslim (Harper Collins, 2019). Courtesy: The Wire.]
