Holding hands

Unity does not mean homogeneity. It is a state of harmony in which diverse opinions coexist. Like myriad notes of a mellifluous song. These are the lofty ideals upon which our great nation was built. In a universe quivering with eclectic energies, this is an adaptive vision to uphold. Are such subtleties being tarnished by the rise of "majoritarianism?"

The onslaught has been cleverly disguised as a quest for justice and uniformity. First there was a great hue and cry about minority vote banks and appeasement. It seemed plausible, unjust. It was a call to coalesce the majority community into a vote bank and this ruse worked effectively. Fear mongering eclipses rationality. A simple dictum goes unmentioned - Elections are won by majority. Who needs a minority then?

In a family of seven – parents and five children – one child has no limbs. The parents have to clean, feed, and carry this youngest disabled child. The other children are strong enough to fend for themselves. They do not receive any special privileges. All of them take turns to look after the frail one and they live happily. One day, their uncle “Uniformity” came to visit them. He took the eldest son aside and whispered to him – “Your parents are so partial to the youngest one. A great injustice has been done to you. It must be rectified at once by treating everyone equally.”

It is this kind of justice that the proponents of the new Hindustan are clamouring for. Nuances are lost in the deafening thud of jingoistic nationalism. Rational thinkers are killed. Democratic institutions are denuded of sane voices and peopled by the children of “Uniformity.” Universities become battlegrounds. Intellectuals become enemies of the state. The “F” word is a conspiracy theory that cannot be uttered. Is this the India that our freedom fighters died for?

Are we to panic and metamorphose into another shadow of irrationality? If we did, what difference will there be between them and us? Let us pay attention to what they are feeling. Try to understand where the aggression is coming from. Gently pull the wool off their eyes and lovingly invite them to share in the truth. Address their fears. Increase their awareness as well as ours. Feel our common essence. This is the point of contact. This is a place from which healing can commence. 

Missing the trees for the forest

It is unfortunate that some elements of the media want to peddle the view of the Indian Muslim community as a homogeneous entity flirting with terrorism, steeped in fundamentalism, struggling with a perpetual victimhood complex, and eager for handouts. The truth is that there are all colours of Muslims from the very pious to the agnostic to the atheistic and even within these divisions there are so many shades in between that defy definition. The most religious Muslim necessarily need not be the one flaunting a skull cap or a Burqa. There are quieter modes of devotion and every spiritual Muslim does not wear his heart on his sleeve. Such subtleties are entirely lost when we constantly create group identities and cease to see the individual.

Now, I have very little knowledge about the post-Partition mentality of North Indian Muslims but hailing from Kerala and that too from a middle-class milieu and dedicated to Allah, I have usually found a number of both the older and younger generation of Malayali Muslims to be unburdened by a negative Muslim identity (at least the ones I have seen in my life). The idea of “Indian Muslim” as a separate entity at odds with mainstream India is a bogey that only rises with the occasional advent of religious riots or terrorism. If a woman can at once be a mother and a wife, I don’t see why a devout Muslim can also not be a patriotic Indian.  Thus as far as the many Malayali Muslims that I know are concerned, being simultaneously Indian, Malayali and Muslim without any of these identities usurping the importance of the other is their natural state irrespective of whether they are clean shaven and shorts-clad or bearded and lungi-clad.

The progressive flaunting of religious symbols among Muslims is a phenomenon that is world-wide and I feel it to be quite independent of the state of affairs in India. Whether sporting ¾-pants would make a Muslim more worthy in God’s eyes and thus more spiritual/religious is another idea for another day that has to be debated within the Muslim community.