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Muslims of India Are Done With Hate And Fear: What Shaheen Bagh Showed Me

'Shaheen Bagh and the Idea of India', edited by Seema Mustafa, is a collection of ground reports, essays and interviews with women who were at the core of the protest.
By
Mustafa Quraishi
21/07/2020 08:20am IST

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HINDUSTAN TIMES VIA GETTY IMAGES
Protesters raise slogans and wave the tricolor ahead of their march to Home Minister Amit Shah's residence, at Shaheen Bagh, on February 16, 2020.
Children in high school get awards like Mr or Miss Popular. In Delhi’s Modern School, Vasant Vihar, in the year 1997, I was given the Jai Hind Award. I was the only one in my batch of 150 who wanted to join the defence forces. I wasn’t being a ‘nationalist’ or a ‘good Muslim’. I didn’t think about these things back then, and I had nothing to prove to anyone. I wanted to fly helicopters for the army, and the idea of defending my country appealed to me.

There was another decision I’d made back then. While most of my batchmates—Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Isaai—wanted to leave India and make a life in the West, I wanted to stay on and live like a first-class citizen. This was home, I could live here as I liked. I owned India, and India owned me.

Cut to 2019, when a right-wing government was voted back to power with a huge mandate, despite its openly communal agenda. For the first time, I looked up the Internet for information to emigrate to some place in Southeast Asia.

Many friends have been leaving, not wanting their kids to grow up in an India that we had never imagined would become a reality. I still haven’t had the spine to fill up the forms, though. In a conversation with my sister-in-law, I told her I would shift out of India with a very, very heavy heart if at all I was compelled to do so to save my life. One of my closest friends still urges me to be pragmatic and leave before it is too late—‘Jaan hai toh jahaan hai,’ he tells me. ‘What use is anything when you’re dead?’ Both my sister-in-law and my friend are ‘Hindu’. I mention their religion because it is now the new normal. (Or maybe I mention their religion as a kind of insurance. Unlike a Patel or a Kapoor who emigrates and becomes a much-admired NRI, a Quraishi who even thinks of emigrating is a traitor. The fact that I have Hindu relatives and friends who care for me and want me to find a safe future outside India might keep the mob from my door.)

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I may have the resources to emigrate. But millions of Indian Muslims don’t have this luxury. Would I be able to live with the guilt of my privilege?


And then I think—why should I leave? Isn’t that exactly what this regime wants?

So then, should I end up living as a second-class citizen in my own country? How is that better than being a second-class citizen somewhere else?

Questions are all I seem to have these days. And few answers.

As I write this, parts of northeast Delhi are burning in riots. Pro-CAA protestors accompanied by the police vs anti-CAA protestors. To put it simply, Hindus, aided by the police, vs Muslims. Houses, shops, schools, places of worship, anything belonging to Muslims is being burnt down. Muslims are being lynched. Hindus are being stabbed and shot, too, but it makes no sense to try and be ‘balanced’ here, because that would be dishonest. It would mean falling into the trap set up by the people who have engineered the riots. There is no doubt that a majority of those who have been killed and injured are Muslim, and almost every house and shop that has been looted and set on fire belonged to Muslims. Often, a shop owned by a Muslim has been burnt down while a shop right next to it that is owned by a Hindu has been left untouched.


A viral video sums up the plight of Indian Muslims today: a group of battered Muslim men lying helpless on a road, surrounded by seven or eight Delhi police personnel. The policemen are abusing the men for demanding ‘azadi’ and forcing them to sing the national anthem. While one policeman films the ‘punishment’ on his phone, his comrades in uniform kick the men and hit them with lathis. The taunts of ‘Ajaddi, hain, Ajaddi?’ are a reference to the anti-
CAA protests that began in Shaheen Bagh. Muslims have been opposing the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the National Register of Citizens because the two together give the government the power to decide which Muslims, if any, can continue to be Indian citizens. Indians of every other faith are safe. To the Delhi police, which takes orders from the Union government, opposing this injustice is not only a criminal act but also treason.

BJP's Hate Politics in Delhi Runs Deeper Than Shaheen Bagh
BJP Leaders Are Falling Over Themselves To Demonise Shaheen Bagh Protesters
What Prompted Hundreds To Join Shaheen Bagh-Like Protests In Chennai's Old Washermanpet?
Never in my wildest dreams had I imagined that seventy-three years after Independence we would be discussing the citizenship of India’s Muslims instead of all that really matters. I never thought about being Indian, I always just was—it’s like breathing. To have your citizenship questioned is to have your life-breath taken away.

The Muslims of India, from all corners and of all backgrounds, are protesting in unison for the first time in the history of the Indian republic because this is an existential moment for all of us. And this time we aren’t backing down. We aren’t taking any more of the hate lying down, we aren’t taking the ‘Go to Pakistan’ jibes anymore. We are done with the hate and the fear and the constant questioning of our patriotism. This is what Shaheen Bagh showed me. I still have many questions, few answers, but in Shaheen Bagh I found my country again. I reclaimed my citizenship.


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Excerpted from Shaheen Bagh and the Idea of India: Writings on a Movement for Justice, Liberty and Equality, edited by Seema Mustafa. Published by Speaking Tiger Books, 2020

https://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/shaheen-bagh-and-the-idea-of-india-excerpt_in_5f15509ac5b6cec246



Muslims of Indian Punjab, Haryana, Himachal, Kutch and Western Rajasthan are lucky. As they are IVC martial race who will be accepted in Pakistani Punjab and Sindh. Their numbers are miniscule too. I guess other ethnicity Muslims will have to do hijrat to Bangladesh.
They should’ve migrated 70years ago. I mean in my view.
 
India is a utter communal disaster

Jinnah and Partition have been utterly vindicated

You can't force 1.4 billion people in to a poisonous communal shithole
 
those who are able to, will abandon the unequal battle and run away
This is where you are very wrong about us in general.

That is only a small percentage of the total population.

Only a few will willingly emigrate.
More will be thrown out of the roster of citizenship and rot silently in the camps and probably be gassed.
A significant number will eventually either leave Islam or follow RSS 'Islam' and save their skins. Can't blame them though.
The majority, I hope will passively resist and from among these a more active resistance will grow that will shake the foundations of Hindudom.
 
a more active resistance will grow that will shake the foundations of Hindudom.

I hope I am still alive then, and can take my place on the barricades.

the foundations of Hindudom.

Hindutvavad, if you please; I don't agree with your conflating Hindutvavad with Hinduism. You know enough to know better.
 
This is where you are very wrong about us in general.

That is only a small percentage of the total population.

Only a few will willingly emigrate.
More will be thrown out of the roster of citizenship and rot silently in the camps and probably be gassed.
A significant number will eventually either leave Islam or follow RSS 'Islam' and save their skins. Can't blame them though.
The majority, I hope will passively resist and from among these a more active resistance will grow that will shake the foundations of Hindudom.

I recall often reading posts by you lamenting that Indian minorities (non Muslim) also do not take your side.

That they are in fact equally against you, either covertly or even overtly.

Covertly either by lack of protest or silent assent.

Or overtly by direct aggression, often teaming up with Hindus, in different ways, varied walks of life.

Not necessarily only overt violence or riots. But things like economically. Socially. Institutionally. Politically.

Could you help me with the Muslim perspective here and make me understand why Muslims expect non Muslim minorities to side with them?

Was there for instance a different set of rules in India under Muslim rule for Hindus and the rest of the non Muslim populace, which might therefore mean that such communities would today look at you favourably.

Or worst case, at least not be hostile?

Let me tag other Muslims here too

@jamahir @Naofumi @HalfMoon @Mad Scientist 2.0 @xeuss

Best regards,

Doc
 
I don't think the overt government-level anti-Muslim action that @AfrazulMandal speaks of, will happen. The BJP government wouldn't want to alienate the Western and GCC governments.

Maybe the Delhi riots type events will but not a Gujarat or Bombay style bigger conflagration all over India.

No business is going to India as it has no human rights and its government says human rights as envisioned in India are different from rest of the world.
 
Could you help me with the Muslim perspective here and make me understand why Muslims expect non Muslim minorities to side with them?

For a minority to seek allies among other minorities, is a natural expectation. That expectation would be filled when other minorities feel the same pain and burn that the Muslims are. Until that happens, I personally don't expect other minorities to lend a sympathetic ear to the Muslims. Some well minded people (from those other minorities) might extend a hand of support, but by and large, expect the other minorities to look away.
 
I don't think the overt government-level anti-Muslim action that @AfrazulMandal speaks of, will happen. The BJP government wouldn't want to alienate the Western and GCC governments.

Maybe the Delhi riots type events will but not a Gujarat or Bombay style bigger conflagration all over India.

I'd like you to show me an example of riots, big or small, where the Hindus started killing Muslims first.

I know we've had this discussion before, but really, it's the crux here.

India is a huge country man.

We are actually a continent of little European sized countries.

Many cities if ours are bigger populations than many of the 200 odd nations in the world.

For the most part we all live together without killing each other.

That in itself is something.

In this mix, with the history of Muslim rule, and partition of our ancestral land, if Muslims start killing Hindus, what do you expect Hindus to do?

These are the same Hindus who stand on our borders so that we sleep safe. Never forget that.

The same Hindus who died at Galwan. But did not cede ground.

Cheers, Doc
 
No business is going to India as it has no human rights and its government says human rights as envisioned in India are different from rest of the world.

India is the second-largest importer of armaments a large portion of which come from the Western bloc. Much of the money to buy these comes again from dealing with the Western bloc. I don't think the Indian IT / ITES sector at least will face boycott in the West.
 
For a minority to seek allies among other minorities, is a natural expectation. That expectation would be filled when other minorities feel the same pain and burn that the Muslims are. Until that happens, I personally don't expect other minorities to lend a sympathetic ear to the Muslims. Some well minded people (from those other minorities) might extend a hand of support, but by and large, expect the other minorities to look away.

Personally I feel you will get a lot more support from Hindus than the rest of us.

It's something you and Afrazul will know in your heart of hearts.

Cheers, Doc
 
India is the second-largest importer of armaments a large portion of which come from the Western bloc. Much of the money to buy these comes again from dealing with the Western bloc. I don't think the Indian IT / ITES sector at least will face boycott in the West.

That's not business. That's investment of war.

Are you this simple or like to pretend to be one?
 
I'd like you to show me an example of riots, big or small, where the Hindus started killing Muslims first.

The framing of the question, and your past writings, show that you are not one to be convinced of anything other than holding Muslims responsible.

Personally I feel you will get a lot more support from Hindus than the rest of us.

It's something you and Afrazul will know in your heart of hearts.

Cheers, Doc

Sure. Our own Muslim voices are so stifled, that it is only the well minded Hindus who are standing up and speaking for us.
 
India is the second-largest importer of armaments a large portion of which come from the Western bloc. Much of the money to buy these comes again from dealing with the Western bloc. I don't think the Indian IT / ITES sector at least will face boycott in the West.

India is getting rifles from UAE.
 

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