On 17th September, early in the morning, I received two emails from my professor, one a link to our Google class meeting, and the second was an article in The Print composed by Yogendra Yadav, “Umar Khalid’s arrest shuts a democratic option for a generation of Indian Muslims”.
This piece brings a varied form of Islamophobia prevalent in India right now. On the one hand, there is a government that does not even bother to hide its anti-Muslim stance. In 1939, even before the formation of Pakistan—the very presence of which is utilized to target Indian Muslims—Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, one of the unmistakable ideologues of Hindutva, commented, “If we Hindus in India grow stronger, in time these Muslim friends of the League type will have to play the part of German-Jews instead”. Savarkar’s ideology was an inspiration for the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the parent organization of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
Another type of Islamophobia that is noted in the Left-Liberal circles is trickier, more harmful. It was noticeable during the Anti CAA/NRC protests when contentions were being forwarded to restrict the sloganeering of la ʾilaha ʾilla -llah in public protests as it alienates the non-Muslims who are a part of these protests. But why does the slogan alienate non-Muslims? Or for that purpose, why does a Muslim wearing hijab or skull cap alienate non-Muslims? Even when the exclusion is clearly about Muslim identity?
During the CAA/NRC protests, Mr. Yadav came to my college (UoH) to convey a discussion, and I chose to go to the equivalent. The essence of the discussion was spinning around the purported idea of India, and how laws like CAA were an assault on this thought. In spite of the fact that the citizenship law is first and foremost an assault on Muslims and Muslims went ahead on the roads to battle and protect their membership in Indian society, however, he didn’t mention that these laws are anti-Muslim in nature even once and cunningly appropriated that that movement into a BJP’s idea of India versus the idea of India composed by Gandhi.
The version of the Islamophobic narrative written in this piece by Yogendra Yadav, recognizing the assertion of Muslim identity, however, specifies that the individual shouldn’t be just a Muslim.
The initial segment of the piece sets up how a Mulsim ought to be, “My friend Hilal Ahmed, also a columnist for The Print, has an ensemble of icons on his study table. There is a picture of the Holy Qabba shrine that reminds you he is a five-namaz-a-day, practicing Muslim. Next to that is the iconic sketch of Che Guevara, an affirmation of his roots in the Marxist intellectual tradition. And finally, there is an image of Mahatma Gandhi, a nod to his political vision and practice”.
Hilal is a sort of Muslim, who is stating his Indian character by keeping the picture of Gandhi on his study table, but those Muslims asserting their religious identity beyond this kind of liberal framework are fanatic. Thus, Muslims need to either acclimatize liberal qualities; the liberals see this as an act inherently contravening Islam—or are left out of the nation state’s political imaginary. This is likened to the political categorization of “good Muslims” and “bad Muslims”.
In India, when secularism implies a nonpartisan situation of the state towards all religions, for what reason does the onus of demonstrating secular credentials rest only on the Muslim minority of the country? Why Muslims have to stifle their religious identity to prove these credentials? When the Supreme Court validated the destroyers of the Babri Masjid by effectively sanctioning the construction of a temple in its place, why did the country expect Muslims to accept the decision in the name of secular values?
The second problematic statement which I found in the piece is the glorification of Umar on the one hand, and the demonization of his father on the other. “Given that his father is from Jamaat-e-Islami, it is remarkable that Umar has avoided being a Muslim…”
Umar is being celebrated in light of the fact that he refused to choose his father’s path, and his father is being insulted on the grounds that he is from Jamaat-e-Islami. Thus, this individual is attempting astutely to condemn the very presence of Muslim organizations like Jamat-e-Islami and reinforces these stereotypical narratives that Muslims belong to these parties are backward, extremists, and fanatics.
Yogendra Yadav is the sort of individual who simply doesn’t want to agree that a Muslim could be a leader, and in this statement, he very mischievously puts the religious identity of Umar on which he has consistently been targeted in the end.
“That’s Umar Khalid. Young. Idealist. Rebellious. Uncompromising. Indian. And Muslim — all at the same time. That’s what makes him an icon for the youth today. Especially for the newly educated middle-class Indian Muslims, desperately seeking to move away from the clutches of clerics, from the prison of Muslim ghettos…”
These remarks are an understood affirmation of the orientalist stereotypes of Muslims as barbarians, who should be shown methods of enlightened existence. They discredit Muslim identities to only legitimize the leftist/liberal Muslims, the liberal’s variant of an ideal Muslim—the person who does not have any symbols of Islam visible in the public sphere, who will be more favourable to the leftist identity of his hyphenated Indian-Muslim self, the one who would be the picture-perfect on billboards, with a beard and skull cap even, to speak of India’s pluralistic image.
Apart from drawing a deep sense of binarism, Umar not a Muslim, for other young Muslims, this former Anna Hazare gang member, his friend Shekhar Gupta all upper class/caste Hindus attempting to give their ultimatum how a Muslim leader should be.
And as far as solidarity is concerned, it is a duty, as much for one’s own conscience, as it is towards the persecuted. It must be unconditional and accepting of the different contextual realities. When expressed as convenient condescension and blindness to people’s specific identities and lived realities, it ceases to be solidarity—it is an attempt at the same Othering and exclusion that the state is being questioned for.
Solidarity has to be constantly learning and unlearning, a continuing conversation—not one that comes with conditional clauses and terms of dictation.