Few days back, I watched a hindi movie, Aamir. It was a movie about a person who has everything right about him and who deserved a happy and good life. He missed out on it because he is a muslim and his views do not match with religious hatemongers. Irony is that everybody looks at him with suspicion because of the general thinking after 9/11 that every muslim is a terrorist. And his muslim brothers are not ready to embrace him because he is one who is modern. educated and a person with rational thinking.
Leave aside movie, this is true about general atmosphere prevailing in Indian cities. Muslims gave away their identity easily with those burqas and topis. Dangerous thing is that they allowed themselves to be recognized as a saparate group who live as a flock. This perception has never allowed them to become part of mainstream. It is not that hindus are ready to embrace them. When I was in Delhi, I found muslims are limited to certain very old and poor areas. These were sub-standard all-muslim colonies of old delhi and turkman gate. Even in hyderabad, city is properly divided between hindu areas and muslim areas. My friends who were living there for 20 years warns me of going to charminar, the central point of old hyderabad. Even Banglore was same. Media played a special role in it. When a Ishant Sharma become successful, nobody points out that he is a hindu but when a Irfan Pathan became successful, everyone was gung-ho about a muslim doing well for India. Itis not that opportunities are not there but problem is that their co-workers generally practice minimum interaction policy with them and there are very people who can survive that suffocating environment of quite hostility. Reservations will worsen the situation. Indian middle class is paranoid with suspicion and fear. It is our failure that we fail to recognize a sizable section as our own.
We have to protect characters like Aamir because they are they are fighting on two fronts. We have to give power to them, believe to them that they are not alone in their fight against hatemongers and fundamentalists who want a big section of society languishing in dark age. I have found my Aamir long ago. You have to find yours.
2 comments:
Nice ine Karan.Kepp blogging.
Very nice indeed.
I remember this started from our schools itselves.
And there is always an unsaid hatred between muslims and non-muslism, at all levels.
Don't know who really is responsible for all this. But it's just that it has been like this ever since...
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