Among the blizzard of reactions to the September 7 bomb blasts in Delhi, the one allegedly aired in a classroom in Jamia Millia Islamia was truly shocking. On that day, P K Basu, an honorary management professor, parroted the anti-Islamic rhetoric of the West, declaring to his class that Islam "sanctioned" violence. Basu, who later denied the charges, has since been banished from Jamia.
The professor did it openly but the scenario is not uncommon. After every blast, Muslims face a fresh wave of hate-mongering, taunts and vilification. In Mumbai too, the numerous terror attacks have forced the community to reconcile to the fact that Muslims must carry the albatross of being "sympathisers" of terrorists, if not actual terrorists themselves.
A few days after Kasab's terror attack on Mumbai, a Muslim journalist visited a an event in an art gallery in South Mumbai. Looking at the journo's card, the manager remarked, "Terrorists are not allowed." Sensing the pain he had caused, he quickly added, "I was joking. Please come in." "That was a cruel joke I will never forget," recalls the scribe.
Mohammed Altaf, who works with a multinational company, saw the attitude of his colleagues change after the July 13 bomb blasts in Mumbai. "A co-worker told me. 'Yeh sab tum logon ki wajah se hota hai (All this is happening because of you people),' " he says ruefully. Another Muslim had to endure an entire train journey listening to an angry co-passenger say that Hindu youngsters would have to "keep pistols to deal with these Pakistanis" (read Muslims).
"Muslims undeniably carry the guilt that Muslim terrorists are wreaking suffering on innocents," says Salim Alware, convener of the Federation of Muslim NGOs in Maharashtra. "Even if the involvement of Muslim terrorists is not proved, the impression is that Islamic terrorists are behind all blasts." The Federation strongly condemned the September 7 Delhi blasts through a press conference and keeps a banner saying 'We condemn the bomb blasts' always at hand.
The need to repeatedly condemn every act of terrorism shows the pit of fear that Muslims have fallen into: the fear of being maligned and framed. The practice began after the Mumbai train blasts of July 2006 with a big conference being held at KC College. Thereafter, Muslim clerics, especially those belonging to Jamiatul Ulema-e-Hind, held a series of anti-terrorism conferences. Exactly a year after the terrorist attacks on the Taj and Trident, an international conference against terrorism was held at the Taj. Even Islamic seminary Darul Uloom Deoband sounded a fatwa against terrorism.
Today it has become a ritual to hold a conference against terrorism immediately after every attack. "Take the speeches made on Ganpati visarjan day at the podium created near Nagpada junction to welcome Ganesh bhakts," says Maulana Mustaqeem Azmi, president of Jamiatul Ulema-e-Hind (Maharashtra). "Hindu speakers invariably talked of Bappa's blessings and raised slogans like 'Ganpati bappa moraya'. But almost all Muslim speakers said they wanted the culprits of the Delhi high court bomb blasts hanged outside Parliament House. This betrays the fear in the Muslim psyche."
Azmi gives his own example. "A few months ago, I was going from Nagpada to Haj House," he recalls. "It was raining heavily and I saw a young man with a briefcase standing near the JJ Hospital junction. When he put out a hand, I stopped but apologised that I couldn't give him a ride because I didn't know him." The story of Ghulam Yahya, the imam of Haj House who was accused of sheltering terror suspects a few years ago, was at the back of Azmi's mind. "What if the youth was a suspect and I got framed too for sheltering him even if just for a few minutes?" he asks.
The antennae of anti-Muslim folk also get activated after terror episodes and vitriol is spewed from different platforms. Janata Dal president Subramanian Swamy's poisonous piece in a national daily after the July 13 blasts in Mumbai titled 'How to wipe out Islamic terror' declared, "The Muslims of India can join us (in the fight against terrorism) if they genuinely feel for the Hindus. That they do I will not believe unless they acknowledge with pride that though they may be Muslims, their ancestors were Hindus."
"It was an open humiliation of Muslims and an attempt to create discord among communities. Yet the police ignored it," protests former vice-chairman of Maharashtra state minorities' commission Abraham Mathai, who petitioned the high court after the police refused to lodge a complaint. Little wonder, therefore, that most Muslims now dread their own shadow and feel the need to reiterate their patriotism at every opportunity.
Source - The Times of India
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