By TwoCircles.net Staff Correspondent,
New Delhi: The image created by the Bollywood films and the media of the Muslims is such that either a Muslim would be Mafia Don or would sacrifice his life for the majority’s Hindu Hero. But hardly a Muslim who is professional and educated, who does not want to live in slums is shown, said Sohail Hasmi, Javed Naqvi, Shesh Narayan and Mohammed Shoaib while discussing the issue related to the Identity of the Muslims in India on the second day of the three days national meet “What it means to be a Muslim in India” in New Delhi today.
There is this stereotypical image of the Muslim with beard, skull cap and shorter Pyjama who is Jihadi or a terrorist. Such a situation has arisen where Muslims have to depend on secular Hindus to put forward their concerns. It’s like to survive on the mercy of the majority secular voices. But along with that there is also a challenge of modernisation before the Muslims. Speakers also expressed concern to the fact that there is biasness in the reporting of the incidents vis-à-vis Muslims and Hindus if the incidents happen to be similar. While the Muslim accused and victims would be addressed with certain kind of derogatory connotation; the identity of Hindu the accused and victim would always be concealed. Media portrays the glamorised image of Jehad.
There were lots of speakers who put forth their experiences on the various issues concerning Muslims in India. The issues that were taken on the second day were related to the identity of Muslims, hate campaigns against Muslims, appropriation of the religious and cultural spaces of the Muslims, negative and stereotypical images of Muslims created by the media, discrimination against the Muslims by the law enforcement agencies like the police and the judiciary, systematic appropriation of Wakf property and Qabristans, failure of the state to contain the organisations playing the communal hate card, impunity and failures to implement enquiry reports and to punish those guilty of communal crimes. Apart from that the other issues were Rise and Infiltration of Communal Crimes, attempt to ignore the large scale terror links of the Sangh, Cow Slaughter as an excuse to attack, Discrimination during relief, rehabilitation, natural calamities, Emergence and the role of new age gurus, systematic attack to break the economic backbone of the community.
There were case studies depicting that the lands of quabristan were either encroached or if the Muslim community demanded land for Quabristan then no concern was paid by the system towards that. Here were the case studies from Goa and Gujarat, that if the people demanded for the land for quabristan they were even forced to evict the place of their residence.
In the name of Cow slaughter, many Muslims were put into the jail in various parts of India like in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Rajasthan Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh to name a few. Issue of cow slaughter has been used to fan the communal fire between the Hindus and Muslims.
The process of ghettoisation has not just polarised the cities like Bhopal and Ahmedabad, but also marginalised the population of Muslims economically. Attempts have been made by the government agencies to shatter the economic ties of the Muslims, and also to keep the Muslims backward in education. The educational institutions from the Muslims majority areas are shifted to the other far away places. Due to that education of the Muslim Girls is significantly affected adversely.
An activist from Bangalore put his concern that the hate campaign is on rise the capital city. Apart from that Moral Policing is used control spaces democratic public and cultural spaces. Girls and boys from the different communities are not allowed to interact. Orders of the State human rights Commission to contain such fundamentalist forces also has been overlooked by the law enforcing agencies in the state of Karnataka. Along with that there are the attempts by Bajarang Dal and Rama Sene like organisations to replicate the successful communal story in Karnataka.
Similarly the role of the apathetic role of the law enforcing agencies and the prejudices that are existing within the system has helped in the breeding of systemic discrimination against the Muslims. Lastly, the noted Lawyer Vrinda Grover said that there is no provision of prosecution of the police officials if they were found to be involved in perpetuating the communal violence. System provides a blanket to those officials. She also emphasised that the definition of the Communal Violence has to be broadened to include persecution in the name of terrorism and encounters.