By Mukhtar Mohamed Abby

“In many ways, I feel reduced to a second class citizen in my own country, only because of my Muslim identity, I fear we are losing every day the India we love.”

These words, with small variations, echoed in many diverse voices from far corners of the country. In a national meet on the status of Muslims in India today, organized by Anhad in Delhi (Anhad is Muslim organization that exist in Delhi); this national meet took place at the end of last year, with many individuals and representative of the organization gathered from several parts of India. They spoke of negotiating life, relationships, work and the State as members of the largest religious minority in India. The predominant in these intense deliberations, which continued late into the evenings, was of sadness and disappointment, and of growing despair. Muslim citizens shared their disillusionment with all institutions of governance, and more so with the police and judiciary, as well as with political parties and to some extent the media, and of a sense of fear that never goes away.      

There is, on the one hand, the constant dread of being profiled as a terrorist, or of a loved one being so profiled, with the attendant fears of illegal and prolonged detention, denial of bail, torture, unfair and biased investigation and trial, and extra-judicial killings. There is, on the other hand, the lived experience of day-to-day discrimination, in the education, employment, housing and public services, which entrap the community in hopeless conditions of poverty and want. This is fostered in situations of pervasive communal prejudice in all institutions of the State, especially the police, civil administration and judiciary; and also the political leadership of almost all parties; large segments of the print and visual media; and the middle classes, and the systematic manufacture of hate and divide by communal organizations.

The pervasive sense of insecurity, reported from various corners of the country, derive greatly from the prejudice, illegality and impunity with which police forces across the country deal with the challenges of terror. This is a regular pattern that recurs after every terror attack and sometimes even when there have been no actual terror episodes but the State authorities claim that there was a conspiracy which they detected and prevented.

Chilling pattern

Testimonies from many States in the India – including Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Mandhya Pradesh, Kashmir, and Rajasthan – delineate this chilling pattern of brazen police illegality. Muslim, mostly male, youth, usually with no criminal records, are illegally picked up by policemen in plain clothes, and taken blind-folded in unmarked vehicles to locations like farm houses which are not police stations. There they are tortured to coerce them to confess to terror crimes. Many men testified to brutal and terrifying forms of torture. A few are killed in extra-judicial killing or ‘encounters’. The rest are ultimately produced after several days of illegal detention before magistrate, who deliberately ignored injuries that suggest torture. They are then officially remanded to extended police custody, and ultimately accused of a range of crimes of terror and treason. Many are charged with multiple crimes of terror, sometimes 20 or even 50, allegedly committed in many States, making impossible for the youth charged with these grave crimes to defend themselves. Even if the legal justice system worked efficiently, it would take many years, sometimes decades, for these crimes to be heard and concluded against each of the individuals. For all these years, the youth would continue to be held in detention. Nothing could possibly compensate for their lost years, and for the suffering of those who love them.

Almost none who bears a Muslim identity is exempt from the fear that they, or members of their families, can be subjected to the same allegations of terror links, and to similar processes of detention, torture, encounter killings prolonged, multiple and bias trials. No class, no profession, no part of the country, is safe, as long as you are Muslim. Completely different standards are applied in the cases of the Hindutva (Hindutva is an ideology or a dogma held by some radical Hindu organizations that India belongs Hindu only) terror organizations which have come to light. It is almost as if being Muslim and (usually) male makes you and automatic suspect of terrorism, and it is not the burden of the State to prove your guilt but your own responsibility to prove your innocence.

Denied aspirations

But the anguish of Muslim citizens was not restricted to targeting in the name of terror. People underline also the many unmet aspirations of men and women of the community to participate as equal partners in India’s development. Many spoke of the importance to them of modern and high quality of schooling and higher education, for both boys and girls, and sought higher levels of public investment in their education, in modern mainstream schools and institutions of higher education.

There was careful and thoughtful analysis of the design flaws in the schemes of the central UPA government (United Progressive Alliance at centre led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh- known as UPA) to address the low social and economic indicators documented by Sachar Committee( a committee appointed by UPA government led by Sachar – an educated man). It was pointed out that per the per capita levels of investment for the community are still abysmally low. The new schemes for investment in the districts with high minority population at best cover 30 per cent of the total population. These programmes, which represent the UPA government’s major initiative to address the socio-economic backwardness of the community, are for development districts with higher minority population rather than programmes focused actually on the minorities; therefore they prove blunt instruments, a much of the expenditure is on general infrastructure and little to directly benefit deprived people of the community. The scholarship programmes for girls and boys from minorities was welcomed, but this scheme also suffers from infirmities of procedure and targets which limit its impact. Financial institutions including nationalised banks are still reluctant to extend credit to Muslims.

There were many testimonies about open prejudice and bias of public institutions towards Muslims. There were also reports of profiling against Muslims by criminal justice system even beyond terror crimes, reflected in disproportionately high Muslim populations in jails. Many sensitive and senior positions in both central and state government departments, including in the home, education, social welfare and information departments, continue to be held by officials with sympathies with communal ideologies and organizations, and the UPA government has done little to identify and replace them.

Widely prevalent

But it was confirmed that these prejudices are equally evident outside government as ell. In particular, sections of the media actively reinforce communal stereotypes, as well as uncritically broadcast the police version in terror-related arrests and encounter killings. Textbooks often show similar bias, and this is particularly dangerous because for millions of poor and especially rural children, the textbook is the only source of the printed word which they can access. People also reported bias in private recruitment.

Muslim men and women from many parts of India confirmed difficulties in getting homes on rent or on sale in non Muslim localities, or admission in schools and higher education. People spoke of systematic efforts in many corners of the country to destroy and boycott the livelihoods of Muslims. Sustained decentralized hate campaigns are organized which portray Muslim men as predators against Hindu girls, and people who slaughter the cow which is sacred to the Hindu community, and vigilante groups supported tacitly by the police target Muslim violently for these alleged social violations.

These voices are not simply of victim hood or injustice to a particular community. They testify to the massive and varied challenges that have been mounted against the basic values of Indian Constitution, including democracy, secularism, fraternity and rule of law. What is threatened is not just the future and well – being of a community. What is under grave assault is the idea of India itself.

Mukhtar Mohamed Abby

India, Karnataka State

The writer can be reached at mukhtarcabi@hotmail.com

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