The anti-Muslim hate in India is getting unbearable
Hate in India now packs courts and movie theaters—and my despair is giving way to fear. The dark forces seem more invincible than ever.
The collective conscience of India is being altered beyond repair with hatred so potent that it even consumes the most seemingly unlikely people—like the elderly man who has arrived on a wheel chair to the theater to watch “The Kashmir Files.”
Two weeks ago, I gathered the courage to go watch the film against the advise of family and friends. “The Kashmir Files,” which portrays the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits in the 1990s, has triggered anti-Muslim hate chants in theatres across India.
As soon as I entered the theatre in Mumbai, the audience broke into “Bharat Mata ki jai” (Glory to India). The man in the wheelchair soon joins the chants of “Muslims are terrorists.”
I left before the movie even began. I tried again the next day. A group of teenagers sitting in the front row soon begin chanting “Glory to India,” a nationalist chant that has been repeatedly weaponized against Muslims. I was seated in the fourth row, between an expecting mother and an elderly uncle who spoke proudly about how history in India was being redeemed under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The film began and within 20 minutes there were disturbing frames of Muslims lusting after Hindu women and a Muslim neighbour betraying his Hindu friend to support terrorism. On the big screen, Muslim kids flaunt Kalashnikovs and insult Hindu deities. In one scene, a Muslim militant tells a Kashmiri Hindu who has worn an attire depicting a Hindu god that only those chanting “Allahu Akbar” will be allowed to flourish in Kashmir.
That’s when the audience starts chanting “Jai Shri Ram” (Glory to Lord Ram ). The teens in the front row whistle and start clapping at the slogans. Scenes of Muslims in skull caps brutally murdering Hindus draw painful gasps from the audience.
The expecting mother seated next to me turns to her husband: “These Muslims are born bastards.”
Unable to take the hate, I inform them that I am a Muslim and the language they are using was hate speech against my community. “Hate is what your religion teaches, not ours,” the woman responds. Others seated near us start cheering her statement and I leave the theatre, just 30 minutes into the movie, feeling humiliated and physically unsafe. A man yells at me “Ja Pakistan!” (Go to Pakistan!).
When I complain to a theater manager about being heckled and abused, he gives a blank look. The film has been a box-office hit. The theaters are packed. The Indian government has even given the film tax privileges, deeming it important for the well-being of the country. That means audiences can buy the tickets at cheaper rates.
The next day Modi meets the cast and crew of the film. In a televised speech, the prime minister mocks the criticism, saying “those who always carry the flag of freedom of expression, this entire group has been rattled these past 5-6 days.”
I’ve written before about the power these films have to stir nationalist fervor and Islamophobic hatred. It’s now a proven formula. But the record-breaking success of “The Kashmir Files” has taken the propaganda to a genocidal level. The film is dominating all discussions—the head of the government and large networks dedicate hours of programming to extolling the bravado in the film.
And even after failing to recover fully from the fear and humiliation I felt at the movie theatre, I have to deal with the news that a court in India’s Karnataka state is upholding a ban against the hijab. The ruling came after Muslim students challenged a ban on headscarves in some educational institutions in the state, calling it a violation of their rights. The state government, run by Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), argued that wearing a hijab is not an essential practice of Islam.
It’s at times like these that I usually try to take refuge in the words of Mahatma Gandhi, who wrote: “When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall.” I once had great faith in these lines. But today, I do not.
Hate in India now packs courts and movie theaters—and my despair is giving way to fear. The dark forces seem more invincible than ever.
This column first appeared in the Washington Post on Wednesday morning.
It’s funny how Muslims cry out over Islamophobia in India, but are silent when it comes to confronting internal discrimination and extremism within Islam itself? Why does Islam pose issues with Extremism not just in India, but in Europe and the US as well? Why does the world have gripes with Islam, but not necessarily with Buddhism?
Fix Islam first. Fix the Middle East. Fix Pakistan extremism, which kills Hindus every day. Tackle the China Uyghur genocide.
The palpable anti-Muslim hate in India as instigated by the BJP, is downright rotten. However, the Muslims cannot shirk responsibility for what is going against them. The regressive medieval show that they put on in the name of their religion and their religious and cultural artifacts cannot but invite derision in any progressive society. While BJP is legally and moralistically wrong, they are exposing the dirty underbelly of Islam that has come to haunt the western societies. Unless the depraved patriarchal culture of Islam owns up to this naked truth about them, they are but the face of Taliban in Afghanistan to all decent, non-BJP, and non-political human beings on this planet. Islamophobia is the cover under which Muslims find excuses for why they are seen as abhorrent. Step into the 21st century and smell the roses along with the rest of humanity, and you will see a world that is welcoming of the Muslims.