To be a Muslim in Mumbai

What does it mean to be a Muslim in Mumbai at times like these? Even at the best of times, a Muslim name is a huge handicap. I am talking about Mumbai, not Bombay. Bombay was cosmopolitan, carefree. An inclusionist city that embraced all castes, colours, communities. Mumbai is quite the opposite. Minorities live in ghettos. And not always by choice. Even Muslim Bolllywood actors---and some big names too (Shabana Azmi said on national television yesterday that she was denied an appartment in a posh suburban locality because of her religion)---are discriminated against. Samar Harlankar's piece in Hindustan Times pointed out the plight of Muslims in the city who live in fear after any terrorist attack. Is a suspected terrorist's daughter also a terrorist? Just because she is of a particular religion. The popular perception is every Muslim is a suspect, a terrorist in disguise. "As a liberal Muslim what is your take on the blasts?" my friend Indranil asked the scriptwriter Javed Akhtar. Wrong question buddy. I could see Javed going red in the ears. "What is a liberal Muslim, may I ask? Is it a given that Muslims are generally fundamentalists and Hindus secular?" Akhtar countered. Indranil had no answers.
The danger of seeing oneself, or others, through singular identities (Hindu/Muslim, Marathi/non-Marathi) is, as Amartya Sen points out, that it can easily degenerate into Us Vs Them thinking. In extreme cases, like the train terrorists of Mumbai, it can lead to mayhem. In Gujarat, similar thinking led segments of the Hindu population to presume that the Godhra train fire could only have been the result of a Muslim mob setting fire to the Sabarmati Express. As a subsequent enquiry showed, there is an equal chance that the fire could have been an accident. But Narendra Modi pandered to Hindu insecurities by using deadly identity politics for his own political ends.
Sen’s basic proposition is that we have several identities. And we choose these identities. Identity is not something we are born into, though some aspects of identity—race, gender—may be predetermined. And the more one keeps stressing one identity over others, the more one is likely to sink into feelings of exclusivity and unconnectedness with the other. So, if you stop stereotyping entire communities, identity-based violence should start declining.