An Indian Muslim reader of my weekly column in Dawn, who has become a friend after months of correspondence by email, is bitter about the assumption by Pakistanis that they are the only Muslims in the subcontinent. According to him, the words and actions of our leaders over the years have often adversely affected the position of Indian Muslims. This perception has been confirmed and reinforced by Rafiq Zakaria in his book Communal Rage in Secular India. .
Hindu-Muslim relations in India have come under the international spotlight following last year's terrible genocide in Gujarat. This pogrom, with its documented acts of barbarism that included immolation, rape and torture, went on for days under the nose of the state administration with no effort to check the slaughter. Over a year later, the courts have found nobody responsible for these acts that shamed India before the world, and severely compromised its secular standing. Reading the chapter dealing with these atrocities in Zakaria's book is chilling work. .
But what led up to this anti-Muslim frenzy beyond the immediate trigger of the burning of a railway carriage containing some 50 Hindutva activists? Zakaria, a well-known scholar, puts much of the blame at Pakistan's and Jinnah's door. After Partition, much of the educated, professional middle class migrated to Pakistan, leaving poor, uneducated Muslims to the mercy of backward mullahs who have led their followers into the most wretched backwaters of India to become a despised underclass. And the presence of a hostile and bellicose Pakistan has made the loyalty of these unfortunate people questionable in Indian eyes. Our aggressive Kashmir policy adds to the anti- Muslim feelings so prevalent in India today. .
Jinnah's two-nation theory has come back to haunt Indian Muslims: nationalist Hindus cite it when they say Muslims should go to Pakistan. "Ya qabristan jao, ya Pakistan jao!" (Go to the graveyard or go to Pakistan) has become a facile slogan to mock Muslims.