“India’s Great Divide” (Alex Perry, Time Magazine, 11 August 2003), is a very timely and relevant article that sheds light on a core issue threatening the secular fabric of India- the increasing alienation of Muslims in India. Perry begins his article by focusing on the lives of two Muslims in India: one a police officer, and the other a key member of a Muslim militant movement. While Javed is “governed by the system he serves”, Umar, who as a senior ansar or guide in a “loosely knit militant movement”, has executed a “string of deadly bomb blasts that have rocked Bombay” in an effort to destroy the very system that Javed has been trying to protect. He highlights the differences in the two personalities with great panache: how one Muslim in India is part of the system, while the other has done his best to disrupt the “country that doesn’t work for Muslims anymore”.

Perry then concludes that while they may be performing different roles in the country, they share a “fundamental burden: in the eyes of many Hindus, no Muslim can ever truly belong to India”. He points out how Hindus have never reconciled themselves to the Islamic influence on the history of India: starting with the ‘invasion of Mughal rulers’ to the birth of “Islamic fundamentalism in Asia at Deoband”, and even the monument that many Indians pride themselves on, the Taj Mahal, all of which hard-line Hindus regard as “national humiliation”. Political and other developments after Partition have not helped matters. Perry argues that all three India-Pakistan wars, the Kashmir dispute, and rise of the BJP based on a Hindu-nationalist agenda have lent credence to “India’s lurking anti-Muslim prejudice”.

While the Muslims, who are now “a despised minority” according to Muslim commentator Firoz Bakht Ahmed, have their share of high-achievers, including the likes of President Abdul Kalam, India’s richest man, Wipro chief Azim Premji and many Bollywood stars, Perry claims that for every one of these high-achievers, “there are 1,000 other tales of discrimination” against Muslims. Statistics provided in the article show that Muslims are definitely “less educated, live shorter, less secure and less healthy lives than their Hindu counterparts.” Perry also claims that “many Hindu-run companies don’t hire qualified Muslims. Likewise, the government hires a disproportionate number of Hindus, exacerbating Muslims’ sense that they are economically oppressed”. Perry goes on to point out other instances where Muslims have faced gross discrimination, and how this has “fueled a profound sense of alienation” among the Muslims.

While the Indian government blamed Pakistan for the bomb blasts in Bombay, the Bombay police has no doubt that it is the handiwork of home-bred militants who are reacting to the “unabashed prejudice” being demonstrated by the Indian Government in the treatment meted out to Muslims in the country. These home-grown militants are ready to go to any extreme. As Umar says, “Even to kill the children is good- you stop the generation there, at the beginning”. And this sentiment is not limited to the marginalized sections of Muslims in society, including the Muslim-dominated Bombay underworld. It is now spreading to the more respectable, relatively well-off sections of Muslims, which is a major cause of worry for law-enforcers. “It tells us that there is a new sort of thinking circulating in the community”, as evident from the confessions of one Nasir Mullah, who says weapons are kept by Muslims to protect their area and themselves from a Hindu dominated police force.

It is not difficult to imagine where this atmosphere of distrust and high likelihood of eruption of communal violence will lead India. The Indian Government, led by a Hindu nationalist party, with Hindutva as its main poll plank, is not ready to face the real problem. Rather, it is bent upon showcasing its power as the defender of Hindu supremacy, at the expense of the security of the minorities. What is even more alarming is that radicalization is not occurring only among the Hindus; progressive thinkers like Javed rightly point out that there is heightened radicalization among both Hindus and Muslims.

Considering the fact that elections are approaching, and this rhetoric about communal hatred, discrimination and intolerance is likely to increase, police officers like Javed see more bloodshed coming. The future looks very bleak. Militants like Umar are riding high on their success to carry out bomb blasts in India’s financial capital, and are in no mood to stop. The politicians are riding high on their success to garner votes through provocative rhetoric. Could this actually be the beginning of what will ultimately become “India’s great divide”, or will Indians learn from the follies of the past and live together to prevent another bloody Partition? Only time will tell, but in the meanwhile, hope should not be lost.