Dear Mr Prime Minister,
I am a citizen of India who happens to be Muslim. I thought of writing to you directly only because you have been behaving, of late especially and all through your political career generally, as if we the Muslims do not belong to this country, or we do not matter at all.
When you described us as infiltrators, I was rather amused since my paternal and maternal lineages were full of people who had ‘infiltrated’ into India’s freedom struggle. My paternal great-grandfather had, in fact, also ‘infiltrated’ Vellore central jail for his participation in the fight for national liberation.
Maybe due to my poor eyesight or scanty historical insight, I could not see any of your political forbears in that heroic struggle. I cannot fault them for this; from their perspective, the British empire had served India well by removing all the ‘infiltrators’ (Muslim rulers) from positions of power.
Also, by their skilful employment of the policy of divide and rule, the empire perspicaciously prepared the ground for your future rise and triumphant reign.
I must also add here that my parents produced only three children, and I, in turn, only one, which I am sure you will acknowledge as a great improvement, particularly considering that my grandfather had five children. From five to three to one across three generations must be a progressive decline in our reproductive habits by all yardsticks!
If you really wanted to use a better and unique pejorative to describe us, you could have stuck to the one that people of your persuasion always preferred, the one that pointed to the peculiar and self-inflicted mark on our genitals.
That would have removed all ambiguity at one level and protected others from the stigma by similarity (Remember many of your detractors pointed to the number of siblings you and others have!).
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I began this letter addressing you in your capacity as the PM without mentioning your name because I know there exists a huge communication block between the ideology of hate and disunity that you represent and the ethos of harmony and coexistence that I and my predecessors stood for as long as I could remember in person or via inherited memories.
May I remind you (futilely) that notwithstanding your ideology – whose core idea is the demonisation, persecution and othering of people like me – you are our prime minister, bound by a glorious constitution which still considers me and my ilk as equal citizens of a secular, democratic republic.
Please be kind to me for the audacity of writing this letter to you; I am aware that you have the power and the proclivity to unleash a variety of hound dogs on me that are known by the two-lettered or three-lettered abbreviations of their names.
Even so, I promise that no four-lettered words escape my lips as I write this, except that I am reminded of a poetic verse – very popular in my language, Malayalam – which is the language spoken in the state of Kerala which you once likened to Somalia: “The piling up of expletives I have never uttered to you has left a bitter taste in my mouth.”
Thinking of it, I am twice at the receiving end of your vituperation – as an Indian Muslim and an Indian Malayali (Somali). Please note that I put both Muslim and Malayali at the end lest your devotees should pounce on me saying: “Look, he is Muslim first or Malayali first. So predictably anti-national and treasonous!”
Right from the period of Savarkar and Golwalkar, the loyalty to the nation of people like me has been consistently questioned by the Sangh parivar. Even if we try to make amends, despite the falsity of the claims, and buttress our loyalty quotient, you undermine it with your vitriolic words and nasty insinuations.
What do you want from us? Remain loyal to the country of our birth and prove you wrong or declare collectively that we are seditious and help you feel vindicated?
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When you and your acolytes keep pushing us to the walls and psychologically disenfranchise us (the ‘400 plus seats’ will help you do it electorally as well), what are we supposed to do?
By the way, and before I conclude, let me thank you and the Sangh parivar for making me think of myself only in terms of my religious identity, which was never the case before you came to power.
As a matter of fact, I am a secular writer who spent three decades passionately arguing for pluralism and against bigotry and orthodoxy of all hues.
But the last ten years have taught me, and many others of my background, that whatever your personal convictions and track record are, in Modi’s India, you are a lesser citizen, an infiltrator and a plunderer of the wealth and opportunities that only the Hindus are entitled to.
Let me tell you something in all humility. Around 200 million of us are not going to jump into the oceans and vanish one fine day out of fear that the Sangh parivar will get us.
We will fight back, alongside the other proud Indians, against your venom, for the amrit of our constitution and the millennia-old lived experience of our great nation will eventually prove an effective antidote. Sooner hopefully, later definitely.
The vast majority of Hindus in this country will remain impervious to the hate and cynical manipulation for they are the inheritors of a legacy that is seldom matched at home or abroad.
I hope and pray good sense prevails over you.
Sincerely yours,
An Indian Muslim from the land of Sree Narayana Guru.
Shajahan Madampat is a writer and cultural commentator writing in Malayalam and English. His latest book is God is Neither a Khomeini nor a Mohan Bhagwat: Writings Against Zealotry.
This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas – and has been republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.
