Last week, this correspondent received an e-mail from a known Delhi historian about being called a “Muslim slut” and other obscenities on the Outlook website. I was upset but not overly so. I have now become used to being abused, not for what I have written but because I have written it under my name—which happens to be a Muslim one. There is a genuine problem in the objectification of the Muslim identity but one has to shrug it off, get used it. I personally would never fall into the victimhood syndrome that far too many Muslims use as a shield for incompetence and corruption.
Yet there is the realisation that the liberal Muslim really is anathema to fundamentalists on both sides. The Hindutva letter-writers are persistent and keep up the abuse with a predictable regularity. Some issues agitate them more. Two weeks ago, a short commentary on the Outlook website titled “Shahrukh Can” on SRK’s My Name is Khan fetched 169 responses, most of it consisting of Hindus and Muslims using the forum to fight with each other. Along the way, some also abused me for being a “Muslim who ridicules and runs down Hindus” and so on. These are the milder remarks. Some of the comments are in such poor taste that it would require a really thick skin not to be offended or at least be mildly upset.
But what did unnerve me were threatening postcards that came in 2008 when a group calling itself the Indian Mujahideen was claiming responsibility for serial bomb blasts in Indian cities. A few stories exploring the mind of Islamic terrorism were apparently the trigger. The postcards were written in English, posted in Mumbai and full of obscenities and rage against this Muslim woman who was a blot on Islam and an agent of the infidels. Three such postcards were sent by someone claiming to be a member of the Indian Mujahideen. I consulted friends about whether to report the issue to the authorities but decided to leave it alone. It was the right decision. The postcards stopped.
Just the routine abuse continues. Mostly, it’s the embedded letter-writers sympathetic to Hindu right-wing ideology who cannot see beyond the obvious Hindu-Muslim paradigms. Occasionally, there is abuse from Muslim conservatives who say, “Shame on you, you have given up your faith and taken up with the infidels”. If non-entities get so objectified in their limited space, one can only imagine what celebrities face once their religious identity is made into an issue.
