What it means to be a Muslim journalist in a polarised India

My column last week, “No, this is not the dirtiest election campaign”, prompted some very angry responses from Muslims.

Many accused me of trying to “whitewash” the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) Islamophobic campaign. One gentleman wrote in to say that I should be “ashamed” of myself.

For what? For simply trying to offer some perspective on the claim that no other poll campaign in recent memory has been as toxic as this one.

It is a perverse attempt to misrepresent my argument. I was not giving a “good character” certificate to the BJP.

But I have no wish to join issue with my critics. Because, over the years, I have realised that these sort of attacks come with the territory — the price an independent Muslim journalist must pay in an identity obsessed and communally polarised society.

As someone whose Muslim identity hangs by a very slender thread — a Muslim name and some cultural baggage — l’m constantly amused when I’m expected to react to an event “like a Muslim”.

The trouble with being a Muslim journalist is that what you say or write is seen through the prism of your religious identity and promptly dubbed the “Muslim viewpoint”.

When asked for a “Muslim perspective” on India-Pakistan relations, I have to tell them they are talking to the wrong person, and probably even asking the wrong question because I’m not sure there is such a thing as a uniquely Muslim viewpoint on the issue just as, I believe, there is no specifically Hindu viewpoint.

There is a Congress viewpoint, a BJP viewpoint, a Kashmiri viewpoint, a Left or a Right point of view.

But, a specific Muslim viewpoint? Yes, there are Muslims who once felt a certain “pan-Islamic” affinity with Pakistan before it descended into religious fanaticism — and equally there are Hindus who hold extreme views advocating nothing short of the annihilation of Pakistan.

But neither is a representative opinion of their respective communities. And, ultimately, one assumes all Indians irrespective of their religion want peace.

Muslim ‘angle’

Strangely, there’s a deeply-ingrained assumption that only a Hindu is entitled to present an authentic Indian perspective.

I find it slightly insulting when I’m invited to a TV debate where I’m expected to provide a Muslim “angle” on, for example, the Palestinian issue, while the supposedly authentic representative “Indian” view is presented by a Hindu peer.

And I’m not talking about the latest crisis. It has always been so. One thought the Palestine issue was about human rights and the right of a forcibly displaced people to an independent state of their own — just like Jews — rather than an “Indian” versus “Muslim” viewpoint.

It’s part of a broader problem of pigeonholing people according to their ethnic, class or religious background — a time-honoured media practice — and its worst victims are minorities.

At one level, to belong to a minority group is a great education. It gives you insights that you would not otherwise get. You discover how instinctively stereotyped public attitudes can be.

I recall how as a young reporter on The Statesman in New Delhi, anything to do with Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) or Jamia Millia was automatically assigned to me on the basis of my identity though I was as far removed from either of them as I was from Banaras Hindu University.

The fact was that the first time I ever set foot in Aligarh was when The Statesman sent me there to report on communal riots.

In the course of my long career, I have had some bruising encounters with all sorts of people from both communities — progressives, reactionaries, Muslims who celebrate when Pakistan wins a cricket match, Hindus who believe that all Muslims are Pakistani agents, Muslim leaders who actively promote a siege mentality in the community, Hindu politicians who claim that Muslims have been “pampered” for too long and need to be shown their place now.

But no matter who they were, all had one thing in common: they were extremely conscious that they were talking to a “Muslim” reporter rather than simply another hack doing their job.

“Aap Mussalman hain?” some would ask.

I don’t think they meant anything, but were just curious. But it underlined how being a Muslim is still considered an oddity.

Interestingly, my Muslimness got me into more trouble with fellow Muslims than Hindus.

They tried to appropriate me (“aap to apne hi hain”), and expected me to join the club, as it were. And when I didn’t, they accused me of betraying the community.

The late lamented Syed Shahabuddin once threatened to throw me out of his office, calling me my “master’s voice” for questioning his misplaced focus on issues that had nothing to do with the urgent bread-and-butter concerns of the Muslim community.

Problem areas

Three issues which I found particularly problematic while dealing with Muslims were Muslim personal laws, the Salman Rushdie affair and the controversy over AMU’s minority character — in that order.

On Rushdie’s satirical novel, The Satanic Verses — accused of blaspheming Prophet Muhammad — it is almost impossible to have a rational discussion with even many liberal Muslims. Ditto the Sharia-based Muslim personal laws.

Admittedly, reporting sensitive inter-community issues is not easy for anyone at the best of times but it becomes that much more difficult for a Muslim journalist.

When I came into journalism back in the early 1970s, there were not many Muslim journalists in New Delhi’s mainstream newspapers.

So, I found myself in great demand from assorted Muslim pressure groups — the AMU students’ union, Jamia Millia students’ and teachers’ associations and myriad fringe organisations with a sectarian agenda to push.

They complained that “Mussalmano ki koi sunwayee nahin” (nobody listens to Muslims) and expected me to hold their hand. The callow radical in me resented what I saw as sectarian approaches.

I didn’t want to be cast as a spokesman for the Muslim community — either by fellow Muslims or the broader society. While I was able to resist Muslim pressure, though in the process I became a persona non grata in my community, I have been less successful in countering the Hindu right’s stereotyping of people like me.

I grew up in a family in which religion was peripheral to our lives. My parents were not non-believers, but they approached religion with a touch of healthy scepticism, and as my father used to say, “duniya me mohabbat ke siwa aur bhi gham hain” (there are other things in life besides love and longing).

But it seems not everyone thinks so. As an Urdu poet wrote: “Zahid-e-tang nazar ne mujhe kaafir maana, aur kaafir yeh sumjhta hai mussalman hoon main.” (The narrow-minded Muslim says I’m a kaafir while the kaafir thinks I’m a Muslim).

Illustrations: Sajeev Kumarapuram/AI

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