Delhi • I used to answer the phone with “Salam.” Not anymore. I don’t want people to know I’m a Muslim.
An effigy of Narendra Modi, prime minister of India, lies on the ground as protesters gather outside the Consulate General of India, Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2021, in the Manhattan borough of New York. I used to answer the phone with “Salam.” Not anymore. I don’t want people to know I’m a Muslim.
As offensive as that was, it is sadly familiar to Indian Muslims like me who — after a decade of denigration, violence and murder — live in daily fear of being identified and attacked, forcing us into self-denial to protect ourselves. Islamophobia isn’t new to India, and Muslims also faced prejudice and recurring violence during the generations in which the liberal upper-caste Hindu elite dominated the nation’s secular democratic politics. But under Mr. Modi’s right-wing leadership, hatred of Muslims has effectively become state policy. India is now a country where police have been accused of
This debasement, and the knowledge that you are essentially outside the protection of the law, kills something inside you. You take precautions to protect yourself. My mother no longer packs mutton for me to take back to Delhi after I visit her, as she used to. She’s afraid it will be mistaken for beef:have reportedly been killed or assaulted by Hindu mobs on suspicion of killing cows — which are sacred to Hindus — or for eating or possessing beef .
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