The Modi govt has been so successful in polarising the electorate that an attack on Muslims seems to barely register as objectionable
The Holi home invasion in Gurgaon started in a vacant lot where the boys of the family were playing cricket. A dispute with an outside group of boys escalated whereafter the outsiders told the family's boys to 'go to Pakistan'
The video of a home invasion went viral this weekend. On Holi, two dozen men armed with lathis and rods forced their way into Mohammed Sajid's house in Gurgaon's Dhamaspur village. They mercilessly beat Sajid's nephew Dilshad on the terrace; the worst part of the video was on the roof, where the women leaned against the door, shrieking in terror, to keep the invaders from bursting through. Sajid, his wife and six children were hosting relatives from another Gurgaon village. Just imagine: you invite relatives over and a bunch of hooligans break in to murderously attack you.
Afterwards, Indian Muslims on social media spoke of what they might do if faced with a home invasion. Hindus don't have to think of such contingencies, despite the exaggerated fears that the well-off conjure about terrorism. (Yes. In my "New" Gurgaon neighbourhood, a resident approached me to also install CCTVs at my house. I declined. He asked, you're not afraid of terrorism? I wondered what global publicity any terrorist could hope to muster from our sleepy neighbourhood in the Aravalli foothills.) I am saddened by one twitter friend's declaration that he planned to fend off a mob long enough for his wife to escape. I hope it never comes to that.
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The Holi home invasion started in a vacant lot where Sajid's family's boys were playing cricket. A dispute with an outside group of boys escalated whereafter the outsiders told Sajid's boys to "go to Pakistan". Local BJP grandees say the dispute was not an inter-communal disturbance; that it was a cricket dispute that got out of hand. Bullshit. That "Pakistan" entered the quarrel just because one side is Muslim – whatever the root cause of the dispute – makes it communal. Calling Muslims names is no longer a big deal since Prime Minister Narendra Modi silently acquiesces in such violence. (He's unlikely to condemn it as it's the thick of elections. His electoral prospects bank solely on how deeply he can polarise the electorate.)
More depressingly, most Gurgaon residents couldn't be bothered. These are the residents of "New" Gurgaon. For them such incidents are isolated in "Old" (or rural) Gurgaon. I visit many a gated housing society of high-rise flats (guarded by chowkidars that are routinely abused by residents for regulating parking), and they contain no Muslims. (Okay, maybe one society has one family.) Gurgaon is allegedly a microcosm of the New India, with its frenetic pace of construction, its cyberhub and cybercity, its rapid Metro (separate, though accessible, from the Delhi Metro), its Arnold Palmer-designed golf course, its numerous international schools, etc. (The other microcosm is in our local urban village, densely populated by casual labour and chowkidaars and domestic maids, all living in squalor. So many are from Bihar's Sitamarhi that special buses leave from here during Chhath puja.)
"New" Gurgaon is middle-class, English-speaking, white-collar, web-streaming, well-heeled. It is a parallel universe where Muslims are invisible. They love Modi. Given the fact that Modi has derailed the economy, even the fig-leaf that they support him for development and good governance is gone; they support him purely because he excites their basest emotion. It isn't because of the airstrikes against Pakistan because Modi doesn't dare do the same against China (even though Beijing blocked the UN listing of Masood Azhar as a global terrorist, even though his Jaish-e-Mohd promptly claimed responsibility for the February 14 Pulwama attack). They love him because Modi has let the genie out of the bottle, and allowed a free-for-all against Muslims.
This open season on Muslims is evident in Kashmir where Rizwan Asad Pnadit, a 29-year-old school principal, was killed in police custody a week ago. Though the cops vaguely said Rizwan had been picked up for questioning in a terrorism case, the local media said he was questioned in relation to Pulwama – though the suicide bomber had died in the attack and the alleged mastermind was killed in a prolonged shoot-out a day or two later. There was not the slightest mention by the broadcast media, and even much of the print media treated it as business as usual. For large swathes of the population nowadays, due process is superfluous if the suspect is Muslim.
This is why the current election, unlike past ones, does not much excite me. It's not just that the candidates are lacklustre ciphers. Modi's management of the election machinery may win him the election: a retired judge recently alleged that 39 lakh voters' names were deleted from Maharashtra's lists, and ten lakh of those voters were Muslim. Muslims will continue to be demonised till Modi returns to power. Until then, India will doubtlessly see further incidents like the home invasion in "Old" Gurgaon, while "New" Gurgaon looks on, comfortable in a bubble that's soundproof to the screams of Muslim women.
Aditya Sinha's latest book, India Unmade: How the Modi Government Broke the Economy, with Yashwant Sinha, is out now. He tweets @autumnshade Send your feedback to
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