The Delhi High Court has stayed proceedings in a criminal defamation case filed against Sudarshan TV and its editor Suresh Chavhanke in connection with allegations that his channel made false accusations against a madrasa. The case against Chavhanke was filed by Mohammed Tufail Khan
China said on Sunday (August 23, 2026) it was postponing its planned ambitious Chang'e-7 lunar mission, which was set to carry out explorations including searching for water ice on the moon. The Chang'e-7 spacecraft was originally set to lift off in the coming days from the Wenchang Space Launch
Canada’s Carney Puts His ‘No Deal Is Better Than a Bad Deal’ Doctrine to the Test The prime minister ’s approach has broad support from the Canadian public and his political opponents, but it isn’t without risks. Published on: Aug 24, 2026, 14:05:27 IST WSJ Prefer HTon Google Share via
A group of former cricket captains, including Indian batting legend Sunil Gavaskar and one of England's longest-serving skippers Sir Alastair Cook, have called on Pakistan to ensure its ex-PM Imran Khan be given proper care while in custody. The cricketer-turned-politician has been in jail since
Fewer than 20 commodity vessels transited the Strait of Hormuz at the weekend, shipping data showed on Monday (August 24, 2026), as Iranian and U.S. blockades restrict traffic through the chokepoint for energy shipments. Four vessels crossed the strait on Sunday (August 23, 2026)
A low-grade fever, a relentless sadness: Being Muslim in the New India that is Bharat
This is a lightly edited version of the author's keynote address delivered at the inauguration of the 14th Goa Arts and Literature Festival on February 12.
Each time I come to the Goa Arts and Literature Festival, I am struck anew by the manner in which this festival continues to create a space for voices from the margins and explore “ways of belonging”.
The idea of identity, of belonging, has shaped much of my recent work. At the same time, I am also concerned about the dark underbelly of belonging, the forces of othering that are gathering like dark clouds over our country. On this glorious day, in this wonderful setting , it seems strange to talk about fear and I thought long and hard whether I should or not, but then I decided if not at GALF where else can one speak one's mind, where else can one speak of one's deepest, darkest fears?
I want to talk about fear, a fear that is very real for very many of us, one that rubs away insidiously at the idea of belonging. While I will mostly talk about the fear that Muslims in India feel, I know that fear is shared by many – by other minorities in India, by communities who find themselves on the margins and many from the minority community who sense and share this fear, some of whom gather in echo chambers to vent “gham ghalat karna”, as it is referred to in Urdu.
I must confess to a crushing fear, one that weighs my chest with an inexorable weight and makes it difficult to breathe sometimes. Yes, with all my privileges – of education, of class, of having friends in “high places” – I feel scared, more scared than I have ever been in my entire life. I must also confess to an almost persistent depression, like a low-grade fever, over the past few years, that doesn't quite halt the daily rhythm of life; it just slows you down by its continuous, relentless presence in your life making you feel sad and somehow empty, as though a great deal that one has taken for granted all one's adult life is like sand slipping through one's fingers.
I suspect I am not alone in this. I feel this fear and depression among a great many Muslims in urban India. I hear it in their silences. I sense it in their steadfast refusal to get drawn into political debates. I notice it in their stoicism in the face of virulent hate swirling about in school and college WhatsApp groups as well as RWA/housing society group chats. I spot it in the hastily withdrawn social media posts drawing attention to some recent communal outrage or atrocity. I recognise it in their zeal to distance themselves from instances of any sort of violence, be it a Muslim man killing his Hindu girlfriend and chopping her into pieces or a Muslim man killing his non-Muslim partner in a business dispute – where the perpetrator, not the victim, is a Muslim.
If my own fear and despair, and that of others like me, is so palpable and pronounced, what of those Muslims who are doubly marginalised by their poverty and illiteracy? Or vulnerable because they don't have the safeguards and barriers, however flimsy, that “people like us” have in our gated communities and cushioned lives? What of those who live on the edge of survival because they must perforce go out into the real world every single day to eke out a living? What of the plumbers, electricians, painters, carpenters, maids and sundry service providers who don't give their real, Muslim-sounding names for fear they will not be hired? Or the vegetable vendors who festoon their carts with saffron flags after every call to boycott small Muslim businesses? Or the biryani vendors, kabab sellers, quilt makers, car mechanics who have traditionally plied these trades for generations but now fear for their lives? What of the meat sellers whose makeshift stalls happen to be along the routes taken by the kawariyas during every monsoon? What of the imams and naib imams, often from the poorest of families, who are hired by Waqf boards to serve as custodians of small, isolated mosques often surrounded by hostile neighbours?
I don't “look” like a Muslim so, to an extent, I am safe. I have written a book with the same title – But You Don't Look Like a Muslim and I was invited some years ago to discuss it here at GALF. Unless called out to chant “Jai Shree Ram” to profess my Indianness, I am largely safe. But what of my name? How can I camouflage that? Or hide it when asked to provide proof of identity? While my first name can afford some benefit of doubt for it might pass as a Parsi's, my surname is a dead give-away. When push comes to shove in the New India that is Bharat, not even speaking English will give me an exit pass if a mob baying for Muslim blood were to gherao me. All my so-called privileges can be brought to naught by a crowd of lumpens. The realisation is chilling.
And if I were a man? Imagine, over 75 years after Partition and after reading all the gory stories penned by Saadat Hasan Manto and other chroniclers of communal violence, having your pants pulled down to check whether you are a “katua” or not? But what if I did “look” like a Muslim? What if I chose to offer namaz perfectly peacefully and quietly while sitting on my berth in a train? Worse still, what if I had a beard, wore a topi or a hijab and indeed “looked” like a Muslim?
You might recall the incident that happened on a train to Mumbai when a railway protection officer shot dead three people in August 2023. What if I worked as an imam in a mosque? So what if I had just assured my family that all was well, that I was safe given the police presence all around me? What, then?
What if I, as an Indian, have been conditioned to believe that the tattered fabric of secularism will be held up no matter what? The violence in Gurgaon, also in July-August 2023, proved that these are no longer hypothetical scenarios. This is a lived reality for countless Indian Muslims. It gets an impetus when the chief minister of a state urges his people to “trouble the miyas” and to actively underpay them for services such as plying rickshaws. He goes on to post videos from his party's official X handle – since deleted – showing Muslims being shot at point blank range
And there are other instances:
Jab mulle kaate jaainge
Ram Ram chillainge
Or:
“Hindustan mein rehna hoga
Jai Shri Ram kehna hoga”
And “Goli maro saalon ko” by someone who is now a Union minister are no longer isolated instances of random, unrelated, personal biases and prejudices. They are dog whistles. They are a clarion call to a large, restive majority that is being brain-washed to believe they are second-class, nay “seventh-class” citizens, in their own land. They are part of a larger narrative, a grand design.
Since we have clearly turned into a nation of “whatabouters”, each of these hate-filled, terror-inducing slogans are instantly and viciously countered with those raised by the PFI [Popular Front of India] or other fringe minority outfits. When rapes, murders, corruptions, scams and scandals are thwarted in Parliament by elected representatives of the people by instances of whatabouts, how can these rising incidents of bigotry and hate not be similarly countered? It's easier to come back with counter-accusations, to point fingers, to obfuscate, to fling more filth, to parry hate with hate than it is to understand fear, to acknowledge militant, muscular majoritarianism, to call out the elephant in the room.
As we spiral inexorably downwards, as every fresh instance of bigotry is outstripped and outdone by even bigger, bolder, more blatant, more bare-faced occurrences, we don't seem to pause to think of the consequences. This rampant whataboutery – both at the political and the individual level – is exhausting, predictable and eventually empty. It will derail the India we have known and loved – probably forever.
What we are witnessing today is a creeping normality (also called gradualism, or landscape amnesia), a process by which a major change comes to be accepted as “normal”, even “acceptable” if it happens slowly through small, often unnoticeable, increments of change. A change that might otherwise be viewed as objectionable if it were to take place in a single step or short period is seen as quite all right – as some of us of a certain age can bear witness to the slow-building horror of the past few decades.
I don't quite believe that one way of life ended in 2014 and another began in May 2014. No, I believe localised, small, seemingly insignificant events, beginning with the country-wide Rath Yatra of 1990 have kept adding a layer of “normal” till we have reached this stage of the New Normal where blatant bigotry, bare-faced communalism and publicly-aired prejudices are considered perfectly all right.
I will come back to the fear I began with. From this platform today, all I am asking for is an acknowledgement of this fear, a fear that I have about being a Muslim in India today. A fear that is shared – in different ways and in different degrees – not just by Muslims but by other minority groups, by adivasis, by LGBT communities, in fact by large numbers of those who are sneeringly referred to as LIBTARDS.
Many of you may not fully understand this fear, some might dismiss it as part of a victim syndrome, an exaggerated sense of harbouring a grievance, of wanting to wallow in self pity, a tendency to focus on the negatives; a handful among you might even accuse me of fear mongering. To you I say, try any one of these simple experiments: Walk into a Barista and announce your name as Salman or Salma or, for that matter, Umar Khalid or even Sharjeel Imam; wave off a friend or relative at a train station or airport by announcing “Khuda Hafiz”; go about your day as you would ordinarily with one single addition – wear a skull cap – as the Delhi journalist Mayank Austen Soofi did and recorded the chilling consequences; or do as I did on my flight from Delhi to Goa – read a book in Urdu in public. Try it.
However, it would be a sad day if one were to give in to fear or simply feel sorry for oneself. I am not a politician or an activist. I am only a writer. Words are all I have and I want to use them as tools in the only way a writer can: I can bear witness, I can speak up, I can record and chronicle both for the present and for posterity.
To come back to fear, its only antidote, I do believe, is empathy, cultivating the ability to say, I am not you, but I see you, I hear you. Remember these lines from To Kill a Mocking Bird, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”
Rakhshanda Jalil is a writer, translator and literary historian.
Source: Scroll
Related Posts: India, indian muslims, islamophobia in india, violence against muslims in india, religious violence in india, Hindutva, Religion
India had asked the United States not to allow reporters to ask questions during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meeting with President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the G7 summit in France in June, US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor said on Saturday
8 hours ago
Former Australian captain Greg Chappell with the support of 20 other former international skippers appealed to the Pakistan Government led by Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif, to provide ‘humane treatment and proper medical care’ for Imran Khan
11 hours ago
The shock resignation of Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran earlier this month has left corporate India's top job vacant. But finding his successor will be no easy task for the country's most revered conglomerate, whose sprawling $300bn empire spans Jaguar Land Rover and Air India as well as
11 hours ago
Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian defended a memorandum of understanding with the United States as the best way out of a stalled war. Meanwhile, the new head of the Islamic Republic's top security body warned, in a more forceful tone, of retaliation if neighbouring countries support U.S
11 hours ago
Authorities in China have launched an investigation into reports of formaldehyde being used to preserve the freshness of cabbages for human consumption. Officials in the northeastern Hebei province confirmed that they had verified footage showing individuals dipping cabbages in a solution before
11 hours ago
Three newborns died after a fire that broke out in the neonatal intensive care unit of a government hospital in Maharashtra’s Amravati district in the early hours of Monday, PTI reported. The fire broke out at the Amravati District Women’s Hospital around 3
11 hours ago
Imran's party demands immediate cardiac care for him at Shifa International Hospital Imran's party demands immediate cardiac care for him at Shifa International Hospital Published on: Aug 24, 2026, 11:10:49 IST PTI Prefer HTon Google Share via Copy link Islamabad
11 hours ago
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s three-day visit to New Delhi in July 2026 for the India-Japan summit appears to have elevated relations between the two Asian countries into a fresh phase of strategic expansion. Ties had already undergone a remarkable transformation over the past decade
11 hours ago
How well do COVID antivirals actually work? Not as well as we thought How well do COVID antivirals actually work? Not as well as we thought Published on: Aug 24, 2026, 11:11:50 IST PTI Prefer HTon Google Share via Copy link Sydeny, If you're aged over 70
11 hours ago
On Sunday, in a post on X, Wali said the audio contained "explosive evidence" and claimed that Brar admitted his gang had ordered Nijjar's killing, alleging that the assassination was driven by an inter-gang feud. Ottawa: Three years after NIA designated terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar was killed in
14 hours ago
Until recently, there would have been little to distinguish Vietnam's so-called Justice Tree from the hundreds of others lining the streets of Hanoi. Then the bouquets started piling up. It was here that former politician Nguyen Sy Cuong was driving his BMW in May last year when he veered into the
14 hours ago
Fast-fashion giant Shein says it plans to raise up to HK13.86bn (£1.3bn; $1.77bn) when its shares start trading on the Hong Kong stock market on 1 September. In a filing on Monday, Shein said it will offer nearly 280 million shares for between HK$47.60 and HK$49.50
14 hours ago
A fast-moving, wind-driven wildfire near Reno, Nevada, has forced about 42,000 people to evacuate, while another 45,000 have been urged to prepare to leave. The Hawk Fire has burned 15,040 acres, destroyed some homes and injured six people. Officials declared a state of emergency as the blaze
14 hours ago
Former Indian diplomat Navdeep Suri has raised concerns about the verification process under the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls. Suri, a retired Indian Foreign Services officer, went through the process in Punjab. It is among the 16 states where the voter roll revision is being
14 hours ago
A moderate earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.9 rattled eastern Japan, including the Tokyo area, early Sunday (August 23, 2026), injuring more than 20 people, most of them slightly, officials said. There was no danger of a tsunami. According to the Japan Meteorological Agency
1 days ago
Chinese humanoid robots broke records set by humans, including beating Usain Bolt’s 100-meter sprint world record, on the opening day of the Olympics-like World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing on Saturday (August 22, 2026). More than 2,000 humanoid robots were participating in the event
1 days ago
One afternoon in 1907, a young accountant named Chandrasekhar Venkata Raman walked into the laboratory of the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science at 210 Bowbazar Street in Calcutta. Though he had a passion for the sciences, colonial India offered no stable careers in the field
1 days ago
Three first information reports were filed against 14 identified and more than 200 unidentified persons on Saturday in connection with clashes between the police and student protesters a day earlier, PTI quoted Ranchi Superintendent of Police Paras Rana as saying
1 days ago
Did an Amazon delivery guy assault a 71-year-old man in California? What we know about the attack and lawsuit A California lawsuit alleged that an Amazon delivery driver assaulted a 71-year-old man at an Elk Grove gas station. Updated on: Aug 23, 2026
1 days ago
‘Pure evil’: Videos of mothers splashing water at their kids spark outrage amid Lindsay Clancy trial Social media videos of mothers throwing water at their children have sparked concerns amid Lindsay Clancy's trial. Published on: Aug 23, 2026
1 days ago
The sister of jailed former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Saturday (August 22, 2026) filed a petition in the Supreme Court, accusing the government and senior officials of violating the top court’s order to shift him to a private hospital for medical examination and treatment
1 days ago
The United States and Canada have entered into uncharted territory. The longtime allies and economic partners, who have enjoyed free trade for decades, are now in an escalating trade war with no clear off ramp. And for Prime Minister Mark Carney
1 days ago
Harrisburg weather update: Special Weather Statement issued for central Pennsylvania as thunderstorms bring 40mph wind NWS has issued a Special Weather Statement for Harrisburg and surrounding parts of central Pennsylvania. Published on: Aug 23, 2026
1 days ago
The police in Maharashtra’s Latur have registered a first information report against Abhijeet Dipke, the founder of the Cockroach Janta Party political campaign, for allegedly entering a government school without permission, threatening teachers and defaming the institution
1 days ago
The United States and Iran exchanged defiant messages ahead of Monday’s (August 24, 2026) scheduled announcement of new U.S. economic sanctions that could impact the Islamic Republic and Tehran’s most important trading partners including China
1 days ago
Fourteen people were killed in military air strikes at a monastery in Myanmar early on Friday, opposition fighters and a local rescue worker have said. All of those killed were elderly and a number of monks were also injured, the rescue worker told BBC Burmese, adding that the site was struck twice
1 days ago
The Armed Forces Tribunal on Thursday upheld an administrative censure for a brigadier who was commanding a sector of the Rashtriya Rifles in Jammu and Kashmir’s Poonch district in December 2023 when three civilians died during an interrogation following a militant attack
1 days ago
