You care for us Muslims? Show up! |
I am tired of those messages in my inbox that go ‘tsk-tsk’ and ‘I am so sorry’ whenever a video of brutality on Muslim bodies goes viral. While we witness fellow Muslims being attacked and beaten, their shrines destroyed, their homes bulldozed, our non-Muslim friends, colleagues and neighbours go on blithely with their daily lives.
Some of them send an occasional text, but that is rare. I clearly remember the reaction of one of my friends when I was auctioned online — “You know how they are. What can we even do?” This very entrepreneurial friend, who has travelled the world, did not know what to do.
I soon realised that privileged Hindu folk around me are really at a loss to react credibly, meaningfully in the face of the brutality we face. The only handy phrase, in their very long dictionary of words, is: ‘I am sorry’.
Well-meaning, Urdu-speaking, biryani-loving people, who write elaborate captions on Instagram, find it very hard to do anything. ‘What can we even do?’ This has echoed in my ears for way too long, and I’ve come to the conclusion that it is time to start a tutorial on allyship.
Maybe a series of videos on social media, a step-by-step guide to allyship and solidarity. Someone has to teach this, right? To be very clear, as a Muslim woman, it is not my job to tell anyone how to be an ally to Muslims in India.
Nevertheless, I have set myself up to write a toolkit of solidarity. I’ve taken it upon myself to start treating every single ‘tsk-tsk’ person around me with a pamphlet of solidarity. I’m not begging for it, but I do not want any of you to have an excuse, to tell us: ‘We didn’t know what to do’. I want to bring everyone........