I was attending a meeting of an organisation working for civil rights. The first speaker pointed out to the organisers that most of the people sitting in the meeting were Muslims. He said that the organisation should try to include Hindus in it. Otherwise, he said, it seems that the struggle is only of Muslims and by Muslims. This makes it look narrow, he said. According to him, the meeting also did not seem complete or representative of the entire society, but only of one section – the Muslims. Then he said that it is not only the Muslim community whose rights are being violated. The rights of Dalits and Hindus are also being violated in many places. Attention needs to be paid to that too.

I kept thinking about this speech.

First, why does a meeting look incomplete or abnormal if the majority of the participants happen to be Muslims? Can we say the same about any meeting or gathering in which 99% are Hindus? At such a meeting, we do not ask why there are no Muslims or Sikhs or Christians in it. But if a meeting is 99% Muslim, then the absence of Hindus definitely stands out. And, if Muslims take any decision in such a meeting, then will that too be considered incomplete because Hindus are not included in it?

I should also make an admission. A few years ago, I was invited to Patna for a lecture. When I reached the hall, I came to know that 99% of the audience were Muslims. This fact struck me. Later, I kept thinking that in the dozens of meetings that we had held earlier at the same place, I had never thought that because almost 99% of the audience was Hindu, the attendance was strange.

I recount this because this way of thinking is not necessarily of those who are labeled as communal. Or to quote Asghar Ali Engineer, we can say that communalism is present in a very subtle way even in those who call themselves logical and secular. Our first reaction of accepting the presence of once community as ‘normal’ and another as not can tell us whether the........

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