For a moderate Muslim, it is a ritual played out each time after a blast or an act of terror.
This time with fingers being pointed at three Indian Muslims in connection with the UK terror plot, the Muslim community's biggest fear is that the backlash could affect the job prospects of educated Muslims.
Muslims in India have the worst employment ratio compared to even Scheduled Castes. But then who redresses this grievance? The community, non-Muslims, the Indian state or each of them together.
Controversy has once again visited the world famous Islamic seminary at Deoband, Darul-Uloom.
The two Bangalore brothers, Kafeel and Sabeel are alleged to have been active members of the Tableeghi jamaat.
The organisation was set up in the 1920s by ulemas inspired by the Deobandi brand of Islam, widely seen as puritanical and even fanatical by western opinion, a charge denied by the Deobandis.
The 90-year-old Jamaat-Ulema-i-Hind, an organisation of ulemas has virtually functioned as the socio-political arm of the seminary.
Today it has more than one crore members and some 8000 madarasas affiliated to it.
Two of its leaders are associated with the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, the apex organisation that adjudicates on issues relating to the community's personal law.
''Your religion is different from mine. Yet we belong to the same country,'' said Abdul Hameed Noumani, Secretary, Jamaat Ulama-i-Hind.
Job threat
It is also a time of ideological churning within the 1000-odd Urdu newspapers across the country. A full-page article by BJP ideologue Sudheerendra Kulkarni was published on the UK terror plot in one of the largest selling Urdu weeklies Nai Duniya.
For the magazine's editor the big worry is that with two educated, tech savvy Bangalore Muslims in the net, qualified Muslims could now face the heat in the job market.
''Do you realise the damage this will do. Our children are not getting jobs, now this will worsen,'' said Shahid Sidiqqui, Editor, Nai Duniya.
''At the core is the typical ''radical'' Muslim image dyed in colours of jehad, which has caught the imagination of non-Muslims around the world,'' added Sidiqqui.
Community report
This was something noted even by the Sachar committee report, the first ever state-of-the-community report in Independent India.
The report devotes a chapter to the list of prejudices and stereotypes.
''Muslims complain that they are constantly looked at with a great degree of suspicion not only by the society but also by public institutions and governance structures.''
''The police along with the media overplay the involvement of Muslims in violent activities and underplay the involvement of other groups and organizations.''
''The LTTE killed our PM Rajeev Gandhi. Does this mean that the entire community of Tamilians is made up made of terrorists? I think this stereotype needs to be corrected,'' said Siddiqui.
Experts say Indian Muslims are not part of the global terror network unlike their counterparts in the UK and US. It is also in part because of a caste stratification, which has seeped in from Hinduism.
If you look at Ashrafs, they are more likely to get attracted to Islamic concerns and ideology. The lower castes though are more concerned with bread and butter issues.
With rapid globalization, growth of radical Islam is a looming threat.
Despite adequate constitutional safeguards, the solution perhaps lies in a more overarching consensus between political parties on combating alienation and providing job opportunities to Muslims who are numerically the second largest in the world. |
