Watching the images from Mandasur of the attack on the mosque & the almost daily persecution of Muslims under the so called love jihad law, a few thoughts on why the violence against Muslims will get much worse and why a societal reckoning that can stop it is nowhere in sight.

The anti Muslim violence has now become routine and normalised, and has enormous political and institutional backing. There is little counter-narrative challenging it. Such violence dosent recede on its own, it is driven by its own internal logic. All that happens is that the

violence becomes invisibilized. For instance, after a certain point, the media will stop reporting new arrests under UP's new anti-Muslim law. As with every new normal, even the most empathetic people will resign themselves to it, and stop paying attention. Everyday violence

against Dalits has been going on for centuries, and will continue to happen until we have the caste system. The atrocities that actually do get reported in the media are just the tip of the iceberg. Everyday violence against women has been going on for millennia, and will .

continue happening until we have patriarchy. Similarly, now that Hindu majoritarianism is the dominant force in our political culture, everyday violence against Muslims has become equally routine and normal, and will soon become invisibilized.

Yet, in one way, the situation is even more hopeless for Muslims. And before this making argument, let me make it clear that this is not about morbid comparison of oppression.

But the process, tools and language that can enable a societal reckoning with Islamophobic violence

are not even in existence, in a way that is not true for casteist and gendered violence. The political culture acknowledges caste based violence- every party swears by Ambedkar, publicly abhors caste based violence, and calls for Dalit empowerment. Over many decades, the

Ambedkarite movement has shifted the political discourse, and provided a strong counter narrative to caste based discrimination and violence.

There isn't any similar anti Islamophobic discourse, outside some sections of English media. Political parties are afraid to even

mention Muslims in speeches, let alone acknowledge anti Muslim violence. This is not a political culture that is remotely enabling for a societal reckoning. The broader culture, while it has belatedly begun to acknowledge gender and even caste based violence, still holds to myths

of Hinduism being a uniquely tolerant religion and a diverse, peaceful India.

When we see the reckoning over George Floyd, we must remember it is built upon decades of social activism, teaching of civil rights movement in schools, a Democrat Party which has articulated the

oppressive conditions faced by Black people, a media committed to social justice, Hollywood which from the 90s started making well grounded films on the Black experience, college campus activism, inter-racial marriages etc.

Again, not comparing the Black experience to Muslims, but these are the elements which go in creating an eventual societal reckoning, which actually shifts attitudes and reverses prejudice.

Which of these cultural elements do you find active in cresting an Islamophobic

in India? None, unfortunately. We have some op-eds and some poetry, which is good, but it is a drop in the ocean against the millions of RSS family karyakartas spreading prejudice on the ground, a mainstream media that revels in spreading anti Muslim bigotry, and of course

WhatsApp, which spreads anti Muslim canards on an immeasurable scale. Against this industrial machine of prejudice, with no offsetting counter discourse, it is not hard to figure out the anti Muslim bigotry will only increase, and so will the violence.

During the CAA protests,

we even saw Muslims adopt an Ambedkarite discourse, and flaunt pictures of Ambedkar, because the language and inconography needed to resist Islamophobia in a way acceptable to the broader society simply does not exist.

The changes needed in ths political and societal culture to

stop the violence are not even on the map. I remember as a teenager I learnt about the extent of the institutional oppression of the Kashmiris by the Indian State from a Channel 4 documentary. I learnt how the Army as an institution tortures and kills in Kashmir. It took a

British channel because (before social media) it was nowhere in the mainstream media and intellectual discourse. I wonder what it would take for me to communicate the reality of the Indian State in Kashmir to an ordinary guy in the street. I would be up against decades of

socialisation, misinformation and prejudice. And I wouldn't know where to start, because I simply won't have the cultural reference points to make an argument intelligible to them.

In this limited respect, I think the condition of Indian Muslims resembles that of Kashmiris, more than Dalits/women, because the societal reckoning needed to stop the violence against them is not even in sight. Not that one kind of oppression is worse than other.

End of rant.