While walking down the pavement a few days after the 25th August (2003) blasts in Mumbai, I got a bit of a shock when I saw Ayesha covering her head with scarf, duppata. I have known her from her childhood and her father happened to be well acquainted to me. She is the only child of her beard-sporting father. She grew up as a bright young child in the English medium school. One could never see any typical Muslim identity from her dress. So in a way I was taken aback with her taking duppatta on her head. Since this has been a comparatively recent phenomenon, one presumes this way of putting the duppata has been a post Gujarat carnage effect for her.

While seeing her like that some more incidents flashed instantly. It was during the Mumbai riots of 92-93 that my doctoral student Salim, who earlier was indistinguishable from any other student, started sporting a typical Muslim beard and walked into my office one of the days telling me that if we have to die like this why should we not we kill few before dying. It was a very traumatic experience for me to be unable to convince my student that violence is no answer to the ongoing anti Muslim pogrom. It was during that period only that one of my friend born in a Christian family, who was an atheist, told me to my utter surprise that in the aftermath of the Mumbai riots he has started going to the Church regularly, essentially searching for his community association, which may be the only savior in such situations.

One more incident at personal level is worth recalling here. One of the activists of Muslim women's rights group confessed that their movement got serious set back in the wake of Mumbai riots. This movement of Muslim women had primarily been demanding abolition of triple talaq, end of polygamy and opposition to burqua. This had started picking up slowly in mid eighties, had a setback post Mumbai riots, came up a bit later and again was pushed back seriously in the wake of Gujarat riots!

Of course, Mumbai riots were a severe jolt to me as well. But initially it was difficult for me to comprehend as to why Salim has to grow beard, why he has to go to the level of insanity in talking the language of an eye for an eye, knowing fully well that in this case it is the whole body and not just the eye which is at stake, knowing fully well that this is not going to compensate for the lives of coreligionists who have lost their lives. It gradually dawned upon me that a life lost in violence sets in chain of socio-cultural thought process and makes the holes in the feeling of security of the community and that of the person.

In the times when Osama bin Laden and Kashmir centered terrorism is stalking the globe and the country, one can only feel the heat through the expressions of communities and people in their lifestyles. Narendra Modi demonstrated the limit of this when without naming the local Muslim community he could give a clear message that Muslims are terrorists and so need to be given a punishment. How could Mr. Modi give this message? How could the average common sense accept that the neighboring Muslim deserves the same treatment, which should be meted out to the criminal terrorists? In a way the process of demonisation of Muslims community, which has been, going on at social level found its culmination in the Gujarat carnage. Now when one talks of terrorist it is not even necessary to use to prefix Muslim, as Terrorist has become a synonym of Muslims.

One wonders as to what must have been the plight of an average Sikh during the Khalistani movement. One wonders what must be the image of an average Tamil in Srilanka where LTTE has been indulging in the acts of terror at mega scale. What impact Dhanu's acting as a live bomb to kill Rajiv Gandhi, must have had on the image of Srilankan Tamils in India. It is fortunate that these acts of terror have not crossed the critical level where the whole community continues to be branded in that stereotype.

Coming back to Muslims, Islam and Ayesha, one is struck by the critical levels having been crossed many times over. Multiple factors have contributed to stereotypes about Muslims. To begin with the continuation of Pre Indepencedence communal politics of Muslims surfaced in the decades of 80s to play the retrograde role in the Shah Bano case in particular. The more assertive Hindu communalism kept going up and up all through again getting its critical mass in the decade of 80s when it used the Meenakshipuram conversions of Dalits to Islam, the Shah Bano case, and the rising Dalit presence in the social space, to launch the Ram Temple campaign. This campaign took the anti Muslim propaganda, spread through RSS Shakhas in a consistent manner from decades, to the higher levels. And from this time on every incident served to increase the heat of communalism. The riots, which accompanied this politics, saw that the number of victims from Muslim community in proportionately much much large in numbers. Also it was successfully propagated that Muslims start the riots and than Hindus just retaliate. This has no grain of truth in it whatsoever, but in a polarizing society this formulation found an easy acceptance. This was further compounded by the problem of adverse Indo Pak relations on the issue of Kashmir and alienation of Kashmiri youth.

The phenomenon of 'Islamic terrorism' emerges from three major components. The first and major being the formation of Israel, the plight of Palestinian refugees. This is closely associated with the US lust for control over oil resources, its intervention in Afghanistan through Jihadi Muslims to evacuate the Communist occupation, its alliance with the despotic rulers and curbing of democracy in this region with an overall view that it is easier to manipulate the Sheikhs and dictators than the democracies. The unresolved Indo-Pak relations getting manifested in the Kashmir imbroglio is another major factor contributing to the triad of reasons contributing to 'Islamic terrorism'. One has to slightly introspect as to what is primary. 

Terrorism or US imperialist polices of control over oil resources?
What is primary, Palestinian militants or the Israeli highhandedness in controlling vast lands or Palestine? 
What is primary, the terrorism of Kashmiri militants or the alienation of Kashmiris? 
The Gujarat Muslim revenge group or the Gujarat carnage? 

Here off course Modi and his ilk wants us to believe that Godhra, an act of Muslim terrorism in Godhra led to Gujarat, but off course this popularized version has too many holes in it to believe that. In nutshell, whether terrorism is a disease by itself or whether it a manifestation of the deeper diseases needs to be understood.

The Gujarat carnage has many a lessons to learn from. Two of these stick out in prominence. When an affluent and socially prominent Ahsan Jaffery is killed after being mutilated what message it sends to millions of less privileged Muslims? When the Muslim women's being is violated, what signal it sends to millions of women of that community? And to top it all who than gives the shelter to these hapless survivors of the violation of their democratic rights? As witnessed in Gujarat, it was the mosque or the Muslim run charity, which gave shelter to the survivors. What message it sends for the whole community except increasing the hold of obscurantist mullahs and orthodox elements in the community.

My atheist friend born in a Christian family starts going to Church when he witnesses the violence against another minority community. My research scholar Salim grows the beard to show his Muslim identity in the face the Mumbai riots, can Ayesha be far behind in succumbing to the pressures of the same elements to start putting the duppatta on her head? Will Salim?s progeny take to terrorism or will they come to take the path, which their father had taken before the 92-93 riots in Mumbai? Will Ayesha graduate into a burqua clad women in due course or will she revert to the earlier carefree self of pre-pogrom phase is a question which has no clear answers today. If we can provide a situation where Ayesha is not intimidated by the violations outside, then the internal pressures will get diluted. Its time we struggle against the deeper disease which gives rise to the symptom of terrorism rather than letting a particular religious community be demonized by the vested elements globally and locally.