This is not to argue that Muslims must necessarily detach themselves from the Arab-cultural paradigm, but only to note that something is stirring in this multi-everything country, with its common educational system, common politics, and, most of all, common problems in an open society that pledges equality for all. This has led to a confident young Muslim identity emerging among the middle classes. Young Muslims greet each other with ‘ASAK’ (short for assalam allekum) on text messages, keep rozas, look out for openings in the infotech market and crowd cinema halls showing the latest fare from Bollywood with friends from all communities.

Post-partition, the process of an Indian Muslim identity emerged as something quite distinct from what could be bracketed with a Saudi one, or one that emerged only in opposition to the Pakistani identity. It was something even George Bush noted, and conveyed rather crassly when he observed that not one of those caught on charges of being Al-Qaeda was an Indian. This slowly emerging identity of Indian Muslims was not ‘typical’ in any way. It had many versions: Kerala Muslims, UP Muslims, Tamil-speaking Muslims who would resist Urdu being foisted on them and wouldn’t be able to communicate with their co-religionists in Assam.

The new identity which, in many ways, is a work in progress, and has been around for some time now, though bruised too at regular intervals. Ask people who have seen Partition riots and had their families divided. Events in Ayodhya, and in 2002 Gujarat, have had their impact. Hindu communalists were gleeful over 9/11, and tried to read all subsequent terror events in that light. Muslim communalists have delighted in the alienation in some pockets and tried to capitalise on it. The fact that terror in India has historically been perpetrated by groups of all descriptions was sought to be subsumed in one overweening pattern — all the easier for security agencies to fix blame. This has, in turn, led to a sense of defensiveness among many Indian Muslims — and the nationalist noises that greeted Shoaib’s statement are of a piece with that mindset.

... contd.