A teacher of history for the last 25 years, my convictions about the country I call my own were put to the test when I sold my apartment in a condominium to a Muslim family last week. The buyers, a respected old Pune family living already on Boat Club Road, one of the most “posh” Pune localities, were invited to the meeting of condominium owners on a Sunday morning. They left crestfallen when they (and I) realised that the neighbours were not going to welcome them in and, in fact, would try to stall the deal on account of their religion.

We sought legal opinion and proceeded with the deal once we were sure that we had the law on our side. Subsequently the media came into the picture and brought the issue to the public conscience in an exemplary way.

Let us rewind the yellowing reels of history. Excluding people from housing units on the basis of caste, class and religion is not new. The Brahmins did it in Vedic India.

The result was a mass exodus into Buddhism, Jainism and later to religions from outside the subcontinent, such as Christianity and Islam.

The Nazis did it in the first stages of their ascendancy. The next stage being the “ghettoisation” of the Jews, all the better to label and exterminate them. Exclusion is a powerful way to create resentment and energise the loop of hatred.

Our society has deeply held mental models of “purity” and “pollution”. We do not hesitate to humiliate others to keep our own “purity” intact. Notice how many homes have different glasses and teacups for “servants”? Note the continuing exclusion of Dalits from this, that and the other social forum. The myth, not fully articulated, goes that all those who left the Hindu fold after the golden Vedic period were actually disgruntled lower castes. That makes the “Other” doubly “impure” in some fuzzy way. Mental models passed down through family lore create images of decapitated goats on our manicured “upper caste” lawns giving us the collective shiver, never mind the fact that we all enjoy biryani!

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