Says he’s more than just a Muslim, accuses those in power and even opposition to ‘some extent’ of having normalised violence.
New Delhi: The atmosphere in India is communally divided and being a Muslim is an electoral disadvantage, student activist Umar Khalid has said.
He also asserted that his religious identity isn’t the only one he possesses, accusing the Sangh Parivar and its affiliates of attempting to straitjacket his politics to his Muslim identity.
“Let me make one thing very clear, yes I’m a Muslim, yes, I’m a leftist, (but) I’m also a citizen of this country. I’m also a student of this country; so, there are multiple identities I have,” Khalid said in an interview to ThePrint.
While he unequivocally speaks out on the atrocities against minorities, he says he also highlights issues of unemployment, those regarding universities and those concerning adivasis among others, adding that his detractors fail to acknowledge this. “The Sangh Parivar only wants to see me as a Muslim… And in their lens, Muslims do not belong to India,” he added.
The JNU student, who was recently attacked at the Constitution Club in the capital, also said that there is a “decentralisation of violence” in society today, accusing those in power of systematically sending out the message that there are some people – Muslims, Christians, liberals, “pseudo-secularists” – who are not acceptable in society, and that it is okay to physically eliminate them.
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“It is very clear that you have an ideology that talks about one nation, one religion, one culture, one idea – everything has to be homogenised, and whatever does not fit into that has to be physically eliminated,” he said.
Opposition to blame too
Khalid, however, said that the opposition too has to shoulder the blame to some extent for the normalisation of violence across the country. “If you are taking on the Sangh Parivar, you cannot not speak out on lynchings, communal polarisation… Because then you might electorally defeat them but ideologically, the RSS will still be victorious.”
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While the country has seen mass movements in and beyond universities since the BJP came to power, in order to defeat it electorally, it is important to fundamentally challenge the RSS, Khalid said. “The RSS is the single largest mass organisation in the country, which works in almost every aspect of individuals’ life. If people want to challenge the BJP, they have to challenge the RSS fundamentally and what it is doing on the ground,” he said.