The sunny apartment had everything Palvisha Aslam, 22, a Bollywood producer, wanted: a spacious bedroom and a kitchen that overlooked a garden in a middle-class neighborhood that was a short commute to Film City, where many of India’s Hindi movies are shot.
She was about to sign the lease when the real estate broker noticed her surname. He didn’t realize that she was Muslim, he said. Then he rejected her. It was just six weeks after the November Mumbai terrorist attacks and Indian Muslims were being viewed with suspicion across the country. He then showed her a grimy one-room tenement in a Muslim-dominated ghetto. She felt sick to her stomach as she watched the residents fight over water at a leaky tap in a dark alley.
“That night I cried a lot. I was still an outcast in my own country — even as a secular Muslim with a well-paid job in Bollywood,” said Aslam, who had similar experiences with five other brokers and three months later is still crashing on friends’ sofas. “I’m an Indian. I love my country. Is it a crime now to be a Muslim in Mumbai?”
Mumbai and Mahrashtra state have strong Marathi-exclusive and Hindu nationalist political movements. The 26/11 terrorists did Muslims in Mumbai no favors. One can hope that the pro-India response of many Mumbai Muslims will begin to have an impact, but I fear that extremists of all varieties are trying to capitalize on the event.
Right on Katherine. The old adage quoted as “..It only takes one bad apple to spoil a bushel of apples..” still applies. Unless of course we can remove and discard the spoiled one. That takes some doing doesn’t it??? Nuff said!