South Asia Citizens Web

I return today the National Minority Rights Award conferred on me in 2008 by the National Commission for Minorities.

The irresistible urge to mix politics and religion usually comes at the expense of secularism, tolerance and vulnerable minorities. We saw this recently in Asia with extremist Islamic groups spewing anti-Chinese hate speech to defeat the incumbent governor of Jakarta, the ebbing tide of secularism in Bangladesh, insurgency in the Philippines and the resurgence of violence targeting Muslims in Sri Lanka with apparent impunity. Power politics and hatemongering in the name of religion sows seeds of instability and violence.

On June 27, Prime Minister Modi of India will pay his first official visit to the Netherlands. Reasons for this visit are the 70 years diplomatic relations between India and the Netherlands and the fact that the Netherlands is one of the largest investors in India.

This year, the 70th anniversary of India’s independence is also the 70th anniversary of India’s partitioning. The division was not neat. It was a giant, bloody mess. Uprooted from their homes, some 14.5 million human beings, Hindu, Sikh, Muslim, left the new Pakistan for India, or India for the new Pakistan.

The article investigates the spatial aspect of Muslim minoritization in the city, namely their ghettoization, resulting from ongoing struggles over Muslim houses. It traces the gradual encroachment on the Muslim-majority neighbourhoods designated ‘Muslim zones’.