After the Babri Mosque verdict, Muslims in India will be treated as inferior citizens, says Indian journalist Rana Ayyub.
In an opinion editorial forThe Washington Post, the outspoken journalist wrote that she watch the Indian Supreme Court’s verdict on TV during her visit to the United States.
“Like many Indian Muslims back home, I've struggled to make sense of the kind of ‘justice’ that is being celebrated,” Ayyub wrote. “My country chose to ‘other’ me and millions of Muslims yet again, paving the way for right-wing Hindu nationalism to fulfill its dream of a Hindu Rashtra (Hindu Nation).”
A few hours before the controversial verdict, the Indian journalist tweeted her thoughts, which were criticised by the local police.
“Tomorrow is a big day for India. Babri Masjid, a monument of faith for Indian Muslims was demolished on 6 December 1992 by those in power today. It changed my life and a generation of Muslims who were othered overnight. I hope my country does not disappoint me tomorrow,” Ayyub tweeted, to which the Amethi police in India responded that she was making “political statement”. They further asked her to delete her tweet.
In her Op-Ed, Ayyub details her childhood after the 1992 destruction of the Babri Mosque and the anti-Muslim riots which ensued. She writes that she and her sister were rescued by a Sikh neighbor, as a mob marched towards their home on December 6, 1992. For several months thereafter, the minors were kept hidden in a Sikh neighborhood.
“Things only got worse from that point,” the journalists writes, “In the eyes of the country, we were Muslims first and Indians later.”
Ayyub further added that a “resounding message has been sent to the more than 200 million Muslims in the country that they must bear every humiliation and injustice with the silence expected of an inferior citizenry.”