Why some Indian Muslims hide their identity

AHe is an Indian Muslim, I learned to say many words in whispers. The thought recently hit me when my husband and I were at a McDonald’s in Thailand, who offered casual beef burges. The word “beef” felt strange to me.

Unlike IndiaBeef is just another ingredient: unrefined, uncontrolled, indistinguishable of a national debate.

It had been a long time since I heard the word itself beef spoken freely. In India, I’m not saying it. Not at restaurants, not in conversations, not even in my house. I learned to avoid it. Swallow it in the middle of the sentence. To pretend that it does not exist.

Beef is more than food in India, a majority Hindu nation. A rumor of possession of beef or slaughter of cows and Muslims or Dalite they found themselves in the center of a crowd line. This is why I deleted it from my vocabulary, I trained to avoid it and I made sure that my friends and my Muslim family do the same.

I know that suspicion is enough to kill because I reported Hate crimes against minorities for more than half decade. The scenario is often the same: the crowd swells, the accusations fly, the fists of the ground, and the show is sometimes even filmed. The names of the victims fade into background noise. Meanwhile, the families of the victims are allowed to navigate with endless data of the court.

But here I was, in a fast -food chain that offered beef burgers. Even outside the borders of our state, the image of the burger still scares me. “No one cares if your name matches your lunch command,” my husband reminded me. Back to India, beef consumption is illegal In most states, rigid caste structures also govern who can eat what. The restaurants are proudly advertising as “100% pure vegetarian”. He was right. No one cared about what I ate. And yet, for a moment, I could not shake the thought: What a strange, unnecessary weight, we wear home. How hard!

I first made the burden of my identity in India in 2020, during Delhi revoltsWhen at least 50 people were killedMost of them Muslims, of violent mafia. My safety has reached something as simple to hide my name.

The gas stations ablaze, the tires set fire and threw themselves to fled people. Bricks Sitting in neat stacks, waiting to be weapons. The masks armed with sticks and rods wandered freely. Police complicity. I reported for the first point discriminating The law of citizenship proposed by the Hindu nationalist government, which would allow Hindu, Parsi, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain and Christian refugees to quickly follow their nationality, but not Muslims. When men who wear Lathis I asked my name, I replied: Isha. And exactly that, I was safe. This was the day I believed: every Indian Muslim should invest in a second name.

At first, it was just a passing thought. But then I began to see how many others came to the same conclusion. They were modifying the name on cab applications, changing abandonment locations and some were telling me Putting a little bindi on their forehead. All attempts to soften the sharp edges of their identity enough to avoid problems.

However, even this is not a safety guarantee. For years, some Muslim street sellers have used neutral religion names such as Raja or Sonu, a mere change to maintain business to work without problems and to avoid an economic boycot.

But in the last two terms of the Hindu nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, these sellers were accused to hide its identity, to pretend to be Hindu. It is no longer just about having a Muslim name, but about the boldness of not having a sufficiently visible one.

For example, in July 2024, Yogi Adityanath, Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, the most populated state in India, orderly shops and restaurants along the route Kanwar Yatra Hindu pilgrimage to display their legal names. The movement was seen as an attempt to remove the companies owned by Muslims. The order was fortunately blocked by the Supreme Court of India.

The problem anyway has never ended at the market stand. An alias will not always save you when your existence is already a disqualification. An owner will do back when they hear your real name. A broker will suddenly remember that the apartment was taken. An employer will hesitate, then say he is looking for someone else. You can try to disappear in an alias, but in the end, someone will see you for who you are. You can soften the syllables, shorten the name and pretend to be something else. But at one point, the truth rises, and the answer remains the same.

Many Indian Muslims withdraw to Muslim spaces. But are questioned, renamed or even missing. The places where I once belonged to now feel abandoned, viewed or unwanted.

Read more: The message that RAM temple sends Muslims like me

Take the proposed BJP WAQF change. Could eliminate WAQF properties – related to Indian Muslims throughout the centuries – to their legal protection and open them for state control or reallocation. Thousands of mosques, Dargahsand the cemeteries that are on the Waqf land that served the generation -generation communities are now in danger.

At the same time, those who have dared to protest or mobilize for Muslim rights are facing the perspective of repression. During protests against the controversial citizenship law, more activistsIncluding the students and leaders of the community, they were arrested in accordance with the anti -terrorist laws.

So where does this leave us? I tried to adjust. To learn the art of disappearance. To keep my voice neutral. Not to look too religious. To smile enough. To learn to reduce my identity in conversations. To self-pollute to socializing posts. To move through public places with quiet calculation. However, I always wondered if this quiet and internalized fear is the biggest tragedy of all. When a Muslim self-censorships his own words, he descends his voice, he deletes some of themselves, the job is done.