Radicalisation is rising in South India

Growing up in a place where politicians claim to be atheist, and secretly send their wives to temples and churches as elections approach, inevitably makes one irreverent about religion. I've never been an atheist myself, but I've rarely thought about my religious identity.

Perhaps because of the focus of Dravidian politics on language, coupled with the fact that the region is far removed from the two lines of partition, religion was hardly a major preoccupation in Tamil Nadu, or, indeed, the whole South. The ruling parties in Kerala have been Communist for the majority of the period since the inception of the state; Karnataka was always a melting pot, first home to retirees and later to IT professionals; Andhra Pradesh is as well-known for its large Muslim population as for the Tirupathi temple.

As far as I know, there has been no major protest against conversion. Both Kerala and Tamil Nadu have large Christian populations, and hundreds of missionary-run schools and colleges. The Muslim population in the South has a mixed heritage. Some are fairly recent converts, but parts of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu have been ruled by Muslims for centuries. It was taken for granted that people of various faiths - Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Sikh, Sindhi, Jain, atheist - lived here, and we identified ourselves by the cities to which we belong, and the languages we spoke.

It was only after I moved to Delhi, in my early 20s, that I realised Diwali was not considered an Indian festival so much as a Hindu festival. But now, I worry that the world in which I grew up is disintegrating.

Terrorism, to us, was associated with the LTTE, who were often in hiding in Madras during the '80s and '90s. However, over the last decade, I find that every religious group in the region is becoming more conscious of itself, and of its "difference" from the others. There have been protests by religious groups against the release of movies they deem offensive - The Da Vinci Code for Christians, Dasavathaaram for Hindus, and Vishwaroopam for Muslims.

While most such protests may be dismissed as stunts seeking publicity for the outfits that organise them, the last had me worried because one of the demands of the groups was that a line saying that it was important for the Taliban to make inroads into Southern India be removed. There is a problem when spokespersons for religious groups begin to perceive the depiction of religious terror and extremism as a personal insult. It shifts the notion of "Us" and "Them" from Us-the-non-violent and Them-the-terrorists, to Us-the-Muslims/Hindus/Christians and Them-the-Offenders/Baiters.

In 2012, there was an unprecedented protest in Madras, against Innocence of Muslims. It was unprecedented, partly because of the number of people who took part (20,000), partly because it was staged opposite the US Consulate (and chances are that the Bay Area in the US has more Tamils than any other ethnic group), and partly because the protest turned violent, with motorcycles being burnt and buses being stoned (actions that are usually associated with political hooliganism).

The victim complex is not restricted to Muslims.

Where Hindu rituals were once eschewed as Brahminical and rejected, Hindutva outfits are now gaining currency. Most posts in the Comments section of columns tend to be asinine, but there is cause for concern when commentators begin to take issue with Indian writers mourning the death of Pakistani children. In newspapers and websites that are locally popular, I find comments such as: "They sheltered terrorists, they deserve what they got." "They" were not the children in the school.

The "Us" and "Them" cannot have to do with religion, just as it cannot have to do with nationality. We need to identify "Us" with prospective victims, and "Them" with terrorists and their enablers-in-authority. And that is endangered when Muslim organisations get offended by depictions of Islamic terror, and Hindu organisations begin to associate terrorism with Muslims. We cannot afford to lose the space for those who are religious, but not fundamentalists. And there is no way to retain that space unless we are willing to acknowledge the separation between religion and terror, and to discuss it openly.