If my name was Khan...

In India, Hindus constitute a majority (more than 80 per cent) yet they didn't vote to power the right-wing Hindu party Jana Sangh till it merged with many other political groups to form the Janata Party in 1977.  

Are they (the Hindus) idiots? 

For the last 25 years or so, the three reigning superstars of Bollywood have been Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan and Aamir Khan. No three Hindu superstars ever simultaneously occupied the mind-space of our Hindu-majority country for such a long period.

In post-independent India, Muslims, Christians and Sikhs have risen to positions of power including President, chief minister, field marshal and so on. And during even the worst communal tensions, minorities weren't forced to leave their homes for good, except in Kashmir where the Muslim-majority became indulgent mute spectators to the Hindu exodus.

In the same state of Jammu and Kashmir, in the 2014 Assembly elections, the BJP got the highest vote share and emerged as the second largest party with all the seats coming from Hindu-majority Jammu. Its efforts at forming government were slammed as communal on the grounds that it didn't win a single seat from the Valley, which is now nearly completely Muslim.  

A lot is in a name...

But if I were a Khan, I would have taken pride in the "idiotic" accommodation and tolerance that has been shown by Hindus and still lived as honourably as ever.

As a Khan, I would have also batted for Arif Mohammad Khan who opposed Rajiv Gandhi as he succumbed to pressure by fundamentalist Muslims to annul the Supreme Court judgement in the Shah Bano case. The judgement awarded an old lady immediate and adequate maintenance. She had been left to fend for herself as per Sharia norms. I would have batted for Shahid Siddiqui for saying that in Hindu-majority India, Muslims have been coerced to pay Jazia (votes) through fear politics in the name of secularism. I would have batted for MJ Akbar for writing that the practice of flawed secularism had made the majority Hindus perceive themselves as a minority, which can have dangerous implications for the future. I would have batted for Salman Rushdie and Taslima Nasreen who continue to be hounded for their books Satanic Verses and Lajja respectively. And finally, I will bat for Aamir Khan and Rajkumar Hirani whose wonderful film PK has given a slap on the faces of all those who dialled wrong numbers to prove the supremacy of priests over God. As a Khan, I would have hung my head in shame to see that every now and then a Dharmendra officially converts to Islam to marry his lady love (Hema Malini) without getting divorce from his first wife (Parkash). How many Islamic countries have such an anti-woman law?

Most of all, shivers would go down my spine on seeing the Hindu right-wing trying to ape Muslim fringe elements, sacrificing health, education and the capacity to question, in the name of religion. I would be equally frightened if, like the US post-9/11, being a Muslim and a terrorist meant the same thing in India. Unlike the US, India has had a long experience of dealing with diversity. Three major faiths were born here, Christianity came to India much before it reached Europe, and, she became a second home to Parsis fleeing their homeland Iran to escape conversion or death.

And I would never ever have liked to be a Khan if it meant compromising with basic principles of equality, fraternity and compassion in the name of faith.