What do Indian Muslims need to do? This question has been asked repeatedly over the last eleven years, in different places and on different occasions. Often, in a state of desperation, Muslims ask others to tell them what they should do or how they should conduct themselves. I have frequently wondered how this question is to be understood. When, and under what conditions, is this question – or questions like it – posed? One does not hear anything similar from Indian Hindus or Jains. Why, then, should Muslims ask this question at all?In a sense, the question itself is flawed. Are Indian Muslims a single entity, capable of having only one way of living?The term “Indian Muslim” encompasses crores of women and men, people of diverse sexual orientations, children, the young, and the old. It is a collective noun, but one that contains within it countless proper nouns and other collective identities. These are people shaped by vastly different circumstances, cultures, and linguistic backgrounds. How reasonable is it to subsume all of them into one collective term – and is it even possible to do so?Doctor, teacher, worker, writer, musician, farmer: when do these identities begin to blur, and when does a single identity come to dominate them all? Doctors, whether Hindu, Muslim, or Sikh, are expected to act according to the ethical norms of their profession. The same can be said of engineers, teachers, masons, or barbers. When, then, do these professional identities recede, and when does the singular identity of being Muslim overwhelm all others?The most recent example is that of the musician A.R. Rahman. Until two weeks ago, he was a musician; now he is only a Muslim. This has happened repeatedly to actor Shah Rukh Khan. Recently, a minister in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government of Uttar Pradesh first spoke of killing Salman Khan, then corrected himself to say that he was, in fact, referring to Shah Rukh Khan. What crime have they committed that warrants a death sentence? Or is their only crime that they are Muslims?Aamir Khan is an actor, but his Muslim identity has eclipsed his identity as an actor. Or consider Saif Ali Khan, Mohammad Shami, or Mohammad Siraj – when did we suddenly “discover” that they were Muslims? When did Dr. Kafeel Khan, who arranged oxygen to save the lives of children, come to be seen only as a Muslim? When and how was a Marxist like Umar Khalid reduced to nothing more than a Muslim?Also read: Baba Bulleh Shah Shrine in Mussoorie Vandalised; Three Booked, Religious Texts DamagedOver the last eleven years, I have seen many people who, perhaps for the first time in their lives, have begun to feel that even if they have been judges, lawyers, doctors, or scientists, in the end they are regarded as nothing but Muslims. They had never experienced their Muslim identity so acutely before.The cost of being Muslim in India may vary, but today it is a cost that almost every Muslim must pay. Although Muslims have endured collective violence at regular intervals since Independence, for the first time the very form of violence directed against them has changed. Now even a lone Muslim does not know what may happen to them, or when. How could the four Muslims sleeping on the Mumbai–Jaipur Express have known that a policeman entrusted with passenger safety would ask their names and then kill them? A Muslim woman wrote about her train journey: a child asked her husband whether he was Muslim and immediately said that Muslims should be shot. The experience shook her so deeply that she decided she would no longer travel by train. When I narrated this incident at a meeting in Mumbai, a young Muslim man said that he often encounters such remarks on local trains in the city.How does one respond when abuse directed at one’s religion is hurled openly – during Hindu religious processions, by leaders of the ruling party, through songs played loudly during festivals and religious occasions? How is a Muslim expected to react on discovering that old schoolmates, in common chat groups, casually deride Islam or Muslims?Today, the life of an average Muslim in India is marked by uncertainty. They do not know what will happen to them, or when. They cannot be sure how a co-traveller, a neighbour, or a colleague will behave towards them. Violence and murder at the hands of Hindus represent one extreme form of this behaviour. Less lethal, but no less injurious, are the everyday forms of hostility that have now become part of ordinary Muslim life. Such behaviour may come from a long-time neighbour, a passer-by, or even a police officer or administrative official. Political leaders of the BJP can openly and routinely abuse and threaten Muslims.There is also open discrimination by law-and-order authorities, which poses an existential threat. Imagine a situation: two children fight in a school, and one stabs the other. What will the authorities do if both children are Hindu? And how would they react if one of them – the alleged perpetrator – happens to be Muslim? Will the Hindu child’s house be demolished? The Muslim child’s parents’ house almost certainly will be. In one such incident in Udaipur, Rajasthan, officials demolished the parents’ house without even ascertaining whether it actually belonged to them.Imagine another situation: you are walking alone when suddenly four or ten Hindus surround you, ask for your identity card, and begin to beat you. You may survive with injuries and live forever with the humiliation; you may also be killed. This can happen on a train, on the road, in a market – anywhere.Distrust becomes part of one’s very being. When and which Hindu colleague, friend, neighbour, or stranger on the street might act against them is impossible to know. This uncertainty, this pervasive mistrust, deforms existence itself. One must remain perpetually alert and cautious. One learns to fold into oneself, constantly training oneself not to react to the hatred being poured out. This is not a normal life.How, then, can films like Chhava or Dhurandhar be hailed as great works of art despite their unmistakably anti-Muslim content? Why are Muslims expected to appreciate their cinematic craft, if not their message?Despite repeated and varied forms of violence, Muslims have held on to one assurance: that, like any other Indian, they possess the right to vote. Even if they have nothing else, they have that right. No one can take it away, and because of that single vote, they would remain relevant to Indian politics and the Indian state. But now even that right is under threat. From names being deleted from electoral rolls to being prevented from reaching polling booths, Muslims are grappling with the real danger of disenfranchisement. The hope that Muslims might be elected as MLAs or MPs in proportion to their population has long since been abandoned.When one must hide one’s identity in order to remain safe, it means that an attempt is being made to erase that identity. Yet today, even an ambiguous or partially concealed identity can itself become a crime. A Muslim shop cannot be called “Pintu Sweets.” If it is called “Salman Sweets,” Hindu customers may stop patronising it – if the shop is not forced to shut down altogether. This is an abnormal situation. What should a Muslim do under such conditions?Who should answer the question of what Muslims should do? And who has the right to answer it?Before attempting to answer it, one must first see what Muslims are already doing. They are making every possible effort to retain their voting rights. They are doing whatever hard work is required to safeguard their citizenship and their rights as citizens. They are struggling against a state apparatus that is not with them and is growing increasingly hostile. At the same time, they are attempting to become part of this apparatus, to claim it as their own. Battling entrenched prejudices, they seek entry into the police and administrative services. Even this, however, is portrayed as a conspiracy. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief, Mohan Bhagwat, has himself expressed concern over Muslims entering state institutions, describing it as infiltration.Muslims are trying to access education through community resources. They are establishing educational institutions and offering scholarships. This, too, is viewed with suspicion and labelled “education jihad.”In such an atmosphere, what should Muslims do?Law and the courts have now become part of Muslims’ everyday experience. Hate speech and propaganda, arrests, bail, threats of bulldozers or actual bulldozer violence, attacks on livelihoods, physical assault, murder – Muslims are confronting this verbal and physical violence through the courts. Going to court is not easy. It requires a particular kind of courage to approach the judiciary amid fear and intimidation, and a particular kind of patience to remain there for years in pursuit of justice. Zakia Jafri fought this battle for nearly twenty years. Her faith in the constitutional right to justice was itself treated with suspicion by the highest court. How could someone pursue justice for so long – especially a woman? There must be a conspiracy. Her commitment to justice was turned into an offence for which she was deemed fit to be prosecuted.Bilkis Bano; the illiterate mother of the murdered Mohammad Junaid; and the families of dozens of Muslims lynched to death – all have spent years reminding the courts that justice is their right, and that delivering justice is the courts’ duty.Despite being steadily deprived of their civil rights, Muslims continue to remind political parties that equality is their right and that political parties have a constitutional obligation towards them. Yet parties that call themselves secular wish to maintain distance even from Muslims’ shadows. They want Muslims to dissolve into a single, invisible vote.Muslims are not begging, nor are they pleading for mercy. They have refused to kneel before those who oppress them. As Indians, as human beings, they are demanding their rights. They are asserting their equal claim over the land of India and over the idea of India. They have not abandoned their faith. This is precisely what the BJP and the RSS find intolerable.What should Muslims do? Muslims themselves have answered this question through their actions. They are doing what they must do. Their future generations will feel pride in them, not shame. When everything was against them, they did not lose courage. They kept their spine straight. “What should Muslims do?” is the wrong question for the India of our time. The right question is: “What should Hindus do?”Apoorvanand teaches Hindi at Delhi University.