Muslims Better Off in Jinnah's Pakistan

[Riaz Haq]

As Pakistanis celebrate Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah's birthday today on Christmas Day, there are some who are questioning the founder's wisdom in seeking partition of India to carve out Pakistan as an independent nation.  The doubters justifiably point to the rising tide of intolerance and increasing violence and  a whole range of problems and crises Pakistan is facing. They wonder aloud if it was a mistake to demand a separate country for Muslims of undivided India.

Wax Statues of Quaid-e-Azam Jinnah and Mahatma Gandhi in Islamabad

Are the critics correct in their assessment when they imply that Muslims in Pakistan would have been better off without partition? To answer this question, let us look at the following facts and data:

1. Muslims, the New Untouchables in India:

While India maintains its facade of  religious tolerance, democracy and secularism through a few high-profile Muslim tokens among its high officials and celebrities, the ground reality for the vast majority of ordinary Muslims is much harsher.

An Indian government commission headed by former India Chief Justice Rajendar Sachar confirms that Muslims are the new untouchables in caste-ridden and communal India. Indian Muslims suffer heavy discrimination in almost every field from  education and housing to jobs.  Their incarceration rates are also much higher than their Hindu counterparts.

According to Sachar Commission report, Muslims are now worse off than the Dalit caste, or those called untouchables.
Some 52% of Muslim men are unemployed, compared with 47% of Dalit men.
Among Muslim women, 91% are unemployed, compared with 77% of Dalit
women. Almost half of Muslims over the age of 46 ca not read or write.
While making up 11% of the population, Muslims account for 40% of India’s prison population. Meanwhile, they hold less than 5% of government jobs.

2. Upward Economic Mobility in Pakistan: 

In spite of all of its problems, Pakistan has continued to offer  higher upward economic and social mobility
to its citizens over the last two decades than India. Since 1990, Pakistan's middle
class had expanded by 36.5% and India's by only 12.8%, according to an ADB report titled "Asia's Emerging Middle Class: Past, Present And ...

Miles Corak of University of Ottawa calculates that the intergenerational earnings elasticity in
Pakistan is 0.46, the same as in Switzerland. It means that a difference
of 100%  between the incomes of a rich father and a poor father is
reduced to 46% difference between their sons' incomes. Among the 22
countries studied, Peru, China and Brazil have the lowest economic
mobility with inter-generational elasticity of 0.67, 0.60 and 0.58
respectively. The highest economic mobility is offered by Denmark
(0.15), Norway (0.17) and Finland (0.18).

The author also looked at Gini coefficient of each country and found
reasonably good correlation between Gini and intergenerational income
elasticity.

 More evidence of upward mobility is offered by recent Euromonitor market research indicating that Pakistanis are seeing rising disposable incomes. It says that there
were 1.8 million Pakistani households (7.55% of all households) and 7.9
million Indian households (3.61% of all households) in 2009 with
disposable incomes of $10,001 or more. This
translates into 282% increase (vs 232% in India) from 1995-2009 in
households with disposable incomes of $10,001 or more. Consumer spending
in Pakistan has increased at a 26 percent average pace
the past three years, compared with 7.7 percent for Asia, according to Bloomberg.

3. East Pakistan Debacle: 

Critics love to point out Pakistan's break-up in 1971 as evidence of failure of Jinnah's Pakistan.
They lavish praise on Bangladesh and scold Pakistan as part of the annual ritual a few days before Quaid-e-Azam's birthday every year.

Economic gap between East and West Pakistan in 1960s is often cited as a
key reason for the secessionist movement led by Shaikh Mujib's Awami
League and the creation of Bangladesh in 1971. This disparity has grown
over the last 40 years, and the per capita income in Pakistan now stands
at more than twice Bangladesh's in 2012 in nominal dollar terms,  higher than 1.6
in 1971.

 Here are some figures from Economist magazine's EIU 2013:

Bangladesh GDP per head: $695 (PPP: $1,830)

Pakistan GDP per head: $1,410 (PPP: $2,960)

Pakistan-Bangladesh GDP per head Ratio: 2.03 ( PPP: 1.62)

4. Poverty, Hunger, Other Socioeconomic Indicators: 

 Pakistan's employment growth has been the highest in South Asia region
since 2000, followed by Nepal, Bangladesh, India, and Sri Lanka in that
order, according to a recent World Bank report titled "More and Better Jobs in South Asia".


Total
employment in South Asia (excluding Afghanistan and Bhutan) rose from
473 million in 2000 to 568 million in 2010, creating an average of just
under 800,000 new jobs a month. In all countries except Maldives and Sri
Lanka, the largest share of the employed are the low‐end self-employed.


Pakistanis have higher graduation rates in education and suffer lower levels of hunger and poverty than Indians and Bangladeshis.

Pakistanis spend more time in schools and colleges and graduate at a
higher rate than their Indian counterparts in 15+ age group, according
to a report on educational achievement by Harvard University researchers
Robert Barro and Jong-Wha Lee.

Here is a summary of Barro-Lee's 2010 data in percentage of 15+ age group students who have enrolled in and-or completed primary, secondary and tertiary education:

Education Level.......India........Pakistan

Primary (Total)........20.9..........21.8

Primary (Completed)....18.9..........19.3

Secondary(Total).......40.7..........34.6

Secondary(Completed)...0.9...........22.5

College(Total).........5.8...........5.5

College(Completed).....3.1...........3.9



According to the latest world hunger index rankings, Pakistan ranks 57 while India and Bangladesh are worse at 65 and 68 among 79 countries ranked by International Food Policy Research Institute in 2012.

World Hunger Index 2012

The latest World Bank data shows that India's poverty rate of 27.5%, based on India's current poverty line of $1.03 per person per day, is more than 10 percentage points higher than Pakistan's 17.2%.
Assam (urban), Punjab and Himachal Pradesh are the only three Indian
states with similar or lower poverty rates than Pakistan's.

Clearly, Pakistanis have not lived up to Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah's vision of a tolerant and democratic Pakistan where the basic rights of all of its citizens, including religious and ethnic minorities, are fully respected. Popular Pakistani columnist Ardeshir Cowasjee put it well when he wrote: "Fortunately for him, Jinnah did
not live long enough to see his dream betrayed by men unworthy even to
utter his name. He died before total disillusionment could set in
(though he had his suspicions that it was on its way) and broke his
heart. From what we know of him, he was that rare being, an
incorruptible man in all the many varied meanings of the word
corruption, purchasable by no other, swayed by no other, perverted by no
other; a man of honor, integrity and high ideals. That the majority of
his countrymen have been found wanting in these qualities is this
country's tragedy."

I do think, however, that all of the available and credible data and indicators confirm the fact that Muslims in Pakistan are not only much better off than they are elsewhere in South Asia, they also enjoy higher economic and social mobility than their counterparts in India and Bangladesh.
Here's a video report on widespread discrimination against Muslims in India:



Muslims in India by desitvonline
Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Upwardly Mobile Pakistan

Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah's Vision of Pakistan

Rising Tide of Intolerance in Pakistan

Muslims-New Untouchables in India

Violent Conflict Marks Pakistan's Social Revolution

Economic Mobility in Pakistan

Poverty Across South Asia

Graduation Rates in Pakistan

Introspection of Pakistan's Creation

[Riaz Haq]

Here's a Daily Times report on State Bank Governor Yaseen Anwar's assessment of Pak economy:

KARACHI: Pakistan’s economy has the ability to navigate through choppy waters and the economic potential this country holds encourage all to become a part of the country’s future.

The Governor State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Yaseen Anwar at Pakistan Navy War College Lahore said while our current economic situation was less than optimal and it was also very far from what might be described as an economic calamity.

Anwar said in 65 years, Pakistan has never gone through an episode of hyperinflation, Pakistan has never defaulted on its international and domestic debts, in fact our economy has grown consistently, but not spectacularly, over the past six decades.

This has been despite periods of international alienation and sanctions, three expensive wars, two hostile fronts, regular political upheaval, social unrest, sharp increases in the price of oil, and much, much more, he added.

State Bank has always ensured that the financial system of the country remains safe and stable. The robustness of our financial system is a direct consequence of the reforms process and the State Bank’s constant vigilance, he said.

There is a lot that can be improved in our financial system. He called for the development of efficient debt markets, even better regulatory and reporting practices and the broadening of the financial sector’s scope to include largely unbanked sectors of the economy, such as agriculture, small and medium enterprises and housing.

‘Despite this wish-list, the fact remains that our financial system is, by design, secure and does not pose any threat to the economy as a whole,’ he added.

The size of Pakistan’s undocumented economy is by some estimates, as large as the formal economy. The informal economy does not file taxes and while it does absorb a significant chunk of the labour force, it also evades corporate and labour laws, he said.

Although close informal relationships do make the economy more resilient, they do so at a cost to the overall economy, by eroding the ambit of the regulators.

He stressed the need for the greater integration of country’s domestic market with global markets but observed it does not mean that we should not have proper controls and mechanisms in place to safeguard our own interests. ‘Greater integration with financial markets will mean that capital will flow more quickly through our borders. It’s definitely something that will boost the national economy, but, as most East Asian countries learned in the 90s, it can be a double-edged sword.

Therefore having some capital controls in place, which reduce the volatility of capital flows, is a necessary regulation in this day and age, Anwar added.

More effective regulation is the need of the hour for our own economy, he said, adding it is an essential part of what is needed today to get the economy on a track for steady and sustainable growth.

He said the government’s footprint in some sectors of the economy was very large and quite negligible in other sectors.

Such divergence is unhealthy. Effective regulation is sorely lacking in other sectors. The tax machinery can be tightened considerably. One of the country’s most challenging problems today is the size of the fiscal deficit-and a large part of the solution lies in increasing our tax base by enacting regulation that encourages tax compliance, and punishes tax evasion, he added.

The government will need to borrow less money from the central bank. Borrowing from the central bank is popularly known as printing money, he said, adding if government borrowing from the central bank falls, inflation will follow suit.

Therefore, better tax collection is a necessary condition for faster economic growth. And for that we need to have more effective tax regulation, he added.

....

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2013\03\06\story_6-3-2013_pg5_1

[Riaz Haq]

Here's a Daily Telegraph story on Bhutto vs Sharif, the next generation of Pak politicians:

ONE studied at Oxford, the other at Cambridge. Their family rivalry dates back almost 40 years, to when the family of one saw their business empire ravaged by the nationalisation policy of the other.

But what Maryam Nawaz Sharif and Bilawal Bhutto Zardari have in common is being young, glamorous and heirs to Pakistan's two leading political dynasties. Both will be prominent voices due in general elections due in May.

The poetry-loving Ms Sharif is the daughter of Nawaz Sharif, a wealthy industrialist from the Punjabi city of Lahore, who fell out with Bilawal's late grandfather, Zulfiqar Bhutto, after he nationalised the Sharif businesses as Pakistan's socialist leader in the 1970s.

Himself a two-time prime minister, Mr Sharif is frontrunner to emerge with the largest party and the first crack at forming a coalition after the polls of Pakistan's 80 million voters.

During the campaign, his daughter is acting as one of his chief campaigners and mouthpieces - particularly on women's rights - and is expected to eventually succeed him one day.

"His legacy is beautiful," she told an interviewer last year. "Who would not want to step into those shoes?"

A party insider added: "She has grown very close to her father and you can see her learning from him."

Already on a similar path is Oxford-educated Bilawal, 24, who became the third generation of Bhuttos to lead the Pakistan People's Party after his mother, Benazir, was assassinated in December 2007.

Pakistan's national assembly had only a scattering of members present on Thursday when it quietly dissolved itself at the end of its five-year term. It was a historic moment. If elections go to plan then Pakistan will see the first democratic transition of power in its 65-year history, a period marked by political instability and three military coups.

Bilawal's father, Asif Ali Zardari, has been president of Pakistan since 2008, when he was catapulted into the political limelight after the assassination of his wife, Benazir. She was killed in a suicide attack as she campaigned for a third stint as prime minister.

At 24, he is still too young to stand in elections, but a constituency is waiting for him, reportedly the troubled neighbourhood of Lyari in Karachi, as a twenty-fifth birthday present.
--------
Last year, Hina Rabbani Khar, the country's glamorous foreign minister, was forced to deny she was having an affair with the president's son, a rumour that some claimed was part of a smear campaign run by the military.

Bilawal's fans hope he will restore his mother's party to its traditional compassionate, leftist position, but fear his privileged upbringing and foreign education have disconnected him from ordinary voters. His late mother, they say, would also have made sure he had a firmer grasp of Urdu.

Naheed Khan, who was close to Mrs Bhutto, said Bilawal risked being exposed too early if he was expected to defend his father's unpopular government.

"He has to take a very clear decision, whether he wants to carry his grandfather and grandmother's legacy or he wants to go along with his father and what his father has done in five years," she said.

Whoever wins in elections, one thing seems certain: Pakistan's political dynasties show few signs of fading away.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/9934750/Bhu...

[Riaz Haq]

Indian Muslims make up 14.6% of India's population, almost 50% higher than the 10% of Indian-American Muslim population. In addition, every Indian minority other than Muslims is over-represented in America.

http://www.pewforum.org/uploadedFiles/Topics/Demographics/Asian%20A...

http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21572785-steadily-rising-muslim-...

[Riaz Haq]

Here's an India Times report on allegations of Indian intelligence orchestrating attacks on Indian Parliament and Mumbai hotels:

NEW DELHI: In what is certain to escalate the already vicious fight between the CBI and the IB over the IshratJahan "fake encounter case", a former home ministry officer has alleged that a member of the CBI-SIT team had accused incumbent governments of "orchestrating" the terror attack on Parliament and the 26/11 carnage in Mumbai.

R V S Mani, who as home ministry under-secretary signed the affidavits submitted in court in the alleged encounter case, has said that Satish Verma, until recently a part of the CBI-SIT probe team, told him that both the terror attacks were set up "with the objective of strengthening the counter-terror legislation (sic)".

Mani has said that Verma "...narrated that the 13.12. 2001(attack on Parliament) was followed by Pota (Prevention of Terrorist Activities Act) and 26/11 2008 (terrorists' siege of Mumbai) was followed by amendment to the UAPA (Unlawful Activities Prevention Act)."

The official has alleged Verma levelled the damaging charge while debunking IB's inputs labelling the three killed with Ishrat in the June 2004 encounter as Lashkar terrorists.

Contacted by TOI, Verma refused to comment. "I don't know what the complaint is, made when and to whom. Nor am I interested in knowing. I cannot speak to the media on such matters. Ask the CBI," said the Gujarat cadre IPS officer who after being relieved from the SIT is working as principal of the Junagadh Police Training College.

Mani, currently posted as deputy land and development officer in the urban development ministry, has written to his seniors that he retorted to Verma's comments telling the IPS officer that he was articulating the views of Pakistani intelligence agency ISI.

According to him, the charge was levelled by Verma in Gandhinagar on June 22 while questioning Mani about the two home ministry affidavits in the alleged encounter case.

In his letter to the joint secretary in the urban development ministry, Mani has accused Verma of "coercing" him into signing a statement that is at odds with facts as he knew them. He said Verma wanted him to sign a statement saying that the home ministry's first affidavit in the Ishrat case was drafted by two IB officers. "Knowing fully well that this would tantamount to falsely indicting of (sic) my seniors at the extant time, I declined to sign any statement."

Giving the context in which Verma allegedly levelled the serious charge against the government, Mani said the IPS officer, while questioning him, had raised doubts about the genuineness of IB's counter-terror intelligence. He disputed the veracity of the input on the antecedents of the three killed in June 2004 on the outskirts of Ahmedabad with Ishrat in the alleged encounter which has since become a polarizing issue while fuelling Congress's fight with Gujarat CM Narendra Modi....

http://www.indiatimes.com/news/india/shocking-govt-behind-parliamen...

[Riaz Haq]

Is "Waar" anti-India? How about #Pakistan-bashing in #Bollywood films "Border", "Gadar", "Maa Tujhe Salaam", etc http://www.riazhaq.com/2009/04/indias-hostility-toward-pakistan.html

Here's NY Times piece on how #India's #Bollywood negatively stereotypes #Pakistan

http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/16/how-bollywoods-views-on-p...

[Riaz Haq]

Here's an Indian view of Waar as published in Emirate 24X7:

One of the most intense rivals on the cricket field, India and Pakistan are capable of turning a dead rubber into a fierce battle of egos.

Now, the film industries of these two countries have realised the box office potential of turning a movie into an ‘India vs Pakistan’ affair.

The age-old rivalry is given the re-make treatment with renewed vigour and often a cross-border love angle, after all, in Bollywood and Lollywood, love still rules.

Pakistan’s latest super-hit film 'Waar' seems fair give-back for a generation of cross-border bashing films coming out of India – including 'Ek Tha Tiger', 'Gadar' and 'Agent Vinod'.

In Shaan Shahid's 'Waar' (Strike), militants overrun a Pakistani police academy and kill 100 officers. An Indian spy and her accomplice are behind the success of the mission.

Pakistan’s first big-budget movie depicts every volatile aspect of Pakistan’s rocky relationship with India.

Even in Pakistan, 'Waar' has been denounced by some liberals wary of what they see as fiery nationalistic rhetoric and scenes demonising India.

The narrative is simple and packed with action.

Indian villains team up with militants to plot spectacular attacks across Pakistan.

Pakistani security forces jump in and save the day.

'Waar' has proved to be hugely successful, attendees leapt to their feet to applaud the patriotic scenes.

Bilal Lashari, ‘Waar’s’ 31-year-old director, believes that too much is being read in-between the lines.

The fact that the Indian intelligence agency RAW features prominently has raised a few hackles.

Though Bilal confesses that there is a subtle hint of select Indian characters causing trouble in Pakistan, he re-emphasises that his is not a propaganda film and has to be looked as a 'high quality' entertainer.

The film has also revived the stagnating film industry in Pakistan.

If Pakistan's film industry has discovered this new means of minting money, Bollywood was flogging this potential script to death as early as the 1990s.

In the early 2000s, films like 'Gadar' and 'Maa Tujhe Salaam', were still based on blatant Pakistan-bashing scenes.

Recently, Saif Ali Khan's 'Agent Vinod' and Salman Khan’s 'Ek Tha Tiger' faced problems with the Pak censors boards.

Pakistan banned 'Agent Vinod' a few days before its scheduled release, most likely because of its critical portrayal of the Pakistan's generals and spies.

They are shown providing support to the Taliban in Afghanistan and scheming to set off a nuclear suitcase bomb in India's capital.

In 'Ek Tha Tiger' Katrina Kaif plays the role of a Pakistani spy posing as a scientist's part-time home caretaker while Salman Khan plays a RAW agent who falls in love with Kaif's character.

Films portraying love and peace between the two nations, work the reverse angle with some success - latest being 'Main Hoon Na' and 'Veer Zaara'.

Indo-Pak scripts are, by the final credits, a mirror reflection of the Indo-Pak political situation - one step forward and two steps back.

http://www.emirates247.com/entertainment/pakistan-goes-to-waar-with...

[Riaz Haq]

The proportion of Muslims in Indian parliament is just 4% while their population in India is over 13%. On the other hand, Muslims are over-represented by more than 2X in the prison population with 28% of the prisoners in India being Muslim.
Live discussion on IBN TV with a Muslim young man who had been incarcerated and tortured by the Andhra Police for the crime committed by Swami Aseemanand and his gang. How this young man's life has been turned upside down after false accusations and tortures.

[Riaz Haq]

#Pakistan 4th largest source of remittances to #India. $5 billion sent annually from Pakistan to #Indian relatives. http://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/pakistan-4... …

Surprising as it may seem, but Indians who have migrated to Pakistan are expected to remit back home a staggering $4.9 billion in 2015. This would make Pakistan the fourth largest source of India's remittances this year, according to a new study by the World Bank.

Why #WorldBank Says #Pakistanis Sent $5 billion to #India? It's from India-born relatives in #Pakistan http://on.wsj.com/1VFN1P7 via @WSJIndia

Pakistan is home to more than 1.4 million people who were born in India. However, these immigrants are not your traditional non-resident Indians. They are a remnant of partition when colonial India was split and millions of people moved as they picked a country or were kicked out and displaced by violence.

The World Bank attributes a large slice of India’s annual remittance income to Pakistan because there is such a large group of India-born citizens there. The money also flows the other way, according to the bank’s model, as there are around 1.1 million Pakistan-born people living in India. The World Bank estimates Pakistan received remittances of more than $2 billion from India.

Some readers of The Wall Street Journal who first saw these numbers in a story titled “The Difference Between Indian and Chinese Migrants,” were shocked, skeptical and scared. The amounts had to be a mistake, some said in comments, or proof that money is being sent to finance terrorism or organized crime in India.

Mr. Ratha still stands by the bank’s best guess and says the origin of the cash is much less sinister.

The billions of dollars flying back and forth between the two countries are from the same place as the rest of the world’s remittances: family and friends supporting each other across borders.

There are literally millions of family connections between the two countries and millions of reasons a person in Pakistan might find a way to get money to relatives in India. The money could be sent for a brother in need, a cousin’s wedding, an uncle’s funeral or even to help educate a niece.

Despite the animosity between the two countries, as well as the rules, regulations and restrictions, family and finance finds a way.

Sometimes that means using informal avenues like the hawala money transfer system or arranging for the money to be sent via a different country. Sometimes it means an envelope of cash carried by a friend traveling to India.

“These are two big economies right next to each other. The money must be flowing,” Mr. Ratha said. “That number we put out could even be an underestimation.”

[Riaz Haq]

#Modi's #India: #Muslim man struggles with freedom 23 years after 'wrong' conviction on false #terrorism charges http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-36431935

India's Supreme Court acquitted Nisar-ud-din Ahmad of terrorism offences last month, after he had spent 23 years in prison. He tells BBC Hindi's Imran Qureshi that he is struggling to start his life afresh at the age of 43.
Mr Ahmad and two others were released from a jail in the northern Indian state of Rajasthan after the Supreme Court overturned their convictions in terrorism offences, citing insufficient evidence.
They had been convicted by lower courts of planning blasts in five trains in December 1993, which killed two passengers and injured another eight.
More than two decades later, Mr Ahmad said his family was struggling to believe that he had actually returned to his home in Gulbarga in the southern state of Karnataka.
"My mother comes and touches my head in the middle of the night just to be sure that she is not dreaming her son is home," he said.
He added that the police had built their case against him on what he called "fabricated confessions" allegedly taken from him, his elder brother Zahir-ud-din Ahmad and two others.
But the top court said in its ruling that "the conviction and sentence [of Mr Ahmad] is completely unsustainable".
"In the absence of any other material on record to lend any semblance of corroboration to the confession, we find it extremely difficult to sustain the conviction and sentence...," the court said.
'Fabricated confession'
Mr Ahmad still vividly remembers the day he was arrested by the police on 15 January 1994.
He had been getting ready to go to his pharmacy college.
"I was held illegally for 43 days before they produced me before a magistrate. They beat me, tortured me, hung me upside down and beat me some more. I begged and pleaded with them to let me know what wrong I had committed. Then they made me sign a fabricated confession," he told BBC Hindi.

[Riaz Haq]

The indignity of being #Muslim in #India. #BJP #Modi #Hindutva #Islamophobia
https://qz.com/1152569/the-indignity-of-being-muslim-in-india/

by Sahil Wajid 

I have, over the years, endured considerable discomfort and faced discrimination on account of my Muslim name—despite being wholly irreligious, despite having had a sheltered upbringing in a big city and access to education and employment, and despite having had many Hindu friends over the years who stood up for me.

Extrapolating from these personal experiences beyond my narrow prism of privilege, I can only imagine the horrors that the less fortunate Muslim men and women in the Hindi heartland would have had to endure. Especially, those who try to exercise their so-called freedom of religion and, unlike me, choose to assert their religious identity.

Sure, they are free to practice their religion and there are no legal obstacles (at least not yet), but for minorities in general and the beleaguered Muslims in particular, what this freedom essentially translates into is little more than the freedom to suffer marginalisation and humiliation.

And most of them do not even have “secular” first names to hide behind.

-------------------


My first name was chosen by my mother because it was, as she put it, a “secular” name. Being a mildly religious woman, that really meant the name came as close as it could to a Hindu one, without sounding like a complete cop-out to some of her more orthodox Muslim relatives.

At any rate, it was better than the more spiritual name that my father, an atheist working at a bank, had in mind: Khusro, which, she said, would have been a pronunciation nightmare (besides being, as I later realised, egregiously Muslim-sounding).

While the turmoil of 1992 was still a few years away when I was born, my mother, unlike my father, seemed to have foreseen the times to come. However, as I was soon to find out, while first names can be chosen, there are no such secularising remedies for family names.

Delhi pejoratives
At my Delhi school one day, a seven-year-old in my class found out that my middle initial “A” stood for “Abdul.” He declared it was something to be ashamed about—rather viciously for his young age and in the unrelenting manner that children do when they pounce on an embarrassing secret. I realised at that early age that my Muslim surname was unlikely to ever be an asset and was best kept to oneself when it could be helped.

Subsequently, I introduced myself only by my first name. Once, when pressed, I lied about the “A” standing for “Agarwal,” before eventually dropping the inconvenient middle-name altogether. Of course, there were more such instances along the way to high school, from being 

bestowed with nicknames pertaining to the 

I introduced myself only by my first name.

stereotypical Muslim occupations, such as Darzi (tailor) and Naai (barber), to the now all-too-common Pakistani.

I also became familiar, much to the horror of my scandalised parents, with the more unsavory pejoratives for Muslim men, thanks to some of the older boys in my Delhi locality.

In college, stereotypes dressed as harmless “jokes” were routinely flung in one’s face. With my Muslim name, they came in the form of gags centered on terrorism—about hijacking small vehicles, a supposed proclivity for explosions, and so on. My surname provided a sustained spark for creativity of this kind, and not wanting to be perceived as unsporting and risk isolation, I played along.