 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Today, we are joined by a young writer called Neas Farooqi, who has recently come out with a book called An Ordinary Man's Guide to Radicalism, Growing Up Muslims in India. Today, we are going to discuss about the book, his journey while writing the book, and what does the book talk about. Welcome to NewsClick, Neas. So let's start with the title. An Ordinary Man's Guide to Radicalism, don't you think? I mean, why did you choose such a title? And don't you think it might have various misinterpretations when it comes to the public? The reason why I chose this title was basically, in some ways, it was my way of exerting my identity, my individuality. This book talks a lot about Bartlau's encounter. It's one of the most important things that it talks about is Bartlau's encounter. And Bartlau's encounter is one event, but basically it talks about host of issues. When Bartlau's encounter happened, I was living in Jamiyanagar in the same locality where this encounter happened. So after this encounter, the kind of media coverage that happened in the Indian media was very scary, basically. So they were maligning the entire... I mean, it was not about one accused. It was about everybody. Community, basically. Yeah. So basically they were saying that this area is a hotbed of semi-terrorists. And semi-sympathizer lives over there. It was very scary. The kind of things that you see right now in TV, with Republic TV at times now, in 2008, when this encounter happened, it was beginning of that... a kind of beginning of these kind of hysteria that we see on a daily basis. So they were calling us terrorists, radicals, terrorists, sympathizers. There was no if and but. I mean, they were not even using LH, basically. In that environment, it was very scary for us. I mean, I thought when I was giving title of the book, I thought, I mean, since you're calling me a radical, I will also call myself a radical. Okay. Now, I mean, I'm not going to defend myself that I'm not radical. I'm not terrorist. I'm not terrorist. If you call me a radical, I will also call myself a radical. Now go and deal with it. That was the idea. That was an angry idea, basically. The larger point that I want to make, basically, I mean, at one level, it also warns readers about radicalism and all those things that if you get wise people, it brings a homogenous set of idea in person. I mean, it was... ghetto is a homogenous population. It's not only homogenous population. It's also about homogenous mindset. It could be any form of ghetto. It could be a Muslim ghetto, a forced ghetto like Muslim ghetto. It could be a religious ghetto of Brahmins, for example. So, in both ways, it creates a certain set of... certain mindset. I mean, looking at India and its history, there has been a tradition of ghettoization when it comes to the marginalized communities. Like, I mean, if you go to villages, you will find that it's living outside the village in a small locality. So, yeah, I mean... Yeah. No, but the thing is even Brahmins are also ghettoized, right? Now, upper caste are also ghettoized. I mean, this ghettoization is very different from Dalit or Muslim ghettoization because these ghettoizations are... I mean, there is a power differential, of course. But I will still call upper caste ghettoization, upper caste colonies as a form of ghettoization. This is a contested term. I agree on that. So, in that sense, it creates a certain mindset. If the ghetto is a hard ghetto, it has memory of riot, it has memory of discrimination. It could become very dangerous. And I'm warning that. The third point that I'm trying to make, basically, with this title, is that, as a reader, what comes to your mind when you see this title with a young Muslim man or a Muslim man's name? Do you really think that it's about radicalism? Or if there was some other name instead of Neaswaruki, Kamal Srivastava or something else, would you have thought about... really thought about radicalism? Or what constitutes radicalism for you and especially if you're talking about Muslim? So, I was trying to play on that psyche. I mean, it's not a tall guide to radicalism. I'm not foolish to write a guide to radicalism. And one of the... somebody wrote a review that it's not a guide to radicalism. I was like, are you kidding me? I mean, you just cannot misinterpret that book, this book in that. I mean, it's completely opposite of that, basically. So, let's come to various sections of the book separately. Your book also talks about deep mistrust that the Muslim community has when it comes to the state, the police machinery, the administration. And it has developed over the years, seeing the situation, there has been a rightward shift in the country, the right enforcers have become strong. They're in the power right now. Do you think the situation has become much worse when it comes to the current regime? It has, in a way. You know, earlier, there was some subtlety of sincerity, some subtlety of, I mean, that, okay, you are equal citizen. We will protect you. I mean, that's a very patronizing thing to say, protect, but I mean, there was some sense that no injustice will be... we will not tolerate any form of injustice. Right now, I mean, everybody is like whatever government wants to say, they say that. I mean, right from BJP functionaries or RSS functionaries at small level, at village level, to the top, to the parliament. Everybody is like, so all the subtlety is gone, it's all out in the open, whatever anyone wants to say. So, certainly it has gone worse. I mean, look at things like lynching and all. It's not happening without any reason. I mean, it is happening because there is inherent complicity of right wing. I mean, they could stop if they want to. I mean, they are their foot soldiers, basically. So, but who is going to stop that? I mean, all top to bottom, right up to Prime Minister. I mean, he has been one of those people who are lynching, basically. He was not directly part of that, but I mean, it comes from the thought process. You are ready to tweet when somebody dies outside India, but when people are getting lynched here, there's no reaction on that. Also, when you were writing this book, you're not blaming any political parties, but let's connect these two points because if you look at the Congress regime, there's a very narrow understanding of secularism that we see when it comes to Congress. Is secularism only protecting Muslims from rights, just keeping them safe? Or is it also about providing them good education, providing them jobs? So, I mean, did you intentionally decide to not put that blame on anyone or do you see any difference between the two regimes? I put it slightly differently instead of saying that I did not put blame on anybody. I blamed everybody. And if I'm blaming Congress or BJP, it's not without reason. I mean, many people will say that you're trying victim. You're trying to play victim. But I'm playing victimhood because I am a victim, as it is. And look at Congress's history. In Nellie, in 1983, in entire Gujarat, basically, Hanadaabad and all these Surat and all these places, entire 60s and 70s were, I mean, there were lots of rights in that period. 83 in Nellie, 89 in Merat, 89 in Bhagalpur, 92 even Babri, and all these things were happening under the watch of Congress. So, I'm not going to absolve Congress of their crimes, basically. And many people see that what BJP does by, what Congress does by night, BJP does it by day. So, there's not much difference. I mean, Congress is more subtle. And BJP does it openly. I mean, basically, it provokes everybody. In a sense, Congress had been slightly different in last. The previous regime was slightly different than the earlier regimes, basically. You are not doing anything for minorities. You are not giving them first right, of course. But you are giving a statement that is going to create a sense of an ease among majorities. Such a committee, for example, that you talked about, you established a committee. You look, I mean, these guys, such a committee did an amazing work. They brought everything that we needed to know. I mean, we knew it, but they brought that up and substantiated the data. But what did you do? You did not follow it up. So, it's all basically lip service. I mean, I'm fine with talking about secularism and all, but I'm victim of secularism. I mean, when I say I am not talking about individualism. But it's a community. Yeah. So, you also talk about the alienation of the Muslim community and how they have been, I mean, you talk about the othering concept of the Muslim community. Can you throw some light on that part as well, because I mean, for people who have not read the book, what do you mean by systematic alienation and othering of the community? When we talk about othering a community, basically, what we are saying, what we are doing, basically, is that, even though we are talking about democracy, but using the same democratic processes, we are alienating them. I mean, look at, look at 2014 elections. It is perfectly a democratic process of electing a prime minister. But go to UP, it has 80 seats, 80 parliament seats. What do you do? You choose 72 or 73 candidates who are from BGP and not a single Muslim out of 80. That is basically otherization of our community, basically. And what is worse, it is happening through the mode of democracy. I mean, this is the most sacred things that we have as Indians. All these countries around us have been, I mean, they have not lived up to democratic ideals. We boast about that. Not that we have been living up to democratic ideals, but we boast about that. But even then, in a perfectly democratic country, or in a, I mean, it's a very good democratic country. I mean, if you look around democracies that we have, it has been a functional democracy. Even in that functional democracy, we have found ways to discriminate with people. Also, I mean, you raised an interesting point that even in democracy when it comes to, and looking at the current context, it's becoming more and more evident day by day that you have to prove your existence and nationalism quote-unquote. And how do you prove that? You should chant Bharat Mata Ki Jai. You should sing national anthem. While in democracy, you should have right to do whatever you want to do. We have been seeing Tirangha Yatraas are being taken out through Muslim localities and then there's rights which are being created. So, I mean, there's always a question that exists in the mind of people from the marginalized communities, and be it any community, be it Muslims, be it Christians, Dalits, that are we actually living in a democracy? That's a question. Where are we heading towards? I don't know. I mean, there's no clear answer to that. I mean, that's a sad situation, but this is what's happening. And also, let's come back to the book. You have extensively written about the Butler House Encounter, when you give contributions, you talk about for Abu and Ammi and those who are seeking justice. Do you think the people who suffered this fake encounter have they got justice? And let's not only talk about Butler House Encounter, India has a history of Muslims and Dalits being hanged in large number. The maximum number of Muslims and Dalits are in jail. A lot of fake cases are being put on people, and they have to prove their patriotism, nationalism every day. So have any of these people got justice? When I'm dedicating this book to anyone who is seeking justice, basically I'm saying that this book is not about me. This book is about larger cause and for people who have faced real sufferings, I haven't faced anything basically to be precise because people have been killed, people have been lynched, people have been hanged, people have been murdered, raped. In that, if you compare my suffering to theirs, I haven't faced anything. There are a few things that, I mean Butler House Encounter is one of them and we don't know whether they were terrorists, whether they were innocent, but our demand was that, I mean a locality basically demanded that have a proper investigation that has not been done. So we're not saying that they must be innocent when ideas do get, I mean it was doubtful, there were lots of questions over that, so answer those questions. If you investigate that, you answer that question. But it is not only about Butler House Encounter, there have been many encounters, many riots all over the country. We're seeing that recently in UP at a large extent. Yeah. And when we talk about a Muslim youth in the country, the massive job crisis that they face, they've been subjected to identities every time, especially if you're a Kashmiri Muslim, you have dual identities to face. So there's a continuous dilemma which is there. Either you're not able to exist as a self and also the whole community, it's only looked through vote bank politics. I mean you're not looking into their issues, it's just a vote bank which is there. So you might do an appeasement politics and say yeah, we care for you, but when it comes to the realities, you're far behind when it comes to real development work. Can you throw some light on that part also? I mean how does it, how can one differentiate these two things? You know, soon after partition, the generation that face partition, they felt themselves as a guilty of partition, especially Muslims who lived in India. Ideally they would have been, I mean they would have, people should have respected them because they were the ones who chose to live in India even though they had an option to leave. But they felt as a victim. I mean there were many instances where, for example Patel, Patel asking, like now soon after partition, he's asking people, Muslims to, I don't know where it comes from, but he says that Muslims should lay arms and they should be more patriotic and all those things. It was very patronizing here, saying that the Muslims are not patriotic basically. Generation after that was clueless. You didn't know what to do that, what to do, how to face such kind of identity issues. But my generation, my generation is very different. My generation has no connection with the Pakistan movement or partition. It has not seen that bad memory basically. So they are born in India, they have the memory of this India only. This generation is very different from the earlier generation. They are confident and they are demanding basically their constitutional right. They are not asking for any favor. They are not asking for anything more than what they deserve and what ideally constitution allows or what is theirs constitutionally. So this generation is very different. I mean, look at young politician or look at young leaders who are emerging. I mean, we don't have any mass leader, but even our leaders like Asaduddin Oisee, we've seen very differently in India, but even he is basically saying that give us our rights. So I mean, it becomes very tricky how to address your identity issues, how to be a citizen of this country and equal citizen of this country. So if you become too vocal, BJP is going to exploit that. Congress will say that don't be too vocal and keep quiet, otherwise BJP will exploit that. So both are basically going to exploit you. So it becomes very difficult to create a balance. If you go and vote for Asaduddin Oisee, we'll say that... Sir, you declared as a hardliner. And people will start saying that you have created one mojina. So where do you go? What do you do? I mean, it is very difficult to... I'm saying it's also a bigger battle to fight. Let's come to the last point that you're talking about when there's already these contradictions available, when it comes to the political scenario. You need an alternative, especially looking at the ongoing attacks that have intensified. What is the alternative? What's the way forward, actually? I mean, it's a very cliched thing to say. There's only way to address that, to become more secular, to become more liberal and to assert your liberalism, basically. And by liberalism, I don't mean that... I mean, India is a conservative society. India is a religious society. You have to acknowledge those entities and those false lines. But it doesn't mean that... I mean, you know, when BJP is our right wing and the right wing is taking the discourse toward right, what do you do? You basically assert your own core beliefs. There's no other way out. So you go out in street or you write about it. Whatever you do, you do it, honestly. I mean, there is only one way out. Otherwise, I mean, if we give in to what BJP is doing or what RS is asking us to do, we are basically turning ourselves into Hindu Raj, basically. I mean, that's what they want. You accept their supremacy, you accept their ideology. I mean, if Rahul Gandhi has to go to Mandir to appease their vote bank, you basically have agreed to whatever RS wants you to do. I don't know. I mean, it's a sad reality, but that's what's happening. I mean, we are moving, we are shifting our discourse towards extreme right. It's a very important point that you have raised that... And this is what we are witnessing during the Karnataka elections that you are going to continuously take their vote bank into your party's fold. That is what they did in Gujarat. They started their entire campaign from the Somnath Temple. Thanks a lot, Neyaz. Many congratulations to you for writing this book and hopefully you'll be coming out with such more eye-opening books in the future and we'll be discussing with you those books once again. Thank you for watching. Just click.