“When she came to work for us, our house help told us her name was Rakhi*. Since she wore shakha pola and sindoor, we didn’t suspect anything even though she admitted she was from Bangladesh. It is only in the last few weeks when she started behaving strangely and not even drinking water that we came to know her name is Rubia* and she is Muslim. She has deceived us so badly, we may have to ask her to leave.”
A few months back, during the month of Ramzan, these words were uttered by a well-educated, professionally qualified woman (let’s call her Sakshi) in a group of similarly qualified women. Sakshi was immediately challenged, “yes, deception is bad. But given the current environment, can you really blame Rubia for hiding her religion?”, she was asked. Sakshi, however, held her ground and kept insisting that the “deception” was unpardonable- “If we can’t trust her on this, how can we trust her on anything else?”
We tried reasoning with her, but she refused to accept she might be wrong
We explained that we are all guilty of small acts of deception- haven’t we all texted a friend and say the traffic is killing and we will be 10 minutes late, while in fact we are still waiting for the Uber to arrive? Or haven’t we pulled on a shrug while leaving home because our mother-in-law may not approve of our spaghetti strapped top, and taken it off as soon as the doors of the lift closed. But she insisted that those were insignificant deceptions, but her domestic help masking her religion was a major one deception which could not be overlooked.
We reminded Sakshi that while engaging a housekeeper, we should be concerned about the quality of work and her work ethics, not her religion. Her height, weight and religion mattered no more than the name of her favorite actor. But she continued to insist that she didn’t care about the religion of the house help, she was bothered that she had been deceived.
We then tried to explain how in the current environment where people are openly talking about boycotting Muslim run businesses, Rubia had only been exhibiting caution by masking her religion. That even if religion didn’t matter to one employer, it would to another, and she didn’t want to jeopardies her chances of getting the job. The person still insisted that it was a matter of principles, and that if the house help could lie about her religion, she lacked integrity.
By this time, we were fed up, and we reminded Sakshi that survival was more important than principles. “She needs the job. If the only way she can get a job is by masking her religion, then if we have any principles, instead of condemning her, we should be asking ourselves why she needs to do so.” She, of course, continued to insist that deception was wrong, and that we cannot condone it.
We couldn’t convince her, but we refused to ‘agree to disagree’
At some point, we realized that there was no point even arguing with her. Most said we could agree to disagree, but a few of us insisted that bigotry needs to be called out. In a country where people are taking public pledges to boycott Muslim traders, and Muslims are being beaten up on suspicion of eating beef, nobody can be blamed for attempting to mask their identity. It is a matter of life and livelihood for the house help, and a person chooses not to recognize it, it is more than just a difference of opinion. As Jack Cameron said, “Calling bigotry an opinion is like calling arsenic a flavor”, and unless bigotry is called out, it gets normalized.
Choosing to live in a utopian land isn’t an option either
Sakshi’s was a clear case of bigotry. But when I narrated the same incident in another group, Deepika (not her real name), who doesn’t have a single bigoted bone in her body, burst out “But, of course, what Rubia did was wrong. She shouldn’t have lied to her employer.” When we tried to explain why a person many be compelled to mask their religion, she said, “Why should anybody care about her religion. Religion doesn’t even matter anymore.” Deepika genuinely believes that since she doesn’t think the religion of a person is important, it doesn’t matter to anyone else either.
Unfortunately, only upper caste, economically well off people from the majority community have the privilege to state that religion doesn’t matter. Religion certainly matters to the young woman with the neutral sounding first name who finds the landlord no longer wants to give his flat on rent to her after hearing her surname. Religion certainly matters to the person travelling by train through a communally sensitive state and who couldn’t sleep at night for fear of what might happen if a mob saw his name on the passenger manifest.
Religion certainly matters to the mother who gets a note from her son’s school asking her to send only vegetarian snacks in the tiffin box because other parents complained about the kebabs she packed (and which were polished off by the same students who then complained). Religion certainly matters to the vendor who is no longer allowed to set up a stall at the fair where his family have been participating for decades.
If Rubia told a potential employer that her name was Rakhi, it was because she desperately needed the job, and didn’t want to be turned away because of her religion. Well-meaning people cannot blame her for doing what she did, because the reality she operates in is very different from the reality we live in. On the contrary, people with good intentions should speak up against the system that forces her to mask her identity.
Silence is not an option; our silence enables perpetrators of hate
It is extremely easy for us to say that we are not confrontational, and that we prefer not to get involved. However, at some point, remaining silent no longer remains an option.
As author, Naomi Shulman wrote, “Nice people made the best Nazis. My mom grew up next to them. They got along, refused to make waves, looked the other way when things got ugly and focused on happier things than “politics.” They were lovely people who turned their heads as their neighbors were dragged away. You know who weren’t nice people? Resisters.”
It is important for all of us to become resisters. Because if we who have a voice do not speak against injustice, who will?
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* both names changed
Cover photograph, author’s own