By Ismat Ara
As an Indian Muslim, I have learned to say many words in whispers. The thought recently struck me when my husband and I were at a McDonald’s in Thailand that casually offered beef burgers to customers. The word “beef” felt oddly jarring to me.
Unlike in India, beef is just another ingredient: unremarkable, uncontroversial, undeserving of a national debate.
It had been a long time since I’d even heard the word beef spoken freely. In India, I don’t say it. Not at restaurants, not in conversations, not even in my own house. I’ve learned to avoid it. To swallow it mid-sentence. To pretend it doesn’t exist.
Beef is more than food in India, a majority Hindu nation. A rumor of beef possession or cow slaughter, and Muslims or Dalits have found themselves at the center of a mob lynching. Which is why I have erased it from my vocabulary, trained myself to avoid it, and made sure my Muslim friends and family do the same.
I know that suspicion is enough to kill because I have reported on hate crimes against minorities for more than half a decade. The script is often the same: the crowd swells, accusations fly, fists land, and the spectacle is sometimes even filmed. The names of the victims fade into background noise. The victims’ families, meanwhile, are left navigating endless court dates.
But here we were, in a fast food chain that offered beef burgers. Even outside our state’s borders, the image of the burger still scares me. “No one cares whether your name matches your lunch order,” my husband reminded me. Back in India, consuming beef is illegal in most states, and rigid caste structures govern who can eat what. Restaurants proudly advertise themselves as “100% pure vegetarian.” He was right. No one here cared what I ate. And yet, for a moment, I couldn’t shake the thought: What a strange, unnecessary weight we carry back home. How heavy!
I had first realized the burden of my identity in India in 2020, during the Delhi riots, when at least 50 people were killed, most of them Muslim, by violent mobs. My safety came down to something as simple as hiding my name.
This story was originally published in time.com. Read the full story here.