Last week when the video of a Muslim student confronting his teacher at Manipal University in Karnataka went viral, it triggered an unpleasant memory in the mind of 21-year-old Humza Siddique.
In the video, which sparked a massive uproar on social media, a young engineering student berates his teacher, telling him that it was not funny to crack jokes about his religious identity. The teacher had compared his Muslim student to Ajaml Kasab, the Pakistani terrorist who had attacked Mumbai in 2008.
Siddique had a similarly traumatic experience in 2019, after five Muslims were killed in alleged police firing in Meerut in 2019, at the height of the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act. The law which, for the first time, introduced a religious element into Indian citizenship law, had sparked off demonstrations across the country.
When the news of the violence reached his classroom, Siddique recalled his teacher turning on him. “My teacher said, ‘these people [referring to Muslims] will never accept any law’,” Siddique said, speaking to Scroll.in. “Then he looked at me and said, ‘You know how to throw stones’. My other classmates, many of whom were my friends, laughed it off as if nothing happened.”
Like Sidique, many young Muslims Scroll.in spoke to said they could relate to the experience of the Manipal University student. Against the backdrop of rising extremism in Indian society and politics, they too had faced hate inside the classroom, both from peers and, even more troublingly, from teachers.
A Professor in a class room in India calling a Muslim student ‘terrorist’ – This is what it has been to be a minority in India! pic.twitter.com/EjE7uFbsSi
— Ashok Swain (@ashoswai) November 27, 2022
This story was originally published in scroll.in . Read the full story here
