"THIS EARLY KNOT"

REFLECTIONS ON AHMEDABAD AND A NEW MUSLIM VOICE

- SHARIK LALIWALA

Violence is the fundamental experience that shapes Muslim life in India. Sooner or later, you will face it. There is no escaping, or, at least, there has not been so far. It permeates Muslim neighbourhoods through stories of police encounters of near and distant neighbours or of fearful families regaining their strength after dousing teargas shells. It infiltrates your dreams—remember that loud gas cylinder blast from ten years ago? It makes you fear the state, evoking a disquieting nervousness upon seeing a uniformed police official. Yet, some of us are also resilient precisely because of how the instances of violence that rocked our lives shaped us.

Amid their increasing marginality, Muslims have persistently tried to challenge and overcome societal and state barriers to their mobility. Theirs is a story of resistance against the storm of Hindu nationalism, wherein the fear and anxiety of impending and past violence does not necessarily lead to defeatism but to a renewed sense of continual struggle and defiance. This is the story that you will find in Zara Chowdhary’s recent memoir, The Lucky Ones, a patchwork narrative that recounts her childhood, family stories and years of growing up in India’s most segregated city, Ahmedabad, while relaying the political reality and harrowing violence the state witnessed in that period.