I was once that teen, just another kid navigating changes. But what set my experience apart, what stripped away the innocence of that growth, was my identity as a Muslim. More specifically, as a Bengali Muslim in a part of India, I hesitate to name out of fear. In that region, being Bengali Muslim meant being seen as a pest, an “illegal” outsider, something so subhuman that it needed to be erased.
At the time, I didn’t have the vocabulary or the wider worldview to explain the phenomenon, but I knew something was not right. I could feel the weight of prejudice, the suffocating grip of xenophobia, even if I couldn’t fully articulate it. I’m certain I wasn’t alone. Growing up Muslim in such an environment forces you to mature in ways kids of your age don’t. It accelerates your political awareness, making you see and understand things far earlier than your peers.
Two years ago, when the hijab ban was enforced in schools and colleges across Karnataka, I was still working full-time at Alt News, a fact-checking and media literacy-focused organisation in India. It was a busy time for me—I had just finished my undergraduate thesis, and the world was beginning to emerge from the COVID lockdowns. Amid all this, part of my job involved watching interviews of the hijab-donning Muslim girls who were barred from entering the institutions they had studied at for years. It was a self-assigned exercise so that I could be familiar with the faces and context, had there been a need to fact-check something and part of it was just curiosity to know what was happening. These students had been betrayed, not only by their peers, who eagerly supported denying them their right to education, but also by their teachers and principals, who readily endorsed these discriminatory policies.
As I watched these interviews, I couldn’t help but notice how articulate and politically aware these Muslim students were compared to their peers who were also interviewed by reporters on the ground. These Muslim kids were about to miss out on critical exams and potentially a year or more of their education, yet they carried themselves with intelligence and resilience. I kept thinking about how incredibly bright and deserving these students were, even as the system worked against them. Eventually with the change in state government, the hijab ban gradually faded away, but I often find myself wondering—where are those kids now? What became of them after enduring such deep pain and humiliation, simply because of their religious identity? While their peers moved through their academic programs as if nothing had ever happened, these girls were forced to navigate the crushing weight of exclusion, shame, and lost opportunities.
I wonder how that experience has shaped them. Did they find a way to reclaim their education and their futures, or were they left behind by a system that so easily discarded them? What scars do they carry from being told they didn’t belong, from watching their classmates sail through life while their own world was upended? It haunts me to think that this was their reality, that a bright and promising future was put on hold, perhaps indefinitely in that moment, all because of a piece of cloth and the faith it represents.
Like their peers, I moved on—partly because my work required it. There was so much happening at that time, Alt News’ co-founder Mohammed Zubair had been arrested by the Delhi Police over a social media post, which contained a screengrab from an obscure Bollywood film, which was a wordplay on a Hindu deity; every day brought new forms of violence and injustice, and it became impossible to keep track of it all. As I evolved from a fact-checker to an open-source researcher, I found my footing and confidence in covering these issues in my way.
At Alt News, we were gradually developing a focus on tracking inflammatory speeches made by prominent faces, many of whom were Hindutva figures. The task was straightforward but critical: using foundational open-source research and journalistic methods, we would document, transcribe, and translate these speeches to understand when, where, and what kinds of dangerous ideas were being spread. It was a gruelling process, often demoralising, listening to speech after speech filled with hatred and vitriol, and manually recording every word, there was no way to automate this process. Tools do not comprehend the various accents of India. I was acutely aware of how delicate this work was. I knew that if challenged in a court of law, my reporting had to be airtight—standing solely on its own merits.
What kept me going was the commitment to objectivity. I meticulously analysed and broke down specific comments and conspiracy theories with the utmost honesty, even when they were drenched in bigotry. Throughout, I had to steel myself, often ignoring the constant barrage of dehumanising remarks made against my own community. It wasn’t easy, but I believed in the power of truth and documentation, no matter how uncomfortable the process was.
After all, journalism is the first draft of history. Eventually, it took a toll on me and I decided to quit. It was not because I was unhappy at my work, I just couldn’t keep up with these hateful remarks. I thought I was brave and more resilient than others because I had seen it all growing up, turns out, I wasn’t that brave. Despite serving my notice period, I continued to subject myself to these videos, and with those videos parallelly, videos of cow vigilantes assaulting Muslim youth would appear on the social media feed. I would see myself in every video. What if that was me? What if it was someone I love?
Then came another video, another assault, another hate crime. Some left me more hurt than others. In August 2023, a video emerged from Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh, showing a teacher instructing her students to slap a Muslim boy while she made hateful remarks against his community. The boy was in the second grade—far too young to understand what was happening, too young to be as articulate compared to the girls barred from entering their schools and universities for wearing hijabs in Karnataka. But like so many of us, this child is now forced to grow up faster than he should, his innocence stolen simply because of his identity.
A year later, another video surfaced—another child, another school. This time, a seven-year-old boy from Amroha, Uttar Pradesh, was expelled for bringing “non-veg biryani” in his lunchbox. In the video, the principal could be heard saying he “won’t teach children who will demolish temples when they grow up,” going so far as to accuse the child of attempting to convert others through food. This boy was in the third grade.
Both of these kids, barely old enough to tie their shoes, are now marked by these experiences—forced to navigate a world that’s hostile to their existence, burdened with a premature awareness of the hate that surrounds them. The simple acts of being in school, of bringing lunch from home, become acts of defiance in the eyes of those who see their faith as a threat. These children, just beginning to understand the world, are already being taught that they are different and that they don’t belong. And in this, they are forced to grow up far too soon.
The despair
When Narendra Modi came to power in 2014, I was just 14 years old. Despite the xenophobia I had already experienced, I remained hopeful. I wasn’t aware of the horrors of 2002, and the liberal elite of the country filled their columns and editorials with praise, claiming that the Modi era would transform India. This false optimism intoxicated me—I wanted to believe in a better future.
By 2015, after the lynching of Mohammed Akhlaq—one of the first to be brutally murdered by a mob on the mere suspicion that he had beef in his fridge—I thought his name would be etched in my memory forever. I couldn’t wrap my head around how a person could be killed over something as trivial as a dietary preference, something so personal, so ordinary.
But as the years passed, more and more people were lynched, and the unimaginable became routine. Slowly, the names blurred into numbers, each new tragedy overshadowing the last. Akhlaq’s name, once a symbol of the horror I couldn’t forget, eventually became a stand-in for the countless others who suffered the same fate—an emblem for all those whose lives were stolen by mob violence. The reality had hit hard. Something had shifted in the country, and despair began to settle in.
I was too young to change the world, but I quickly realised I could make small changes in my own life, and in my family’s, to keep us safe. Simple things became acts of survival. I urged my Abba (father) to permanently turn off the Athan (call to prayer) reminders on his phone. Any visible markers that could identify us as Muslim in public needed to be erased—the topi (skull cap) was left behind, and prayers were confined to designated spaces like airport prayer halls. Even carrying something as innocuous as chicken in a tiffin box became a risk not worth taking.
As I grew older and entered journalism, the reports of attacks became relentless, and I was bombarded daily with news reports and baseless conspiracies like Love Jihad and Thook Jihad (Translation: Spit Jihad). It felt like living in a never-ending game of whack-a-mole, always trying to stay one step ahead of potential danger and conspiracies. I had to constantly ask myself, How can I avoid becoming the next target? Should I even attend the birthday party of a Hindu friend? And if I do, she’s a woman—what if someone assumes I have some ulterior motive? Am I being overly paranoid? Absolutely not.
This has happened to other Muslim kids, and there’s no reason to believe it couldn’t happen to me. I also made sure to avoid other potential risks, like steering clear of buying books with certain provocative titles. Some authors publish works with catchy, attention-grabbing names like How to Kill a Democracy, How Propaganda Works, or The Anarchist Cookbook. It’s not a critique of these authors—they’re writing on important topics. But as a Muslim man, I understand all too well that in the eyes of law enforcement—if I am ever found in possession of such book—the content of these books won’t matter. The title alone is enough to cast suspicion, to brand me a terrorist, a foreign spy, or whatever label is most convenient at the moment.
It’s not just books, either. I’ve deliberately chosen not to run any form of community or clubs or even create something as simple as innocuous as a WhatsApp group and continue to be its admin. In today’s climate, anything and everything can be framed as a medium for radicalisation. A simple discussion group could be twisted into something sinister by those eager to fit a narrative of Muslim extremism.
Living in this kind of fear doesn’t just change your behaviour, it changes the way you see the world. Every decision, no matter how trivial, feels fraught with the possibility of violence, misunderstanding, or worse. It’s a constant negotiation between staying true to your identity and staying safe.
On days when I’m swamped with work and my beloved mother goes to the market alone in her burqa, my heart sinks with fear. I’m consumed with worry that someone might attack her, and this constant anxiety gnaws at me, robbing me of sleep. How could I rest, knowing the dangers that lurk? Just last year, a Railway Protection Force officer shot dead three Muslims and a Hindu colleague, praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi right after the killings. These aren’t nightmares or irrational fears—this is the grim reality we live in.
In 2017, a 16-year-old boy, Junaid Khan, was stabbed to death on a train by a mob accusing him and his companions of carrying beef in their bags. And just last year, in early September, 72-year-old Haji Ashraf Ali Sayyed was physically by a group of men on a train. These incidents aren’t isolated—they are part of the terrifying world we navigate daily. Every time my mother steps outside, I wonder if she will return safely. This is our reality, not just in news reports or distant tragedies, but in the very fabric of our everyday lives. What’s even more horrifying is that today mass violence has been replaced, and the scale of riots that happened in the 80s and 90s is now a rare occurrence. The violence today happens in pockets, they are self-contained so that people move past it quickly. It’s more effective without creating a global embarrassment and continues to strike terrors in our hearts.
In late September, a three-year-old girl and her mother died in Maharashtra’s Latur after five men in a car allegedly ran over a Muslim family travelling on a motorcycle. The men had chased the Muslim family for five kilometres following an argument over driving.
Sadique Shaikh, who was riding the motorcycle, has alleged that the men who chased him and his family had also used communal slurs and said “Muslims need to be taught a lesson.”
What happens after?
Sometimes I find myself wondering—what if Modi were no longer in power? Would it really change anything? Would the fear, the bigotry, the oppression vanish the way the hijab ban slowly disappeared in Karnataka after a regime change? A part of me wants to hold on to that hope, to believe that a shift in leadership could lead to a shift in the atmosphere. But deep down, I know I’m asking for too much.
The truth is, that the fabric of Indian society has been altered in ways that go far beyond any one political leader. The hate, the divisiveness, and the systemic discrimination we see today are not just the products of the last decade—they are the culmination of nearly a century of groundwork laid by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological wing of the BJP. This isn’t just a political era, it’s the result of a long and calculated project designed to inject communal hatred into the very DNA of the nation.
Even if Modi were to go, the structures that uphold this hate—the ideologies, the institutions, the social norms—are deeply entrenched. It’s a machine that has been running for generations, and it won’t stop just because the figurehead changes. It’s heartbreaking to admit, but reversing this damage could take another century, if not more. I want to be hopeful, I want to believe that change is possible, but when the roots of hate have been nurtured for so long, it’s hard to imagine an India that can easily untangle itself from this darkness.
When I started writing this, I thought I would pour my heart into it—lay out my anxieties, one by one, as if that would somehow release the weight. This was going to be my therapy, my experiment to free myself of these sleepless nights. But as I made progress, I found myself spiralling. I don’t want to face this reality. I just want to rest, or maybe fall into a long sleep and wake up in some distant, possible future where all of this is over. The mental agony is unbearable. It feels as though we are chronicling our own demise, recording the slow disintegration of our lives, our dignity, and our self-respect. What we once held dear, the pride and honour we had in ourselves, has been pushed so far to the background that it’s barely recognisable.
Now, survival and securing a future for the next generation have become the only priorities. Like so many others, I feel like a sheep, driven by one overwhelming instinct—to protect the people I love. Everything else, every dream, every aspiration I once held, has been let go. I have surrendered it all in the face of a world that seems intent on erasing us. My ambitions now feel irrelevant, replaced by a primal need to shield my family from the relentless hate that surrounds us. As I write this, I fear and wonder, is my home going to be the next home that is demolished using a bulldozer? Would I ever forgive myself if I ended up being the reason my parents to not have a roof over their heads?
It’s exhausting, knowing that just existing, just trying to live a quiet life, can be an act of resistance, or is it? Every day, I’m weighed down by the uncertainty of what comes next. Will it get better? Or is this the future we are forced to accept—one where our dreams are sacrificed at the altar of survival, where the only victory is making it through another day without incident? I want to believe in something brighter, but that belief is slipping away, and I don’t know if I’ll ever get it back.
Kalim Ahmed is a columnist and open-source researcher specialising in technology, meme culture and disinformation.
