A house for Shabana Azmi

A House for Shabana Azmi


Ram Puniyani

One of the major contributions of Shabana Azmi in the arena of human rights was to work for the housing rights. It was ironical that the actor of such exceptional talents and the social activist with such dedication and commitment was denied the purchase of house, not once but twice in the locality of her choice. Voicing her pain she did comment in a TV show that Indian democracy is being unfair to the Muslims and recounted her experience. (August 2008). Apart from other people, a few from film community swooped on her, criticizing her statement as false, irresponsible, communal and what not! Even the actor of stature of Shatrughan Sinha criticized and admonished her.

One journalist from a prominent newspaper wanted to prove her wrong; he rang up few builders from his plush office and came to the conclusion that there is no discrimination in the selling of houses. One of the film persons stooped to the level of counting Azmi’s houses, and said that if Muslims are denied they should be living on the streets! Such ‘brilliant’ logic in a sensitive socio political issue can only be expected from those who live in the ivory towers unaware of the social realities.

To begin with, it is a not an issue as to how many houses Azmi owns. The point is that she wished to buy a particular house and the broker told her she cannot get it as she is a Muslim. Muslims are not living on streets, but a large section of them has to live in ghettos, is known to all and sundry barring the one’s wearing saffron glasses. There are colonies of Parsis and Jains and vegetarians who do not let those not belonging to their ilk to buy the flats in their colonies. This trend can neither be idolized nor be compared to the large social phenomenon of Muslims being denied housing, as these communities (Jains, Parsis) themselves are too tiny, their reasons and their inward looking tendencies are retrograde but having different socio-psychological reasons. The case of Muslims came more to the fore from the decades of Nineties, after the communal politics has started threatening the democratic polity in a serious way, resulting in increase in the intensity of communal violence.

The Mumbai violence of 92-93 was followed by the internal migration of the battered minority. Many from minority were displaced or chose to shift to areas, which may be safer for them, Mumbra, Jogeshwari, Bhendi Bazar being the foremost. Incidentally the population of Mumbra before the violence was less than a lakh; today it is more than 7 Lakhs! Similarly many a friends from minority community sold their houses in the mixed areas to shift to the Muslim majority areas, increasing the pressure on civic amenities in those areas.

In Gujarat also ‘borders’, ‘Gaza Strips’ have come up to supplement the ‘mini Pakistans’. As the extent of myths, biases, stereotypes against minorities are going through the roof, the mental partitions are created and these partitions get converted in to the ones of brick and mortar. The communal partitions are the definite aftermath of the communal violence. In Gujarat, the victims of violence were not permitted to return into their own houses, even the written undertakings were demanded from the victims that they will not seek legal justice for whatever happened to them during the violence.

Today, six years after the Gujarat carnage, nearly five lakhs Muslims have to live in isolated ghettoes, and that too in abysmal situations. The extension of civic and other amenities to these areas is conspicuous by its absence. Water, sanitation, health, education, banking and other amenities and facilities are not reaching these areas. These internally displaced people are being helped only by conservative Muslim groups, who are competing with each other in increasing their area of influence amongst them. This is also becoming the zone with poverty, illiteracy, hunger, disease and misery. These conditions are worst in the whole of state. Since the state is shirking from its basic responsibilities of provision of infrastructure for social life, the Muslim fundamentalist groups are providing the same and are also having a field day in these areas. Who is to blame for this, a particular religion or the communal politics which not only resulted in the massive genocide but even now is dictating the state policies by abandoning the responsibilities of the victims of violence and others from minorities who have felt insecure and shifted or were made to shift in these areas!

The message of communal agenda manifested through violence and through creating difficult situation for minorities is now isolating them in most parts of India. So one can see the trajectory of violence as follows, it begins with pre violence biases, stereotypes, then violence, post violence neglect, isolation, ghettoization and finally leads to partitioning of the national community at emotional and physical level.


The communal violence always polarizes the communities. In the initial phase till, say the seventies, the ghettoisation was minimal. From the decade of nineties, on one hand the communal violence has gone into higher gear, ‘hate other’ sentiments have worsened and this ‘non sale of housing units to the Muslim minority’ started becoming unwritten norm. What can be more ironical than the fact that a housing rights activist herself is denied the house, just because she carries a Muslim name!

The second irony is that the RSS politics, which is based on Brahminical values, codes of Manu in a modern form, the caste system in a subtle form, which disguises it by coining the term ‘integral nationalism’ is creating new ghettoes. The traditional Varna system created the ghettoes for untouchables. This social thinking, finding place in Brahiminical tomes justified the exclusion of dalits from the villages. So separate housing for them. Typically Maharwadas (dalit ghettoes outside villages) in Maharashtra were the norm. Now the same thinking is creating new untouchables, and so barring few exceptions the average and even middle class Muslims have to look for housing in ‘special areas’.

Critics of Azmi deliberately overlook the social reality being created due to the politics of communalism. Due to the rise of communal violence, due to the social common thinking which is becoming worse by the day, its worst culmination goes on to equate terrorism with Islam and Muslims.

Most of those involved with social work do come across such cases of discrimination times and over again. No builder in majority, mixed area is going to put the hoarding that Muslims are not acceptable, it operates subtly. There have been sting operations also where this fact has been brought to light. Surely going by Azmi’s experience, one only feels that now even a person totally seeped in Indian-ness, upholding human ethos with utmost sincerity, can also be denied house because of her Muslim name! Normally it should be a matter of honor that such an accomplished actor and committed rights activist lives in one’s neighbouhood. If she is denied the house the only inference is that the communal partitions are near total.

Where is national integration? During freedom movement, the major task of father of the nation was to cultivate and highlight the national Indian community. That’s how people of different religions joined the movement, shoulder to shoulder to build Indian nation, Indian community. What is going on with the rise of communalism is not merely the violence against this or that community; it is an assault on the values of Indian nationhood, on the values emerging from freedom movement. We do need a second freedom movement, freedom from communal mindset, freedom from the divisive politics in the name of religion?

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ram.puniyani@gmail.com