HYDERABAD: The concluding session of the Hyderabad Literary Festival (HLF) strayed into the communal polarisation post-Babri Masjid demolition and the identity crisis of the ‘minority-within-minority’ communities. Though the subject was delicate, light hearted comments from the panel members ignited smiles among the audience. It was a pleasant Sunday and the writers and visitors enjoyed the jovial mood.
Writers Tabish Khair, Zafar Anjum, Esther David and Flavia Agnes came together on stage for a panel discussion on ‘Minding the Minority’ and talked about being a Jew in Gujarat, a single Christian feminist activist, and an intellectual Bihari Muslim settled abroad. The discussion concluded exploring the identity crisis of a minority-within-minority individual.
Zafar Anjum, the moderator, threw open the discussion asking them how belonging to a minority section shaped them as writers. “I grew up as a Muslim in a small town of Bihar called Gaya. My identification was of minority-within-minority-within-minority as India is a country of minorities in different brackets,” said Tabish Khair. “I am considered a minority Christian,” quipped Flavia Agnes as the audience burst into a laughter. “After Babri Masjid demolition suddenly everybody had a specific identity. I was working in a slum and to hide my Brahmin Christian identity, I took the name of Kavita. Flavia sounds such a tongue twister. And suddenly I transformed into this plain-sari-wearing feminist with long earrings and a bun. All of a sudden I became a minority academic activist with traces of feminism”, recalled Flavia.
Dressed brightly in earthen tones of brown, maroon, red and rust was writer Esther David who left the audience chuckling as she revealed, “I am a Jew and I was living in Gujarat. So after 2002, I was Guj-Jew!” She talked about a funny old woman character in her book ‘Book of Rachel’ who tries to protect the last synagogue for the Jews.
“I tried changing my name to Asha as Esther is terrifying to some. When Jews came to India all their paraphernalia was lost in a ship-wreck. They were employed in oil-pressing work. Then the Jews became this lower caste ‘telis’ thanks to the profession of tel,” she added as the crowd giggled.
Zafar next took the discussion to the question of clash of civilisations. Tabish Khair took the mic and grinned, “I want to dress in an artsy manner but I cannot as I might be declared a Maoist!”
As the crowd broke into laughing he added, “Matters regarding life and death are serious but can be really funny sometimes. For example, for funeral ceremonies there used to be two tents in our house; one for non-vegetarians and the other for the vegetarians with a plump Maharaj cooking the rice vegetables.”
The next point was how media is portraying the minorities. Esther was serious as she replied that there was lot of biased reporting.
There’s a lot of biased reporting in regional media. People assume that since I am from the community of Bani Israel I am anti-Muslim. I want to tell them I am just another Indian.” Adding to it Flavia said, “There was this play ‘Agnes of God’ and suddenly everybody was protesting. We also protested. You have to be fundamental sometimes to be a minority.”
Tabish Khair summed up the discussion mentioning, “Now, the time is up to tell loud and clear, yes I’m a beef-eating Hindu or a pork-eating Muslim.” The audience dispersed with laughing their heads off.