The Ever-Yielding Muslim: Exemplary Tales as Dehumanization

Saw this thread (linked here) about Bipin Chandra Pal yesterday on Twitter. To summarize it shortly: young Bipin used to drink lemonade from a Muslim vendor, which angered his Pundit father until Bipin was ill and lemonade was the only cure, thus forcing the Pundit to go buy some from Muslim sellers. Somehow, this here is construed as an inspiring tale of communal harmony. But we do not truly know if that yielding to Muslim-made lemonade ever became something more than a one-off act of desperation, whether or not it cured Bipin's father of UC Hindu supremacist notions—and we certainly know that it did absolutely nothing to veer Indian Hindu society away from its course of virulent Islamophobia today. 

There is a similar story I heard recently attributed to Peer Muhammad Appa R.A., the Tamil Muslim mystic of Thuckalay. As a child, Peerappa used to play with his friend, the son of a Brahmin priest. One day, he and his friend happened to go for a swim in the same sacred pond the town's Brahmins bathed in daily. Furious at the fact that a Muslim had "polluted" the pond, the father of Peerappa's friend, along with the whole agraharam, forbade Peerappa from coming into their neighborhood or playing with their children ever again. 

Soon after, the priest's son became frail, sickly, and speedily approached his deathbed. Honoring his son's final wishes, the priest broke his oath and finally invited Peerappa over to bid farewell to the boy. This was where Peerappa requested the priest family for buttermilk, which they gave him, albeit a bit confusedly. Peerappa partook of it, his saliva mixing with the cup—then, he gently fed the rest of the buttermilk to his friend. As a result of his Karamat (miraculous ability), the sickly friend suddenly jumped back to life, and the overjoyed and awe-struck Brahmin family acknowledged both their previous mistake along with the blessed and divine nature of Peerappa.

Stories like this can indeed make us feel good and hopeful for a better tomorrow. They can even serve as tools for social cohesion—in the Peerappa story, the same Brahmin family allegedly served milk at his kanduri/uroos festival for generations after. But it also makes me wonder: Is love or even bare civility for the Muslim yielded only if he is heroic? What if someone like Peerappa had not come to see his friend, and what if the Muslim lemonade vendor had refused to sell to Bipin Chandra Pal's father? Would that suddenly justify how they had been treated by upper caste Hindu society prior to the miraculous event? Maybe it is time to rethink why we place so much of the burden of communal harmony upon marginalized communities' (including the caste oppressed) decision to be the better, more selfless party in all of these one-sided, discriminatory interactions. When one reflects upon that, these stories ring less of inspiration and more of tragedy and the failure of Indian society to change for the better, despite consistent sacrifice and the constant remaking of the epitomized "good Muslim," "good Dalit," etc. exemplary tales. 

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