A producer with the US National Public Radio (NPR), Furkan Khan had tweeted on September 9 – “If Indians give up on Hinduism, they will also be solving most of their problems. What with all the piss drinking and dung worshipping,”. The backlash on social media was instant, not only because the tweet had uncanny parallels with messages of the Pulwama terrorist who killed 40 CRPF jawans in Kashmir, in February this year but also because it was an irresponsible tweet.

It is a known fact that the Partition of India which culminated into the formation of Pakistan was the largest and bloodiest mass migration in history. Generations grew up with the historical wound etched on their psyches, which festered and often erupted in the sporadic communal riots all through the seven decades of this event. Even today, no micro fight, or obscenity flung in an argument, or communal riot is without invoking the murders, pillage and assaults on women that occurred both sides of the border.

Kashmir, of which Ms Khan frequently seems to be tweeting about, does test this existence of both the nations since they claim it as their own. For Pakistan, it is the national policy starting from the 1947 raids to Zia’s war room plans that have ossified in the charter of the ISI and the Pakistan “fauj” as Ghazwa-e-Hind. For India it is the much needed secular credentials that New Delhi “controlled” or manipulated right through the 50s, 60s and 70s until the disgruntled youth turned to Pakistan post the 1987 meddling of election results and brought Jihad into the Valley. The “Tehreek” of the 90s, as is known to the first generation of conflict, or the “Azadi” Resistance Movement (that the Millennial Leftists like to whitewash off its Green and the GoI liked to appease Reagan style) has till date resulted in two generations exposed to violence and trauma and a third just getting caught up in it. Incidentally, the BJP-led Government abrogated Article 370 which had given Special Status to Kashmir on August 5, breaking the status quo.

So what Kashmir tests for Pakistan is its whole existence based on the two-nation theory, never mind that the theory was bunked by the creation of Bangladesh (Pakistanis promptly blame India for this, conveniently forgetting the genocide that the Pak Army regulars were committing there when Indira Gandhi the then Indian PM was approached by the Bangladeshis). Anecdotally, we still have a sizeable population of Bangladeshi refugees in India, and the aid that was globally collected for the Bangladesh famine victims in the 80s still gets sold on the Residency Road of Srinagar as “BD (Bangladeshi) maal”.

Kashmir tests India for its secularism and the idea of India, meaning that minorities in India live freely and equally – a theory tested every day since 1947 to the present. Pick up any national paper and the evidence is clear – the lynchings; the apartheid against Muslims in cities vis a vis renting boarding/lodgings; the Batla House encounter; Dalit killings and daily humiliations; justice delayed and denied in the Anti-Sikh riots of 1984 – the list can go on and on.

An irresponsible tweet such as the above puts oil on an already smoldering tinderbox of passions, historical wounds, emotions, religious fervour and nationalistic or tribal loyalties. It is already an uphill task to suggest reform in Muslim societies as advocated by the great, yet obscure intellectual Hamid Dalwai. The rise of the right globally doesn’t help the cause of reform with Muslimphobia on the rise. Of course, the onus is not just on Muslims, but in the backdrop of the 9/11 tragedy and closer home to 26/11 events, Muslims have a greater responsibility to rise up for reform.

It doesn’t mean that the right-leaning Hindus get scot-free with their open Muslimphobia. It just means that bigots and extremists both sides have to realise they can’t nuke each other out of the country. If we as a country have to progress then it will mean an overhauling of our societies on a massive scale. I can speak for reform in Muslim societies what I see as my personal conscientious responsibility. After having witnessed the ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Pandits and seculars from my home state (currently a Union Territory) by Jihadi groups with a manufactured consent guaranteed through coercion and terror by non-state actors and their overground workers, I find it all the more important for this overhauling of the mindset.

Madam Khan is well within her rights to ridicule religions as the Ex-Muslims of North America, an organization founded in 2013 in Washington D. C. by Sarah Haider and Muhammad Syed, the first organization of its kind to “establish communities exclusive to ex-Muslims in order to foster a sense of camaraderie and offer a space free of judgement for lack of religiosity” tweeted – ” Indian journalist made to apologize for criticizing Hinduism. No one should be threatened with arrests and silenced because others are offended. Religious bullying and entitlement are not exclusive to any one faith”.

But I believe it was an irresponsible tweet, not without the intrinsic hatred that comes for “Endians” or the “kafirs”. There’s a sizeable population of Kashmiris living, working, and bringing up children in India. A tweet like that means we won’t find ourselves at the receiving end of a tweet about camel piss but a sword – as brandished by the Gujarat saffron-clad rioter Ashok Parmar. Yet this is India. The idea of India lives on as is evident from the heart-warming and healing story of Ashok Parmar’s shoe shop inaugurated recently by Qutubuddin Ansari, the face of hapless pleading in the Godhra riots of 2002. The ‘Ekta Chappal Shop’ keeps the hopes of Kashmiri Indians alive. A tweet like Ms Khan’s unravels the long struggle towards healing.