Indian Muslims Have Learned to Hide Our Identities. We Shouldn’t Have to

As an Indian Muslim, I have learned to say many words in whispers. The thought recently struck me when my husband and I were at a McDonald’s in Thailand that casually offered beef burgers to customers. The word “beef” felt oddly jarring to me. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

Unlike in India, beef is just another ingredient: unremarkable, uncontroversial, undeserving of a national debate.

It had been a long time since I’d even heard the word beef spoken freely. In India, I don’t say it. Not at restaurants, not in conversations, not even in my own house. I’ve learned to avoid it. To swallow it mid-sentence. To pretend it doesn’t exist. 

Beef is more than food in India, a majority Hindu nation. A rumor of beef possession or cow slaughter, and Muslims or Dalits have found themselves at the center of a mob lynching. Which is why I have erased it from my vocabulary, trained myself to avoid it, and made sure my Muslim friends and family do the same.

I know that suspicion is enough to kill because I have reported on hate crimes against minorities for more than half a decade. The script is often the same: the crowd swells, accusations fly, fists land, and the spectacle is sometimes even filmed. The names of the victims fade into background noise. The victims’ families, meanwhile, are left navigating endless court dates.

But here we were, in a fast food chain that offered beef burgers. Even outside our state’s borders, the image of the burger still scares me. “No one cares whether your name matches your lunch order,” my husband reminded me. Back in India, consuming beef is illegal in most states, and rigid caste structures govern who can eat what. Restaurants proudly advertise themselves as “100% pure vegetarian.” He was right. No one here cared what I ate. And yet, for a moment, I couldn’t shake the thought: What a strange, unnecessary weight we carry back home. How heavy!

I had first realized the burden of my identity in India in 2020, during the Delhi riots, when at least 50 people were killed, most of them Muslim, by violent mobs. My safety came down to something as simple as hiding my name.

Petrol stations ablaze, tires set on fire, and hurled at fleeing people. Bricks laying in neat stacks, waiting to be weapons. Mobs armed with sticks and rods roamed freely. Police complicity. I was reporting for News18’s Firstpost on the communal riots, sparked by a discriminatory citizenship law proposed by the Hindu nationalist BJP government, which would permit some Hindu, Parsi, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, and Christian refugees to fast-track their nationality but not Muslim ones. When men wielding lathis asked me my name, I answered: Isha. And just like that, I was safe. That was the day I thought: Every Indian Muslim should invest in a second name.

At first, it was just a passing thought. But then I started noticing how many others had arrived at the same conclusion. They were tweaking their names on cab apps, changing drop-off locations, and some were telling me of putting a small bindi on their forehead. All attempts to soften the sharp edges of their identity just enough to avoid trouble.

Yet even that is no guarantee of safety. For years, some Muslim street vendors have used religion-neutral names like Raja or Sonu, a simple tweak to keep business running smoothly and avoid an economic boycott. 

But over the past two terms of the Hindu nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, these vendors were accused of hiding their identity, of pretending to be Hindu. It is no longer just about having a Muslim name but about the audacity of not having one visible enough.

For example, in July 2024, Yogi Adityanath, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, ordered shops and eateries along the route of the Kanwar Yatra Hindu pilgrimage to display their legal names. The move was seen as an attempt to single out Muslim-owned businesses. The order was fortunately blocked by India’s Supreme Court.

The problem anyway never ended at the market stall. An alias will not always save you when your very existence is already a disqualification. A landlord will backtrack the moment they hear your real name. A broker will suddenly remember that the flat has been taken. An employer will hesitate, then say they’re looking for someone else. You can try to disappear into an alias, but eventually, someone will see you for who you are. You can soften the syllables, shorten the name, and pretend to be something else. But at some point, the truth catches up, and the answer remains the same.

Many Indian Muslims are retreating into Muslim spaces. But they are being surveyed, renamed, or even disappearing. The places where we once belonged now feel abandoned, watched, or unwelcome.

Read More: The Message the Ram Temple Sends Muslims Like Me

Take the BJP’s proposed Waqf Amendment. It could strip Waqf properties—donated by Indian Muslims over the centuries—of their legal protections and open them up for state control or reallocation. Thousands of mosques, dargahs, and cemeteries that stand on Waqf land that have served communities for generations are now at risk.

At the same time, those who dared to protest or mobilize for Muslim rights face the prospect of crackdowns. During the protests against the controversial citizenship law, several activists, including students and community leaders, were arrested under anti-terrorism laws.

So, where does that leave us? I have tried to adjust. To learn the art of vanishing. To keep my voice neutral. To not look too religious. To smile just enough. To learn to downplay my identity in conversations. To self-police my social media posts. To move through public places with quiet calculation. Yet I have always wondered if this quiet, internalized fear is the biggest tragedy of all. The moment a Muslim self-censors their own words, lowers their voice, erases a part of themselves, the job is done.

A name is a fragile thing. It can slow down a job application, deny a rental application, or trigger an extra glance at airport security. But fear, like a name, is also fragile. I have learned the art of vanishing but I no longer want to vanish.

A simple order at a McDonald’s in Thailand was a reminder of this. I am slowly trying to learn that there is power in being seen, in just being. Some days, I am forced to be Isha. On others, my very name Ismat is a political statement. On those days, I am exactly who I was meant to be.