Here’s an unpopular opinion about some of our Muslim liberal friends. And our response to their professed ideology.
Imagine a Hindu liberal friend. Open-minded. Secular. Always critical of religion. Their wall is full of posts, memes, and articles calling out Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism, or Judaism. But never casteism. Never Hindu regressive habits. Never Hindu leaders. Never anything about Hinduism. Now, even if all these criticisms about non-Hindu religions are factually correct, here’s a question: Are they truly liberal? Or are they just another bigot? Worse, are they not a bigger threat to this society and its fabric because they wear the mask of secular humanism to disguise their hatred?
Why, I ask? Why do we instinctively dislike such people?
Because being critical of other religions while sparing one’s own reeks of hypocrisy. It exposes bias. It screams privilege. If you’re truly liberal, shouldn’t your own house come first? Shouldn’t you have the moral courage to call out injustices within your community before speaking for others? Not because other victims don’t deserve solidarity but because starting with your own shows sincerity, not a façade of false virtue.
The hallmark of a true liberal is the ability and ease with which they look into the mirror. It’s how critical they are of the pyramid of privilege they personally sit on. It’s how unflinchingly they denounce their own position at the apex of the social order. If the first person you censure, mock, and ridicule isn’t your own self, the system that sustains your privilege, and the society that it exploits, then you are not a liberal. You are a virtue-signalling hypocrite with a saviour complex.
Now flip the script.
Think of Muslim liberals you know. Those who never critique their own faith but have endless commentary on every other religion on their wall. They speak the loudest against caste, against the infusion of religion into politics, against majoritarianism, even on international issues like fascism, Zionism, and so on, and most of it on the money—pitch perfect, just like you’d have spoken. But never, ever on Islam. Nothing on Muslim nations. Silence on Muslim leaders in and outside India. Not a critical word on unscrupulous preachers and open misogyny on their own side. No opinion on blasphemy. No comment on the plight of lower caste converts, or women, or polygamy, or widespread illiteracy. Just. Crickets.
Why do we let it slide? Why the free pass?
Is it fear? Are we so worried about being labelled as punching down or victim-blaming that we ignore the obvious? Are we so trapped by our own notions of the ‘greater good’ that we let truth take a backseat? Isn’t this ‘Chandrachudian’ liberalism—which places optics above fairness, where the need for justice to be seen as done outweighs the actual dispensation of justice?
Here’s the thing: If selective criticism exposes Hindu liberals as biased bigots in secular clothing, the same standard applies to Muslim liberals. Or anyone else, for that matter. You don’t get to demand justice for others while ignoring it in your backyard. Especially that which is right under your own ass. That’s not liberalism. That’s performance.
If we can call out one, why not the other?
So, let me ask you: Do you have friends like this? The ones who spare no effort in dissecting everyone else’s faith but remain silent about their own? Why don’t you call them out?
Liberalism without self-reflection is just a costume. Take it off. Or wear it properly. The choice is yours.
Clarification: When I use the words ‘Hindu’ or ‘Muslim’, I am going beyond simply those who admit to professing these faiths. I am referring to those who were born to believing parents, or were raised culturally in that particular faith, or socially conditioned on it, or have been generally seen to identify with that faith. So, a Kedar Gadgil from Pune, as an example, regardless of what he says about his actual belief systems, is a ‘Hindu’ for the purposes of this article.
