Muslim? Ghar Nahin Milega: Shocking Stories Of Discrimination While House Hunting In India
"Muslim ho?¡± asked the broker before providing the address of the apartment. Delhi-based human rights activist, Mariya Salim wasn¡¯t taken aback by this inquiry since this wasn¡¯t the first time someone had asked her this while she was house-hunting.
Having moved to Delhi back in 2012, her experience in finding a place to rent has never exactly been pleasant. She has constantly faced discrimination based on her religion to the extreme that she longer has a decent place to call home at the present moment.
Does this happen because the current religious-based political situation in our country is creating these mindsets? Or were they always prominently living among us and we were too ignorant to pay attention?
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Salim claims that even after she has increased her budget to double, no landlord wants her to rent their properly based on the sole fact that she is a Muslim. She also revealed that apart from being downright racist, people are so oblivious to how uneducated and conservative they sound. It¡¯s either a flat out rejection, ¡°No, I don¡¯t want a Muslim to live in my house¡± or ¡°No, don¡¯t worry. I am well-aware that not all Muslims are terrorists.¡±
FOR ALL THOSE WHO THINK I AM OVER STATING MY HOUSING DISCRIMINATION, PLEASE SEE. I HAVE OTHER MESSAGES AND RECORDINGS. I JUST DON'T KNOW WHAT THE HELL TO DO BUT CRY OUT ALOUD!!!
¡ª Mariya Salim (@MariyaS87) January 20, 2020
Aap kaagaz mat dikhaiye, mujhe to apna poora naam bataana hi padegana. pic.twitter.com/Ww8XBV6huC
The situation has gotten out of hand to the point where a broker clearly told Salim that people believe that women from Afghanistan are involved in prostitution rackets and that is the reason they do not rent out properties to Indian Muslim women.
Why would anyone in their sane mind want to even interact with racist and bigoted people? They are living proof that the concept of secularism only exists in the Constitution and not in their values. From big cities to small towns, this concept isn¡¯t alien to people who belong to minority communities.
Tanish Sheikh, a French-language student in Chandigarh has faced similar discrimination in the ¡®planned city¡¯. Landlords have gone back on their words even after the whole process was complete and payments were made. Not realising her religion based on just her first name, Tanish has had to face extreme inconvenience due to people¡¯s discrimination against Islam.
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The year is 2020 and things are expected to move in the direction of development and woke culture should be taking over the world. Instead, it feels like we are only going backwards because in spite of excelling in fields like science, education and culture, we are eons behind when it comes to treating each other with equal respect. We, as a species, have collectively failed at having a united front.
People hate what they don¡¯t understand and it¡¯s not just the concept of a different religion that they fail to grasp here. It¡¯s common news that North-Easterns face terrible racism in the country.
Just like the unfortunate stories of Muslims, they also struggle to find a place to live in because they come from a different culture. The only options left are that either they live in an area which only caters to their own kind or get lucky. The opportunity to do what they actually want to do is taken away from them.
I faced this many a times , since 2009 in Delhi. Few non Muslim landlord were so co-operative but majority were just biased towards Muslims without any reason.
¡ª Saroosh Ahmed (@saro__osh) January 20, 2020
Finally, have to shift to the ghettos of the Delhi , (Aka, musalmano Ka area ).
Two girls from the state of Nagaland recently had to go through an extremely absurd experience that anyone with any kind of sense will not be able to understand. The girls, who have decided to remain anonymous, revealed that they came across an apartment in the posh area of South Delhi which they really liked.
However, the landlady refused to rent it out to them because she believed, ¡°Nagaland ki ladkiyon ko nahi dena. Unke dost aate rahenge.¡± She also refused to meet them and made assumptions about the girls¡¯ lifestyle without any information about them.
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Mumbai -- City of dreams or discrimination?
These stories of bias aren¡¯t just a common phenomenon in the Northern part of the country but people in a metropolitan city like Mumbai face this quite frequently. Eram Khan moved to Mumbai from Pune in 2017 and not having faced discrimination for being a Muslim in the latter, she assumed that it won¡¯t happen in the city of dreams as well.
She found out about the reality when she set on a mission to look for a house to rent and after being rejected for several houses based on her religion, she accepted that no matter which city it is, racist people exist everywhere. She claims, ¡°If there are five different houses, three of the landlords will flat-out refuse to rent it to you if you¡¯re a Muslim.¡±
Have looked at 100s of houses for rent in Mumbai. First question typically (even b4 2014) is: are you Muslim?
¡ª Ramanan (@Ramanan_V) January 24, 2017
Not just India, bigotry is a global resident.
When Amrita Malik set out to pursue her Master¡¯s degree in Florence, Italy, she didn¡¯t expect to be discriminated against based on where she comes from. After going through every last detail with the agent, she was put in touch with the landlady whose first concern was asking Malik where she is from.
When she informed her about the fact she hails from India, the landlady had no qualms about telling her that she does not want any Indians living in her house. The landlady failed to give an explanation about the same when Malik asked her, ¡°Why?¡±, and just repeated herself about not wanting an Indian around.
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So, your level of education and geographical location do not matter when it comes to practising racism and it¡¯s spread out across the world. So many of us have never even wondered about the same because we don¡¯t know what it is like to be on the other side. Mariya Salim put it in simple words,
¡°A meat-eater can pretend to be a vegetarian to rent a house; An artist can hide his guitar so that the landlords cannot raise an issue. But how do I hide my identity? More importantly, why should I?¡±
Unite as a nation. Unite as human beings.
