Muslims have been under constant scrutiny for decades. While both the religion and its followers have been often portrayed as rigid and at times radical, the aftermath of the September 11 attacks came as a barrage of criticism. Muslims were dissected in newsrooms, in hushed tones in corporates and also in the cosy confines of homes where many tagged the words the words “radical” and “terrorist” to them with ease.

Cut to 2014, the rise of the terrorist group Islamic State has ensured that the rhetoric about Muslims across the world became more caustic than seen post 9/11. Many, such as anti-religionist Bill Maher, peddled author Sam Harris’ opinion that “Islam, at the moment, is the mother-load of bad ideas” recently on his TV show which was watched by hundreds of thousands of viewers. “That’s just a fact,” Maher asserted.

Western nations have been selling concepts employed in their understanding of Islam and Muslims and it is being largely consumed, few or no questions asked. And as a result, followers of Islam are being perceived as homogeneous and Muslims of Pakistan, India and even Saudi Arabia are being talked about in the same breath, a disconcerting trend.

Muslims from across the world, consider themselves as one “Ummah”, translated as “community” and “nation”, depending on the context – a romantic concept. Though deeply fragmented, the community rose up as one, when the occasion called for it. If the over 2,000 fatalities in Gaza during Operation Protective Edge deeply distresses this Ummah, then the invasion of NATO forces in Afghanistan incenses it. And if the ethnic cleansing of Muslims in Bosnia in the 90s picks on scabs, the conflicts in Syria and Iraq leave it in anguish. The vine that binds Muslims across the world is taut in some places, in many others it is slack. But despite this, it is also pleasantly diverse.

A recent meeting with an officer from one of the many diplomatic missions in the country laid bare that the West does little to distinguish Muslims of India from those of Pakistan. Like in Pakistan, madrassas in India, the officer reasoned, were centres which indoctrinated Talibanesque ideologies, leading to radicalisation of youth.

While, admittedly, the Taliban in Afghanistan did import the Deobandi school of thought from Dar-ul-Uloom in Deoband, Uttar Pradesh and gave it a political but hard-line twist, it did so to combat the Soviet invasion. But to say that either the Taliban or Al Qaida hold sway as suggested by the officer, in India is far-fetched. The Prime Minister, last September, too testified that Muslims would “live and die for India”.

The misinformed officer also forgot, that the Islamic seminary had issued a fatwa against terrorism as recently as 2008 and remains committed to it. Eminent academic Yoginder Sikand rightly argues that many from Dar-ul-Uloom were supporters of the nationalist movement.

The madrassa curriculum, known as Dars-e-Nizami, devised more than 100 years ago, largely keeps political rhetoric out of its madrassa classrooms. It concerns itself with complexities of Islamic law, Arabic grammar, exegesis of the Quran and a study of the traditions of Prophet Muhammad. Past governments, both at the state and Centre have made systematic interventions by means of the Sarva Shiksha Abhyan to mainstream madrassa students.

It is fallacious to assume, that of the battle for ideological “supremacy” between the two major denominations of Muslims, the Shiites and Sunnis, and the two important schools of thought, Wahabi and Barelwi, is as disturbing as that in Pakistan. While schools of thought with a set of dogmas do exist, it would be no exaggeration to say that the country has seen no major clash between these groups. No instance of Wahabis violently “taking over” mosques have been reported, and unlike in Pakistan, the Sunnis in India do not bomb Shiite mosques. On the contrary, both sects share a profound love for the martyrs of Karbala and the Imams Ali, Hussain and Hasan. Case in point: the thronging of Sunnis to Shiite ashoorkhanas on the Ashura in Muharram. That the Telugu speaking Hindus of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh fondly call the month as peer la panduga (festival of the saint) and, in many cases, are alambardars, leading the procession, reiterates the pluralistic ethos of the country, something which Pakistani hardliners ought to learn.

Another officer, from a different mission, pointed out that though there exists no unified stand on the Muslims of India and Pakistan, the “larger concerns” remain the same. Though concerted efforts have been made to compartmentalise Muslim as “literalists” — those who go by the letter, not the spirit of the scriptures -, moderates, radicals, Islamists and jihadists, among others, this nomenclature largely ignores an undeniable fact: that an overwhelming majority, like other believers and atheists alike, just want to get on with business and lead a life of dignity.