Last year, Ali Muntazar's wife left him for celebrating the Hindu festival of Holi.

Muntazar, a resident of Bihar's Begusarai district, came home dipped in colour from head to toe. His joy, however, proved to be short-lived as his furious wife declared she had had enough of her husband's "anti-Islamic" ways and returned to her maiden house.

Another Holi has just passed, but his wife continues to live separately. Twenty-eight-year old Muntazar, who married in 2017, told Swarajya that she has put a condition that he must give in writing that he would "behave as a Muslim" in the future. Muntazar has refused to do so, and his wife has demanded a khula (a form of divorce initiated by the wife in the Islamic law but subject to husband's approval).

The couple's case is being heard in a Darul-Qaza (a Sharia court) and a verdict is expected soon.

Muntazar shared with this correspondent a few pictures of him playing Holi that put his marriage in jeopardy. When asked if publishing the pictures could run him into trouble with the clerics, Muntazar replied, "Go ahead and publish. Let's see what they can do. This is India, not Pakistan."

In the adjoining state of Uttar Pradesh, Babu Khan wasn't spared the ire of the clerics, who resorted to downright violence. A resident of Baghpat district in western UP, Khan was thrashed at the gate of the local mosque for taking out a Kanwar yatra. He was told he should go to a temple instead.

Stories like Muntazar's and Khan's are seldom cited as challenges to communal harmony and multiculturalism.

Dissenting voices within the Muslim community say that instead, a perverted narrative around communal harmony is being pushed which suggests that the community must be 'protected' from Hindu festivities, like the case in a recent detergent powder commercial.

They say that such a flawed narrative not only leads to the othering of the community but also severing of Muslims' ties with their "roots".

Khaja Shah (surname changed to protect identity), who hails from a village in Andhra Pradesh, told Swarajya that he objects to the idea that celebrating a Hindu festival is 'haram' (forbidden) for Muslims — an idea that the said commercial seems to agree with.

Shah, who lives in Hyderabad, said that the discourse within the community peddled openly in the mosques is fanatically anti-Hindu and anti-Hindu festivals. "We are told that a real Muslim wouldn't wish a Hindu on Holi and Diwali for it means an acknowledgement of the Hindus' deity as a legitimate god. Likewise, splashing colours on Holi and lighting diyas on Diwali are declared to be 'haram' for Muslims," he said.

A reality across India, however, is that a large number of Muslims willingly celebrate Hindu festivals. They do so not only as a gesture of social courtesy extended to their Hindu brethren but also on their own volition, sometimes as an open acknowledgement of their Hindu ancestry.

Shah, for instance, said that most Muslims in his village continue to keep their Hindu surnames, worship the local Hindu deity, and observe all the major Hindu festivals.

Curiously, in the mainstream media discourse, the right of Muslims to not celebrate Hindu festivals has a far greater representation and push than the right of Muslims to celebrate them.