According to a study by Mahesh Srinivasan, an associate professor of psychology at UC Berkeley, “by age 9, Hindu children have already internalized an ‘Indian equals Hindu’ association, and we show that this association predicts children’s support for policies that favor Hindus over Muslims.”
“If Muslim children were to equate being Indian with being Hindu, they could very well feel conflicted about being Indian or being Muslim. We know from other research that disconnection from one’s own national, ethnic, or religious group is bad for mental health and other life outcomes.”
Identity is rooted in the physical locations we call home. This is a research-backed fact. Whether it is Hindu and Muslim children in India or Syrian refugees, the dislocation from one’s home country instigates emotional imbalance and identity confusion that leads to the negative mental health outcomes.
Take a moment to think about the place you call home. The phrases that come to mind are probably: family, school, friends–places and people that make you who you are and shape your life.
My home country is America. I grew up conscious of the fact that I was born the year of 9/11. I was conscious of some sort of complicated relationship between Muslims and Hindus in India. But here in America, I met my best friends who were Hindu, helped set up a neighbor’s Diwali lights, learned invaluable lessons from Hindu teachers. I grew up in a city just a few minutes away from one of the biggest mosques in the Bay Area, in communities that both challenged my faith and challenged me to be proud of it. By age nine, I had a newfound love for literature and an oddly mature level of understanding and dedication towards my faith. Here in America, I equated Indian with owning my flaws, with working hard, with family and friends, and with being me.
Thus, it is painful to imagine an Indian child at that age, preferring a policy that favors his religion, despite living in the same home country as his friend of the opposing religion. Isn’t the identity that is rooted in home, then, inevitably going to be broken?
Sometimes, all we need is a moment of invisibility to teach us the legitimacy of social constructions. The fact that Indians around the world endure suppression as a result of political discrimination clearly shows that the CAA is an illegitimate, faith-based attack.
YUSRA ARUB 