After Ayodhya and Bombay, it was clear to both Teesta and me that we could no longer remain happy pursuing journalism in the ‘working hours’ and secular activism after work and on weekends. What was one to do? Since we live in India, not Pakistan or Bangladesh, the real threat to democracy and freedom comes, no doubt, from those who would, and do, kill in the name of Ram. But who could deny that bigotry, narrow-mindedness and intolerance in the name of Islam, so harmful to a democratic polity, is strong tonic to the Brotherhood in Saffron?

So, ten years ago, I went looking for Mr. and Ms. Muslim in Mumbai, in the hope of opening a new front. To my great dismay, while I found many who agreed with what I had to say, very few were willing to stand up and speak. My growing frustration would most likely have ended in despair if not cynicism. Fortunately, Teesta screamed at me so loudly one day that I quickly changed gear and, through our joint labour produced Communalism Combat. Thank you, Teesta. Thank you, Ghulambhai.

All these years, we’ve gone hammer and tong at the hate-mongers of Hindutva, barring one self-imposed constraint: no compromise on journalistic norms and standards. And we did not spare Muslim communalism or fanaticism either.

Keeping the ‘balance’ in each issue of the magazine was never our concern. We kept our entire attention focussed on Modi and Togadia’s Gujarat when the genocide ‘happened’. On other occasions, we chose to co-host Taslima Nasreen’s visit to Mumbai when a fanatic Muslim outfit threatened to burn her alive if she dared enter the city.

But personally speaking, all that we wrote against Muslim communalism or ‘fundamentalism’ was never enough. Outside Communalism Combat, all the secular initiatives that we/I were associated with were focussed on fighting the Hindu Taliban bent on converting India into a Hindu Pakistan. To a large extent, rightly so. But the fact remained that Muslim communalism was not being addressed. This was wrong in principle and politically suicidal, as the only one to benefit from this silence was the sangh parivar.

When Ayodhya happened, many decent Indians cried out publicly that they were ashamed of being Hindus. On a number of occasions in the past 10 years, I have been similarly prompted to say aloud that I am ashamed of being a Muslim. I felt like this when the Taliban committed unspeakable horrors on fellow Muslims, women particularly. And when they demolished the Bamiyan Buddhas. And when Muslim women in Kashmir had acid thrown on their faces for refusing to hide behind the veil, when the office of The Hindu newspaper was attacked in Bangalore, or when the Muslim Personal Law Board raised the demand that Muslims be kept out of the purview of the Sharda Act, which prohibits marriage of minor girls.

And I felt ashamed, most of all, when September 11 happened. Then Gujarat happened. I have since wondered what sense my individual declaration of shame would make to many from the badly battered and brutalised community who I know pray daily to Allah for a long life to Teesta, my Hindu wife.

Fortunately, deliverance is now in sight. On August 27, even as this issue rolls off the press, ‘sinners’ like me and I will face the media in the company of devout Muslims and we will speak with one voice. We will jointly swear by secular democratic values, unhesitatingly condemn mob terror and bomb terror in the same breath, demand gender justice and an end to the obnoxious instant talaaq practice, question the Muslim Personal Law Board’s claim that it speaks for us, and assert that the freedom of faith includes the right not to believe.

And the devout among us will affirm that they see no conflict whatsoever between the fundamental rights and freedoms enshrined in the Constitution of India (and the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights) and Islam. And we will together announce the launch of a two-pronged ‘jihad’: against those Muslims whose words and/or deeds give all Muslims a bad name, and also against the pathological Muslim-haters who find in such Muslims convenient ‘justification’ to plot their next crime against humanity.