A Child’s Answer to a Divided Society

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Two recent moments have stayed with me in ways I did not expect. One reopened an old wound — a reminder of how deeply prejudice still runs in our society. The other felt like a quiet promise from the future, a soft assurance that maybe, just maybe, we are moving in the right direction.

My elder sister is currently visiting home. One afternoon, as we sat together and I was lost in my work, a memory surfaced unexpectedly. I remembered one of her old friends. I had gone to that friend’s house only once, long ago, to attend tuition classes as a student. I never went back — not because of any particular reason, but because I had always preferred studying on my own rather than going for tuition.

Without thinking much, I asked my sister if she remembered her. To help her recall, I mentioned a few small details. She smiled and said yes, then asked why I was suddenly thinking about her. I shrugged and said it just crossed my mind.

But some memories do not come without a reason.

As we talked, my sister began sharing things she had never mentioned before. She told me about an incident from their school days — something that, until that moment, I had never known.

One day, while returning home from school, my sister casually asked her friend about her caste. They had been studying together for years, yet this had never come up. In a country like ours, caste often speaks louder than character, even when we pretend it does not.

Her friend stopped walking.

After a long pause, she said softly, “It’s better if you don’t know. If I tell you my caste, you might stop talking to me.”

That was all she said. And then she went quiet.

When my sister told me this, I felt something sink inside my chest. Imagine being so young and already knowing that who you are might cost you friendship. Imagine carrying that fear every day, learning early that silence is safer than honesty.

My sister understood instantly what her friend was protecting herself from. She reassured her, changed the topic, and never brought it up again. From that day until the end of school, she treated her exactly the same — with the same warmth, the same respect, the same ease. No labels. No distance.

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But the weight of that moment stayed.

As I listened, I could not stop thinking about that girl — about everything she must have endured quietly. That one sentence revealed years of conditioning, fear, and emotional burden. As a Muslim girl, her pain felt familiar. We, too, learn early how society can reduce us to an identity before seeing us as human.

This was a childhood memory, yet the pressure it carried was enormous. A pressure created by a culture where human life often feels fragile, but caste and labels are treated as sacred and unquestionable.

The second incident felt like the opposite of this heaviness.

My sister has two children. My niece is in first grade. My sister chose love over convention — she married for love. We are Muslims, and my brother-in-law is a Sikh. Twelve years later, their home is full of stability, laughter, and quiet understanding.

One day, my mother jokingly asked my niece, “Who are you? Are you a Sardar or a Muslim?”

Without hesitation, without confusion, my niece replied, “I am an Indian.”

That single sentence filled my eyes with tears.

It was such a simple answer, yet it carried everything I have ever wished for. No fear. No hesitation. No inherited burden. Just clarity and pride.

That moment felt like healing.

I wish one day every child grows up with that freedom. I wish that when someone asks me about my caste or identity, I, too, can answer without defensiveness or explanation — I am an Indian.

These two moments — one rooted in fear, the other in hope — show exactly where we stand today. They also show us where we can go.

If schools continue to teach children empathy, equality, and humanity — not just through textbooks, but through lived values — then change is inevitable. These children will question what we accepted. They will break what we carried. They will build a country where no child has to choose silence over honesty.

And maybe then, silence will no longer hurt more than words.