The Musalman is more protected in 'Hindu Nepal' than he is in 'secular India'. And yet, externally fuelled Islamic fundamentalism and knee-jerk Hindu chauvinism cannot rule out a nasty situation from arising.
The mauzzin calls the faithful to prayer from a minaret that vies for height with the Ghanta Ghar next door and the tower of the Narayanhiti Royal Palace a little further on. It is Friday, and the faithful gather from the far corners of Kathmandu to offer Khutabah at the Nepali Jame Masjid. The crowd bottles up the traffic emerging from the city's exclusive Durbar Marg plaza.
In itself, the setting is not out of ordinary. The mauzzin has been calling from this spot for a long time, perhaps since the reign of King Pratap Malla in the early 17th century. What has changed over the last year is that the modest historic edifice has been demolished and a spanking new marble-sided,petro-dollar-financed structure„ many times larger, has been erected in its place. Meanwhile, the number of Muslim adherents who turn up for prayer has increased more than tenfold over the last decade.
To those seeking communal conspiracies in the "Hindu state" of Nepal, the Friday crowd at Durbar Marg would seem to provide ample visible proof that the Musalman's strength is on the rise in the kingdom. For those in the plains media seeking to unearth geopolitical intrigues in the aftermath of the Ayodhya disaster and the Bombay bomb blasts, this manifest Muslim presence in a downtown thoroughfare is proof enough that the infamous Pakistani spook agency, the ISI, is up to something nasty in Nepal. Indeed, Indian journalists and academics have been no laggards these past few months in issuing dire warnings of a Pakistani offensive against the Indian slate, using Nepal's Muslims as cover.