A Muslim woman neighbour's husband walks out on her as Gujarat burns. She tells me she has filed a case under the Muslim Women's Act. I know she will never get anything except harassment fighting her case for alimony within this Act. I also know that she will never get her rightful share in her father's property also because of similar toothless laws.

I know that her husband will go scot-free and start his life afresh. For her it will be a long penniless struggle. Yet, the ongoing Gujarat holocaust has so mesmerized me that I think not of her impending destitute status, but only of her life's physical security. I worry not only for her but also for the right to live of her deviant husband who has treated her so shabbily. The basic right of Muslims to be physically alive is at the top of my mind. Other battles can be fought later, I muse.

This is how this continued anti-Muslim pogrom has reshuffled priorities within the Muslim community. If the violence does not stop years of labour by Muslim women's groups that has initiated a discussion for in community reforms will go waste. This perhaps is the most invisible yet the most hazardous consequence of the sangh parivar's ongoing pogrom against the Muslims. And this is no unintended consequence of the anti-Muslim pogrom. For the derailment of the ongoing process of reforms within the Muslim community suits the political interests of the parivar.

Violence of the kind we are seeing in Gujarat not only provides fertile ground for Muslim backlash but also for the conservative patriarchs to reinforce their position in the community. This unfortunate phenomenon only serves to justify the sangh parivar's misplaced canards and stereotypes about the Muslims. Today the 'politics of hate' for the Muslims is being converted to the 'politics of fear' of the Muslims; but this fear is grounded on stereotypes of the backward, unchanging conservative Muslims. The consolidation of the hold of the conservative patriarchs within the community will only provide fuel to this stereotype and thus keep the sangh's politics of fear alive.

On the question of reforms in the Muslim Personal Law regarding rights of women the cleavages within the Muslim community are too evident. Spearheading the anti-reform opinion is the Muslim personal law Board which refuses to budge an inch even after detailed documentation of the pathetic plight of Muslim women suffering under gender iniquitous laws has been provided to it. The reputed Muslim scholar and activist Syeda Sayedain's report on Muslim women across India was sympathetically treated by the Board but no legal redresses were offered. This gender insensitive Board is supported by Muslim patriarchs across the country. The bulk of these are the rich and affluent trading and merchant families who are ever willing to unthinkingly provide resources and support to initiatives that the Board takes.

Of course a million questions will be hurled before they part even a penny to initiatives undertaken by Muslim Women groups to redress basic wrongs. But as Gujarat burns, my yesterday's foes have become my allies in the fight for a far more basic demand: to be alive. As I see their factories and businesses go up in flames I identify with them and shed tears for them. Suddenly the reformist and anti-reformist cleavage seems blurred.

The legitimate hype about the safety and security of Muslim life and property runs the risk of reinforcing patriarchies and strengthening the conservative hold over the community. This sidetracks attention from the everyday violence that Muslim women experience being subject to iniquitous laws.

As the anti-Muslim violence becomes a part of our lives I am increasingly reminded of my Palestinian student in the United States. 'We live by the day' she said to me in a matter of fact way. 'We have internalised violence to the extent that our sense of community is structured against that' she adds. She argued that the issue of gender justice is something they choose not to address. That's a sacrifice she said women make for the larger Palestinian cause.

Today as an Indian Muslim woman living in the capital city I feel very much like my Palestinian student. I often feel I am loosing that special sensitivity within me that has always seen women as a class apart in the Muslim community. It is in this sense that the fight against the sinister designs of the sangh parivar has to be fought not only as the Muslim community's fight against the parivar but as a larger fight that involves all those who value the plural ethos that our Constitution guarantees. Perhaps then the reconstitution of the Muslim community will not be on terms that that have more enduring long-term hazards for Muslims.