A person can multiple identities depending on which nation, caste, community, region, religion or even profession he belongs to. So a person can be a lawyer, Punjabi, Hindu, Indian and Khatri at the same time. But depending on the context he uses a particular identity.
Muslims somehow do not suffer from so many identities. Theirs is more homogeneous and monolithic society.
But there is a downside to that too. Nation states are still going strong, although people are predicting that Globalization will remove the concept of nation state finally. One of the numerous characteristics of a nation state is that people identify themselves with a geographical land mass. So at international level you may identify yourself as an Indian or Chinese or Japanese. Then what do you do at national level? You derive your identity from the region you originally come from. You call yourself a Punjabi, Bengali or Gujarati.
The problem with the Muslim community is that they do not identify themselves with the region they have been staying for hundreds of years. I have noticed that problem across India - from UP to Gujarat to Bengal to Karnataka to Tamil Nadu. I thought that might be a reaction to the so called "discrimination" that the so called secularists keep shouting about.
I visited a an African nation with a huge population of Indian origin. I met many people of Indian origin there. All of them acknowledged the fact that they were of Indian origin, although the migration might have happened three or four generations back. There was a Muslim in our group whose forefathers were also originally from India. He never - and quite deliberately so - used to acknowledge his Indian origins. During my stay I came across a few more Muslims of Indian origin there. Same problem!
I am not in position to comment whether placing religious identity ahead of all other identities is a wrong thing to do. But that is not really in sync with the values that our present day societies appreciate.
