“My mother has been asking me about detention centers,” my friend recently told me on the phone. “She has been very worried.” My first reaction was shame. She is Muslim and I am Hindu. That never meant anything to us when we first met, studied together and hung out in New York. When her mother came to visit, I was always excited because it meant hot and delicious meals that eased the pain of missing home. But for several years now, home has come to mean something different to us. The crescendo in Muslim vilification, the increase in violent mob attacks that have killed and injured so many, the seeming acquiescence of many Indian Hindus, has meant our lived realities in our own country have diverged. Today, as the world battles coronavirus (COVID-19), which has already claimed thousands of lives, India is also battling another threat to life – Muslim…

---