By Mushtaque Rahmat for Twocircles.net
There seems to be the silent approval of a majority in India to the kind of frenzy and hysteria against Muslims. The other religious minorities are accepted, by majority community as Quasi-Hindu or insignificant as far as their agenda is concerned. The same can never be said for Muslims in India, even though Muslims in India are in no way a monolithic community. There are various shades of it emanating from the regions they live, the language they speak and their food habits. Even their political aspirations and efficacy vastly differ from state to state as their economic condition. Therefore, it is important for RSS and Saffron brigade to demonise and create hatred for them among the gullible mass. The following points are important in understanding how and why Muslims remain at the centre of their attacks:
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Their numbers are quite significant and they are widespread across India. Unlike Sikhs who were majorly confined to one or two states. Although being spread pan India has its own problems for Muslim.
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It is easy to get masses took them as the perpetrator of all crimes against Hindus in medieval India by twisting historical facts and events.
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And it is the most successful rallying points as it seeks to obliterate the caste divide among Hindu. Thus it is easy for upper caste Hindus to maintain its sway and say. Actually, this is an era of Dalit’s appeasement at the hands of RSS and Sangh Parivar.
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Creation of Pakistan; strangely those who supported and created Pakistan left erstwhile Hindustan and now living in the Islamic republic of Pakistan, all vengeance of those are being directed towards loyal Indians (Muslims).
RSS, Sangh Parivar, and Hindu Nationalists will espouse all those issues which will make Muslim feel psychologically inferior and unwanted by state machinery/ majority community. The Yogi Chief Minister’s first diktat on assuming office was to close down all “illegal abattoir”. And it was immediately taken up by foot soldiers of BJP and its affiliates. As if there were no other important issues to deal with in the whole of Uttar Pradesh. In pursuit of its execution, BJP and its allies deliberately allow its cadres, sympathizers to take the law into their hands. It serves two major purposes: such leeway gives immense power to ordinary folks and their empowerment gets satiated. Also, it unleashes fear and humiliation in Muslim populace leaving their reasonable part high and dry economically. Besides the same foot soldiers could be disowned as per convenience terming as “fringe element”. However, nowadays the title of “ fringe elements” are to be worn as “badge of honour”. After all, the one-time fringe elements have just been handed over the reign of Uttar Pradesh.
The ruling party kept repeating the issue of Triple Talaq as this is the most important issue facing Muslim women of today. As if half of Indian Muslim do not need education, employment, and better health facility! In fact, need of Muslim women is same as that of others. Although it is imperative for Muslims to overhaul their some aspects of divorce, but for sure this is not the only issue where government intervention is needed.
It has started with religion and will end with all social elements to the point where Muslim will start questioning their own existence. That will see either religious migration of Muslim to Hinduism or acceptance of Hindu way of life retaining few visages of Islamic practices, like Buddhists, Jain or Sikhs. This will complete the cycle of Hindu chauvinist India. And one should not be surprised by it. Tell-tale sign are everywhere and for everyone to see, only if you are blind or insane.
Recently, Rajasthan government has made two significant changes one in academics: claiming Rana Pratap Singh as the winner of Haldi Ghati war against Akbar and the renaming of Akbar ka Qila to Ajmer ka Qila. Interestingly it was Mughals before British rule who have brought a major part of Indian subcontinent under one rule. And RSS /Hindu Nationalists should take Mughals especially Akbar and Aurangzeb as ideal for their Virat Hindustan clamor. Emboldened by the recent victory in UP election, renaming of Aligarh to Harigarh has gathered steam again. There have already been changes made to Aurangzeb road. These are signs of erasing the vestiges of Muslims from the public space. Urdu, although not all Muslims of India speak, has already been declared the language of Muslims only and gradually sidelined from the mainstream.
There are few questions which would be interesting to ask:
Is majority community really in a state of stupor that they cannot make out the real design of RSS and Sangh Parivar? Or really they have mandated RSS and Sangh Parivar to carry out this in their name?
If RSS and Sangh Parivar has its way, they would like to bring in Manuvadi system in which lies inherent fissures/ fault line of cohesive Hindu society. Any country with width and spread like India with so much variation and diversity will find it really difficult to maintain, a monolithic political and social fabric mandated by one religion only, for long. Religion is no guarantee for the creation and sustenance of a country, had this been the case all Arabs from Arabian Peninsula, North Africa to Levant could have only be one country. More so as Arabs, in general, speak same language share similar culture across a vast swathe of land. We have the case of Pakistan splitting in two: Pakistan and Bangladesh despite both being majority Muslim inhabitants. And their foundation was laid on Islam. Nor power and ideology alone can create a country and sustain. We have seen the spectacular downfall of USSR which broke into many countries. The fall of Berlin wall stands as testimony to, the defeat of divisive and exclusive politics, and the victory of unity and inclusiveness.
In fact, countries are not made only on one edifice, there goes a lot more than religion, language to coalesce diversity of people to come together and form a country. Freedom, justice, prosperity and equality for all are some of the variables which bind people of different faiths, languages and their shared struggle and journey in the time of high and low. It is a collection of desire to grow together, perform and achieve collective good which makes nations great. For many countries and empire in the past ultimate fall was preceded by injustice and discriminations. Emperors like Ashoka and Akbar with largest territories under their rule has to push forward ideational unity with tolerance and plurality to hold onto and consolidating their empires. Vulnerable segments of nations suffer under divisive, corrosive and exclusionary agendas which, over the time period if not addressed, will lead to disintegration: social and economic and territorial.
There could be various explanations for the rise of Saffron brigade and divisive politics which permeates our society today and there will be thousands of ways and means to oppose it and help our people to extricate out of it. However, it must be understood it is a long and arduous journey. It has taken almost hundred years for Hindu nationalist to bloom, it will be another century’s struggle to make it go.