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How I became an Islamophobe

How I became an Islamophobe

Author: Radical
Publication: www.faithfreedom.org
Date: August 2, 2003
URL: http://www.faithfreedom.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6110

Eight months ago - I was getting death threats from Hindu militants for doing relief work during the Gujarat carnage in which two thousand Muslims died, and thousands lost their homes forever.

I was born a Hindu but Hindu militancy had made me so angry with its intolerance, which ran directly counter to my spiritual principles, that I developed an aversion to it.

If anyone had said the things to me that are on this site, I would think they were hateful and bigoted, and had some axe to grind.

I thought of Muslims as a perpetual persecuted minority and identified so much with their feelings in India that even moderate Hindus thought I was going overboard.

Two months ago, though, I came across a Muslim proselytizer. The atmosphere was very nice and multicultural and pretty anti-war, anti-Bush. So naturally, when the Muslim proselytizer began, everyone tolerated him and was nice to him. I defended him and Islam when someone called him 'Jihadi' - because it reminded me of how the VHP had called Muslims 'jihadi' to make everyone hate them. Soon, some closet monotheist-fundamentalists came out and applauded him for his declamations on "One God", which annoyed me, but I didn't say much.

Soon, however, I grew to detest this individual. Any time spirituality or religion was discussed, he would chime in with intolerant verses from the Quran, and try to 'correct' anyone who was a pagan or agnostic! The arguments would be full of lies and evasions and bald-faced untruths! The guy was a bully. The closet monotheist-fundamentalists were quite happy to have their secret dislike of pagans affirmed. He could not seem to twist his mind around the fact that the Quran was his belief and not ultimate truth for all. He would judge everyone by the Quran and say scornful things about 'idol-worshippers', agnostics, pagans, pantheists, atheists etc. And everybody was too PC to stop him, or were closet pantheist-hating fundos like him.

I even tried to have a calm discussion with him, which tested my patience severely, where I tried to show that non-monotheists and atheists and agnostics can be 'good people'. Useless of course, because he was a liar and manipulator, who repeatedly twisted and denied the truth, which I now see you have to do to make any sense of Islam.

I came away feeling angry and upset and the knowledge that there is a monotheistic 'brigade' out there that is really really bigoted!! They will cheer on a Muslim bigot if he's bashing pagans and turn on him if he bashes Jesus. Also - the betrayal I felt. I mean - did this guy really belong to the faith whose right to worship I had defended, putting my life at risk in Gujarat???

I really felt in the presence of someone evil, brainwashed and deceitful. If you can justify hate, intolerance and war using a book, where does it end? It seemed like a perversion of all that is good. It also reminded me of encounters with overseas Muslim students in India (being multi- culti me, i was friends with them) - where the bigots would sneer at 'idol-worshippers'. Also a Pakistani friend I once had, who once sneered at 'chicken Indians' - again a Muslim residue of believing that violence and aggression are something great. I had 'blocked out' all these insults, because I HONESTLY didn't think that the QURAN itself taught any of this. Now I know differently.

It scares me that I am understanding what Hindutva types mean when they say Islam in itself is 'jihadi'. I still think it is despicable to target and kill religious minorities, but you know what? I understand the anger behind Hindu militancy. The anger of approaching someone with tolerance for their faith and their freedom to worship and finding it reciprocated with scorn and contempt and hate for my own. The anger of finding an individual abusing the goodwill, pluralism and multicultural tolerance of a society and arrogantly proselytizing to spread a creed that glorifies intolerance. The anger of having verses quoted at me to say I will have my skin boiled and flayed and taken off me if I reject the verses. Anger at the fact that this intolerance invites intolerance from others.

Hindu militancy, I now see, is nothing but a mirror image of Islamic intolerance.

The same :

-drive to increase numbers (by converting animist tribals etc)
-aggressive and visual propogation of the faith
-abusive language used to describe other religions
-insecurity about the flaws of one's own religion
-violence and the concept of 'dharma yuddh' - nothing but jihad

I detest proselytizers and fanatics, and all the plunder and carnage they have perpetrated. Be it the Hindu monarchs of old who destroyed Buddhist places of worship, or scorn the animist traditions of India's indigenous tribes, or the Muslim invaders who went correctly by the book and did all that and much more.

Hindu miltancy is an illustration of the principle that sending negativity out into the world makes everyone negative. It is INDEED a response to Muslim militancy. I used to think anti-Muslim feeling was a result of Brahminist exclusivity. Now I see that is probably true in less than 10% of cases. Most of these people are the ones who unlike everyone else, have read the Quran and know what its all about!!!

But - militancy is obviously not the answer - as in my case - it was Hindu militancy that created an uncritical impulse towards Islam! It takes extraordinary but NECESSARY patience to not let one be drawn into the cycle of hate.

Let me tell you, for some time, the energy of hate emanating from those Quranic verses reached me and pulled out something similar in me. I can see the bad energy emanating from those verses doing something similar to society at large. The energy of hate emanating from that book has the power to poison the world if we let it, pull hate and violence in retaliation to its own.

Also, I find my politics changed by all this. I BELIEVE the BJP when they say Madrassas must be closed, because any attempt to 'purify' Indian Muslims I now know, means nothing other than making them follow the Quran more closely. That is dangerous. Hate the unbelievers? Kill the idolaters? Oh no no. We can't have that taught, and clearly, that is what madrassas will teach. Indian Muslims draw a lot from the Sufis, some of whom even taught that Hindus were people of the book and that idol-worship was OK in a context. This is why Arab Muslims frequently loathe Indian Muslims. Now - with the Gulf returnees and the madrassas and what not - that whole tradition is going to be uprooted and strict adherence to the Quran pushed. I see now why this is dangerous. Its all making sense to me now - how Hindu militancy is a mirror of Islamic intolerance down to the exact details, and it IS dangerous to let Islam spread, or to even let the Quran be taught, JUST AS the left argues that the VHP /Bajrang Dal 'camps' must be closed. But I see why the Hindu militants are doing it. Wrong approach however. But it is time for the lefties (of whom I am still one) who blindly support anything Islamic to SEE what that book teaches. Thankfully, not many Indian Muslims follow it.

I am still very angry, shaken, and upset. I do not want to be a hateful person, but it takes some doing to be calm when faced with people who seriously believe the messages of hate in that book, and worse, try to spread it as 'correct'. All I can do to release my feelings in a positive direction is to wish your movement luck, and to hope that your sane voices reach some people and are not mixed up with the hate politics of other religious fanatics.

I hope people leave Islam in droves, and that Hindu militancy dies out too. I would hate Hinduism to be twisted into a mirror image of Islam - violent, sneering, intolerant, aggressive. It has disturbed me enough to see the beginning. Some other way must be found.
 


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