Author: Balbir K. Punj
Publication: Organiser
Date: January 1, 2006
URL: http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=110&page=8
After celebrity conversion of Yusuf Youhana
it was the turn of three young and non-descript Hindu girls in Pakistan to
'embrace' Islam. Three Hindu girls viz. Reena (21), Usha (19) and Rima (17)
went missing from their Punjab colony residence in Karachi, Pakistan on October
18 last. Their father Sanno Amra, a chauffer and mother Champa, a cook were
understandably people of humble means. After searching frantically they went
to police station where the SHO refused to register a case. But fortunately
they had a patent hearing from DSP Raza Shah who got the FIR of abduction
registered on the fourth day. The needle of suspicion pointed towards three
young men, obviously Muslims, in that locality. But now the sole Hindu family
in that neighbourhood began to receive threats.
Within a few days the family received a courier
containing three identical affidavits apparently dictated by the same person.
The girls, in those signed affidavits, said that they had accepted Islam voluntarily.
The declaration concluded "That since my parents are Hindu and after
conversion of my conversion of my religion, it is not possible for me to live
and pass my life in Hindu system/society and therefore I have decided to live
separately…". The girls were finally located in a hostel of madrasa
Taleem-ul-Quran and a court directive facilitated their parent to meet those
girls. The parents were shocked to find that Afshan, Anam and Nida, as they
were called post-conversion were clad in burqa from head to toe leaving only
their eyes uncovered. The eye of the youngest daughter was blood red from
weeping. The only thing the parents could learn from their daughters was that
they should be left where they are.
Cases of abduction of Hindu girls and their
forced conversion to Islam is nothing new in Pakistan and Bangladesh. In fact,
fugitive Bangladeshi author Salam Azad lamented what kind of 'Renaissance'
is possible in Islamic world where madrasas teach that if a Muslim converts
a non-Muslim, marries a non-Muslim even kill or rape a non-Muslim he will
go to paradise! Such poignant stories of abduction of women by Islamist touch
a raw nerve of Hindus. Immediately, they conjure up images of medieval Islamic
rule, where slave taking was an established practice. Islam has not changed
the wee bit (it will even be a blasphemy to expect it should change) rather
going on rampage on its medievalist drive.
Forget about Indian government doing something
about the 'Karachi episode' it is unlikely the government can say something.
What can Indian government do in Pakistan and Bangladesh when it failed to
save its minority Hindus in Kashmir? Such Islamic abductions and conversion
take place in India by thousands, in Muslim majority areas, that people commonly
identify as 'Mini-Pakistans'. But the Indian government is bound by its creed
even to say something against such acts of persecution. It is because the
government of India is secular and not Hindu! So while Hindus might think
that India is their only country, the country for which they can lay down
their lives, India 'constitutionally' doesn't think it has any obligation
towards Hindus. Thus Nehru could abandon ten million Hindus of East Pakistan
by Nehru-Liaquat and Nehru-Noon Pacts of 1950.
This sad state of affairs is actually an offshoot
of the creed of Indian National Congress from the beginning. Congress, by
its creed was a secular platform, although most of its members were Hindus.
From Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan to Jinnah Muslims identified Congress a 'Hindu
Party', although Congress was avid to welcome Muslims to its fold. Jinnah
said Muslim League stood for Muslims, and Congress for Hindus, and India should
be divided on Hindu-Muslim lines with attending exchange of population like
the one took place between Christian Greece and Muslim Turkey in 1923.
But Congress persisted it represented everybody
(which actually means no body). But did not save the Congress from being wiped
out from those parts of India where Pakistan/East Pakistan came up. The biggest
refugee from Pakistan in 1947 was not Hindus or Sikhs but the 'concept' called
Congress. But Congress did not come out of confusion rather infused that confusion
about whom it represents. That confusion has proved contiguous to other parties
of India as well.
The feminist organisations of India, to whom
secularism is an article of faith, and jumps bandwagon whether it is Bilkis
Bano or Ishrat Jahan case are also silent. But they were silent in Imarana
episode. Don't they think that a lady being clad in burqa by customs whereby
she looks like 'a walking ghost' is utterly discomfiture to the very concept
of freedom they are trying to promote? This is certainly not modesty, but
graveyard of humanity.
Post-conversion Yusuf Youhana had said that
if all inhabitants of Pakistan accepted Islam then the country would become
'land of the pure' in the literal sense of the term. He also expressed the
hope that Islam would become the dominant religion of the world. The affidavits
of these girls, notwithstanding they might have been dictated by a Mufti,
says contact with Hindu (read Kafir) parents in not tenable. These utterances
should not be dismissed as merely coincidental. In fact, they are rooted in
Islamic credo. Prophet Mohammed did not pray at his mother's grave because
she was not a Muslim. A Muslim will have to distance, dissociate, and disown
his non-Islamic past. This is as true for a converted individual as for a
converted civilization. In fact, this is the creed of Tablighi Jamat, started
as an apolitical movement in India in 1926 by Maulana Mohammed Ilyas. Its
mission is to gain new converts to Islam, and purify the non-Islamic vestiges
by making them more and more devout. The other is Islam's urge to 'dominate'
the world, which is missed by whisker between 7th and 16th century. Maulanas
still lament that world had 'almost' become Islamic were it not for a few
vital reverses the army of Islam faced at most critical hours.
(The writer, a Rajya Sabha MP and Convenor
of BJP's Think Tank can be contacted at bpunj@email.com)
