Author:
Publication: Vigil - Vicharamala No. 96
Date: January 18, 2006
URL: http://www.vigilonline.com/reference/columns/columnsList.asp?columnist_id=1
Thoughts on issues of current interest, including
instances of some double standards of our public figures, especially in the
construction of Hindusthani identity (all those Macaulayan myths, and the
hypocrisy that is Nehruvian secularism) - Krishen Kak
We are all aware of how Harsh Mander's bloodcurdling
account of the post-Godhra Gujarat violence swept around the USA, the UK and
the Dar-ul-Islam as a "pogrom/holocaust/genocide" (take your pick)
of Muslims by Hindus - and then the statutory and independent Press Council
of India indicted him for rumour-mongering (V'mala 30). The "secular"
UPA government announced the official figures of the post-Godhra dead ( http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=46538
)and, while even one death is too many, if Nehruvian secularism calls this
a pogrom, what word does it use for the massacre of the Sikhs in Delhi, the
persecution of Reangs in the northeast, and the deracination of the KP community
from Kashmir - all by forces of Nehruvian secularism?
No word at all because, for Nehruvian secularism,
the killing of Hindus* is population control, it is only that of non-Hindus
that becomes communalism.
Instance after instance has been given in
Vicharamala of the double standards of Nehruvian secularism. Kashmir is an
outstanding example - not just our Constitutional provisions that privilege
it over the rest of our country**, but all our consequent policies and practices
in regard to it. We have even sacrificed an entire community - the Kashmiri
Pandits - in the Hindu-cow-into-the-mouth-of-the-Muslim-tiger appeasement
so unambiguously recommended by that founder of Nehruvian secularism, the
late MK Gandhi (V'mala 16).
Nehruvian secularism has successfully ensured
that "Kashmiri" means only Kashmiri Muslims (the Hindus, as in Sultan
Sikandar Butshikan's time, given the choice between conversion and death,
have fled the Valley). The Kashmiri Muslims continue to moan and groan of
discrimination and continue to refer to the rest of the country as a foreign
one. And, Gandhian, we continue to appease them.
A few months ago there was an earthquake in
Kashmir. Kashmiri Muslim leaders found a ready ear in our Nehruvian-secular
media to compare earthquake relief to Gujarat for Bhuj with that to them,
alleging gross discrimination against them and implying this is so because
they are Muslim and Gujarat is Hindu. Hindus were intended to feel guilty
and, typically, many did.
But what is the truth? As with post-Godhra
Gujarat, reality is very different from Nehruvian-secular propaganda.
"For the earthquake in Bhuj, Gujarat
that struck on January 26, 2001, total central assistance amounted to Rs 510
crore. This earthquake was one of the most damaging in India's history, killing
over 20,000 people. To get a relative idea of the amount distributed, one
can calculate the ratio of monetary assistance to the number of casualties.
Thus, for every person who died the government spent about Rs 2.6 lakh......Contrast
this with the Kashmir quake that took 1,300 lives. A total Rs 650 crore was
doled out by the Indian government to manage this quake. That is Rs 50 lakh
per casualty. Thus the victims of the Kashmir earthquake got 20 times more
in per casualty terms than their counterparts in Gujarat" ( http://www.cpasind.com/articles/ot-06-01-02-kashmir-earthquake-untold-story.html
, and I urge you to read the full report to see how the Indian taxpayer supports
an ungrateful and secessionist Kashmir).
And why do the Kashmir victims get so much
more than the Gujarat ones? Said bluntly, it is because the former are Muslim
and the latter are Hindu. Recall the screeching Nehruvian-secular allegations
of religion-based relief discrimination in post-Godhra Gujarat. Why has not
one Nehruvian secularist screeched at the blatant religion-based relief discrimination
that has always been practised in Kashmir?
Because, as representative Nehruvian-secularist
Harsh Mander declared, he is concerned only with Muslim victims.
Take the flip side of disaster relief - that
is, regular development programmes. Do you know that our Nehruvian-secular
Government of India is favourably and "actively considering a new system
of allocating funds for key social sector programmes" based on religion?
That almost a fifth of of the total spending will be reserved for mainly Muslims
and Christians ( http://dailypioneer.com/archives2/default12.asp?main_variable=EDITS&file_name=edit1%2Etxt&counter_img=1&phy_path_it=D%3A%5Cdailypioneer%5Carchives2%5Cjan1006
) . And this is in addition to the numerous religion-based policies already
being introduced (V'mala 95).
Have you heard of even a single Christian
or Islamic State that recognizes Hindus and extends to us the kind of recognition
and benefits we extend to Christians and Muslims? Have you heard of a single
democracy, a single "secular" polity anywhere in the world that
extends the kinds of favour to Hindus that we extend to non-Hindus?
No?
Then why do we do it? Because, after centuries
of rule by Islam and Christianity - and with an educational system that remains
firmly macaulayan - we remain dhimmis and continue to produce more dhimmis***.
We Hindus have forgotten a fundamental principle
of human conduct called the golden rule of reciprocity. This rule goes back
at least 5000 years to our Mahabharata; it goes back to Confucianism, and
it is divinely sanctioned for Judaism, Christianity and Islam, all of which
acknowledge the Old Testament. Four times does the Old Testament sanctify
as the lex talionis an application of this principle: Exodus 21.23-25; Leviticus
24.17-21; Deuteronomy 19.19; indeed, practised by their god himself - Judges
1.7, and by his followers in, for example, the Koranic kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Remember that the Pandavas regained their
kingdom, their homeland, their honour, only after they remembered the golden
rule of reciprocity.
When will we Hindus remember the lesson Krishna
taught our ancestors?
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*I use "Hindu" as "being derived
from the name of the South-Asian land mass, the term `Hindu' simply happens
to connote India and all religions native to India" (Koenraad Elst, "Who
is a Hindu?", 2002, published by and available from Voice of India, 2/18
Ansari Road, New Delhi 110002, tel 2327-8034, email: voi@bibliaimpex.com ).
**Arvind Lavakere,"The Truth About Article
370" (2005), published by and available from Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini,
17 Chanchal Smruti, GD Ambekar Marg, Wadala, Mumbai 400031, tel 2413-6996,
fax 2415-6725, email: ravis@rmponweb.org .
***Dhimmitude is "negationist accommodation
rooted in fear" (NS Rajaram, reviewing the seminal "Islam and Dhimmitude:
Where Civilizations Collide" by Bat Ye'or, tr.Miriam Kochan & David
Littman, 2002).
On negationism in India, see Koenraad Elst,
"Negationism in India: Concealing the Record of Islam", 1993, also
from Voice of India. An outstanding recent instance of such negationism is
Rudrangshu Mukherjee writing (and Roli Books and The Hindu publishing),"Implicit
in the idea of Muslim rule is the assumption that Muslim rulers carried out
or encouraged large-scale conversions to Islam. No historical evidence substantiates
this" ( http://www.hindu.com/lr/2006/01/01/stories/2006010100040100.htm
). Someone send this Mukherjee a Voice of India catalogue for the many publications
that detail the historical evidence substantiating not just large-scale conversions,
but also the Koranic bloodlust that still requires them. As for the fear in
dhimmitude, not even the Indian police is brave enough to take on the Indian
Muslim in a class violation of the law (see, for example, http://dailypioneer.com/indexn12.asp?main_variable=OPED&file_name=opd4%2Etxt&counter_img=4
).
