Author: M.V.Kamath
Publication: The Free Press Journal
Date: April 6, 2006
URL: http://www.samachar.com/features/060406-features.html
What on earth is the matter Muslims in the
Indian sub-continent? And when one speaks of the subcontinent one includes
under that rubric all three countries, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
One had hoped that once Pakistan was conceded
Muslims who decided to stay on India would learn to live in peace with the
non-Muslim majority. Any Muslim who felt that he was being oppressed had total
freedom to leave India and migrate to Pakistan.
Or, for that matter, to Bangladesh. But that
is not happening. On the contrary, Pakistani and Bangladeshi jehadists are
sneaking into India and are apparently being given shelter by Indian Muslims.
Admitted their number is minuscule. Admittedly the majority and a substantial
majority of Muslims are totally opposed to any form of terrorism being practised
against Indian targets.
The tragedy is that because of an insignificantly
small number of Muslims who are giving shelter to Pakistani and Bangladeshi
terrorists, not only Muslims as a community, but Islam as a religion are getting
a bad name.
According to knowledgeable sources, since
2001, Uttar Pradesh alonehas seen the interdiction of at least 22 cells linked
to Pakistanbased Jehadi groups in operation. What happened at the Sankat Vimochan
Temple in Varanasi is not a rare and isolated instance. It was merely a repetition
of what happened at the Akshardham Temple in Ahmedabad in September 2002,
when 37 Hindu devotees were killed and 80 injured.
Indeed, less than six weeks before the Varanasi
bombings, a Kolkata police official, Prasum Mukherjee had told journalists
that his force had arrested a Lashkar operative who had planned to execute
strikes across urban centres in north and cast India.
Following the Varanasi bombings reports indicate
that jehadis were also planning to create havoc in many Hindu religious centres.
According to a media report, in 2003 intelligence-led
operations uncovered four terrorist cells of Jaish-e-Mohammad and arrests
were made in Lucknow, Allahabad, Muzaffarnagar, Sikandarabad and Noida.
People may have forgotten it, but on December
6, 1993, Muslim terrorists helped set off a series of 43 explosions in Hyderabad
and Mumbai and seven separate explosions on trains. By the mid-1990s jehadi
cells had started developing a formidable all-India reach. What has India
done to deserve all this? Muslims in India are free to practise their religion
without hindrance. No VHP activists have dropped bombs on Muslim devotees
kneeling at prayers.
The Government gives liberal subsidies to
Muslims who want to go on a Haj pilgrimage, which is being questioned by no
less a Muslim personage as the Prince of Arcot, Nawab Mohammed Abdul Ali.
Reacting to newspaper reports that the Union
Government has decided to allow the Haj pilgrims to carry $ 10,000 as basic
travel quota, in Addition to 2,000 Saudi Riyals, Nawab Abdul Ali is reported
to have said that this move means an annual outflow of foreign exchange to
the tune of $ 1,000 million for one lakh pilgrims visiting the holy mosques
at Mecca and Medina.
Is attacking Hindu temples the Islamic way
of repaying this extraordinary generosity? There is total freedom for Muslims
to practice their religion in India, unlike as in Pakistan where Hundus such
as there now are have to practice their religion under cover.
Sania Mirza is a national heroine and everybody
is proud of her performance. Mohammad Kaif, Wasim Jaffer, Irfan Pathan have
made their mark in ODI and Test cricket and they have been applauded. No one
ever thought of them as Muslims; they were great players; if they failed no
one condemned them. When they did well all Indians felt proud.
Time was when a Muslim film star had to assume
a `Hindu name, as Dilip Kumar did. But who bothers to question the religious
affinity of a Shah Rukh Khan or an Amir Khan? Or Shabana Azmi? We have heard
of books on Kathakali, Bharatanatyam and Indian culture being confiscated
and destroyed in airports of Saudi Arabia but the most orthodox Hindu would
be shocked and pained should anyone dare to tear the Quran.
India is not a barbarian country. It respects
all religions. It is therefore shocking to learn that a British airline has
banned its staff from taking Bibles or wearing crucifixes on flights to Saudi
Arabia "to avoid offending the country's Muslims'. And it is just as
painful to learn that a Muslim girl in Kerala and her family are facing social
ostracism because she is learning Bharatanatyam!
Kerala Muslims obviously do not know that
Ramayana is played in dance form in Indonesia by Muslim artistes. In Pakistan
there is a ban on 35 Indian entertainment channels. There is no Islamic country
in the world where religious minorities enjoy equal economic, religious and
political rights.
In India women can wear burqa and nobody cares.
The burqa is banned in Turkey. But for all the freedom that Muslims in India
enjoy, it has in recent years been made the target of Islamic hatred.
One of the most active Hate-India organisations
is the Lashkar-e-Toiba which has been masterminding a lot of terrorist activity
against India. Only a few weeks ago in January, Indian security forces in
Kashmir finally were able to kill Abu Huzaifa who had masterminded the October
29, 2005 serial bomb blasts in Delhi that left more than 60 dead.
Hatred is openly propagated as did an Uttar
Pradesh Muslim Minister who promised crores of rupees to anyone who would
behead the Danish cartoonist who had drawn a series of cartoons derogatory
of the Prophet.
And he continues to be a Minister. It is this
kind of atrocious behaviour, one believes that provoked K.P.S. Gill to condemn
Islamic intolerance in a powerful article in a national daily. "What
dishonours Islam more: a few irreverent cartoons?
Or the acts of remorseless murder, of relentless
violence against people of other faiths, of the intimidation and abuse of
all other faiths and communities which the Islamists routinely engage in"?
Gill asked. But who is going to answer him?
Do Jehadis think they can break up India by
their acts of terrorism? Or that they can `free' Jammu & Kashmir by attacking
the Indian Parliament? All that the jehadis are doing is to give both decent
Muslims and Islam a bad name. The least that Muslim citizens of India can
do is to give up violence. Violence gets them nowhere. It only antagonises
everyone against them.
Is that bow they want to live for generations
to come? As one poet put it: "jeena yahan, marna yahan, iske siva jana
kahan?" Can't Muslims live in India in peace for India's sake if not
for their owm?
Why can't they handle the traitors in their
midst instead of constantly berating the majority community? It is peace that
gives the richest social and economic dividends, not terrorism.
