M V Kamath
The trouble with India is that it is indestructible. One may hast it, mash it and ground it to the dust but next morning it is up again, wearing a cheerful smile and a forgiving countenance. What can one possibly do to destroy this nation which is a civilization, more that a nation? Starting with the year AD1,000 with Ghazni Mohammad’s invasion, it has faced wave after wave of barbarian attacks from Central Asia, Afghanistan and Europe with equanmity. It was the same story in 2008.
But what does India do? It sends a satellite to the moon, equalling the engineering talents of four of hte 192 member countries of the United Nations who have achieved that feat. If anybody deserves a Bharat Ratna, it is G. Madhavan Nair, Chairman of ISRO. Barbarians, terrorists, jihadists and their like may come and go, but India that is Bharat merrily goes on for over, busying itserlf with science, arts and other civilizational mores. Madhavan Nair and his colleagues represent that side of India. But there is something sick about India’s neighbouring country, Pakistan which has given birth to terrorists - ‘gunmen’ as the BBC so delicately describes them - whose mindset is inexplicable, and with many Indian Muslims as well. And one wants to know what it is that turns even educated young men to resort to mindless killing.
Can someone tell? Three Muslim terrorists accuse of setting up serial blasts in different parts of India, all three in their early 20s had this to say of why they had taken to terrorism, Zia-ur-Rehman, 24, has been quoted as saying: This is jihad for Allah. It is against Maharashtra, for ignoring the Srikrishna Report .... I have no regrets. Mohammad Shakeel, 26, a final year student of economics at Jamia Milia Islamic was angry because in India, according to him, Muslimsare not welcome! There are two options, live a life full of contempt, get abused and insulted, or protest in the name of Allah... I experienced an awakening after I committed my life to Allah. Now, nothing scares me is his explanation. Another Jamia Milia student, Saquib Nisar felt that it is difficult to be a Muslim in India, so he took to jihad ‘for Allah’. And what did they get by setting up serial blasts in four cities and killing a few innocent people? Did they become more welcome to their fellow citizens? And how many more people would they like to kill to get accepted as friends? Apparently these questions have never occurred to them or to leaders like Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, Chief of Lashkar - i - Taiba, Zakir Rehman Lakhvi, Operations Commander of L-I.T in Pakistan who had directed the Mumbai killings, Safdar Nagori, chief of the students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), Syed Salahuddin, chief of Hizbul Mujahideen, Mufti Abu Bashar, of the Indian Mujahideen or Manlana Masood Azar, chief of Pakistan - based Jaish-e-Mohammed. Killing is all.
If young Muslims feel isolated, Should’t they ask why it is so? If Muslims insist on isolating themselves, wearing a skull cap to assert their Islamic individuality, forcing their women to wear burqa, refusing to let their daughters get higher education and otherwise refusing to join the mainstream, why blame the majority community? One available explanation is that the Muslims in India have still not reconciled themselves to the reality that they are no longer the rulers to dictate to the majority and in fact, numerically they are in a minority demographically and politically. Hence the internalising of their angst. During centuries of Mughal or Muslim rule, Hindus too, looked inward, but they did not take to terrorism; instead, they took to business and commerce and even more significantly, they found a measure of peace in the Bhakti Cult. It gave them inner comfort, though, for a brief period, there was an upsurge of revolt in Bengal that Bankim Chandra Chatterjee has imortalised in his classic novel Anand Mutt, which talks of a sanyasi rebellion. One is reminded of that when one roads about Sadhvi Pragya.
Then there is the matter of language. Urdu is not the language only or specifically, of Muslims. To make that as a unifying factor for all Muslims is to separate them from their fellow countrymen. Muslims in kerala by necessity have to accept Malayalam as their mother tongue as Muslims in Bengal should treat Bengali. Christians have no such linguistic problem. There is no ‘Christian’ language as such. In her excellent book ‘The Trouble with Islam Today’, Irshad Manji raises the point effectively. She asks: ‘Do Christians make each other feel inadequate for not knowing Greek, the original language of the New Testament? There was a time when Christianity could only be observed in Latin which protected the power of the Vatican’s clerics. Muslims have no Vatican’. But the trouble is; they have mullahs. Christians in Germany speak German, those in France in French etc. Similarly, Muslims in Turkey speak in Turkish and those in Indonesia is Bhasha Indonesia.
That hasn’t made them less Christians or Muslims. But Muslims in India, in an effort to remember the past, want to stick to the Mughal language, urdu, thus killing any possibility of Hindu Muslim togetherness, throughout the country. Why blame Hindus for being a people apart? It is not Hindus who have isolated Muslims. This is a self-inflicted wound by Muslims themselves. India may be a Hindu-majority country, but in no state has any governenment imposed jiziya on Muslims. No state has made any effort to forcibly convert Muslims to Hindus. No state has passed orders that Muslims cannot drive cars as a similar order was passed during Muslim rule when Hindus were not permitted to move in planquins. If anything, Muslims are the most pampered minority in India and the Centre even has a Ministry for Minorities presided over by that joker, Abdur Rehman Antulay. Indian government both at the Central and state levels bend bacward to be helpful to Muslims in the matter of Haj pilgrimage, but apparently our jihadis think they are entitled to such privileges, in defiance of all rules of secularism.
The tragedy is that Muslim youth today insist on staying away from all contacts with other communities and in their self - inflicted alienation, dream up all sorts of fancied hurts. There is not much that the majority community can do except to grin and hear the mindless terrorism inflicted on them which only widens the divide between them and Muslims. But where is the leadership among Muslims to help resolve negative thinking among their young and work hand- in- hand with the rest as follow-Indians working towards peace and prosperity to be shared by all?
The fooling of alienation is all in the mind. Muslims can get over it on their own, but only if they wish to. If they do, one can assure them, they will find that there is no paradise on earth greater then ‘Bharat’ that is India.
Source: http://newstodaynet.com/col.php?section=20&catid=58
No comments:
Post a Comment