India’s war on Muslims: Can India win?

Dr. Firoz Mahboob Kamal

The unending war

 The government of the Hindutva fascists in India is already running an all-inclusive war on the Muslims. It looks unending. The war aims at cleansing the Muslims from all fields of Indian mainstream and forcing them to be a non-entity. Their war cry is also loudly audible on the socio-political landscape. It looks that all the necessary groundworks are being done for a massive genocide against the Indian Muslims in near future –as was done by the German fascists. Few weeks ago, in a large convention of the Hindutva fascists in the state of Uttar Khand, an open call for genocidal cleansing of Muslims was announced by the Hindu priests. The Indian government officials, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders and even the leaders of Indian National Congress kept mum on such criminal incitement. No Hindu leader showed any intent to put a rein on these murderous thugs. Even the local police showed a long reluctance to arrest such genocidal gurus. These gurus were arrested only after the court order.

Thus, all brands of Hindutva political or non-political organisations show their complicity in such genocidal agenda. So, the situation for the Indian Muslims looks very gruesome and alarming. A permissive political culture for annihilation of Muslims is being built on anti-Muslim hatred. Muslims are deliberately portrayed as the villain of all misfortunes of India. Whereas calling a rape of a Kashmiri woman a rape and showing the video of Indian Army’s atrocities against innocent civilian in Kashmir is considered a punishable anti-state crime. On such accusation, many Muslim journalists are put in the prisons for years. So, two rules work in India, the punishing one for the Muslims and the appeasing one for the Hindus.

The incorrigibles

The Indian Muslims are facing a multi-faceted Hindutva war. And indeed, the ongoing war is not the creation of the BJP fascists. It started under the so-called secularist Congress rule after the creation of independent India in 1947. The war is decimating the Muslims in economic, cultural, political, educational, and administrative fields. India has 15 percent Muslim population, but in government jobs they are not given even 3 percent share. The current share is much lower than that they had during British rule. So the end of British rule didn’t end Muslims’ agonies, rather has enhanced their deprivation and miseries by the hands of the native Hindus.

Because of interaction with the Hindu leaders during his Congress days, Mohammad Ali Jinnah –the founder of Pakistan could correctly foresee the fate of Indian Muslims under the Hindu rule. His reading of Hindu mind led him to the conclusion that these impregnated creatures with the ancient ignorance are incorrigible. So the former ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity changed his political course and embarked on creating Pakistan. The outcome of the creation of Pakistan is hugely visible. The 400 million Muslims of Bangladesh and Pakistan could be salvaged out of the awful Indian prison only because of creating Pakistan. The number of Muslim doctors, engineers, architects, scientists, professors, industrialists, international traders, lawyers, and judges, civil and military officers that are living in a single city of Karachi or Dhaka is much larger than the number of the same categories of people created by 200 million of Indian Muslims in the last 70 years.   

The new Hindutva strategy

 The Sachar commission was formed and mandated by former Indian Prime Minister Monmohan Singh to explore the causes of Muslims’ backwardness. The commission found that the Muslims stand in the lowest echelon of the socio-economic ladder. They stand even lower than the so-called untouchables -the worst victims of the Hind caste system. The main cause of the Muslims’ backwardness owes to educational and social deprivation and political and economic marginalisation. It is significant to note that the Hindutva fascists are not happy with the current level of Muslims’ miseries, exclusion, and deprivation. They want to take the level further down by enforcing more economic deprivation, more social boycott and more educational exclusion. As long as they can’t execute the total cleansing of Muslims from India, the Hindutva forces are not ready to offer a better option than such total exclusion.

The current level of incarceration of the 200 million Muslims are described by the BJP and the RSS (Rashtriya Sevak Sangh) leaders as appeasement of the Muslims by the Congress. Under the long Congress rule, hundreds of thousands of Muslim men, women and children are slaughtered by thousands of anti-Muslim carnages –called communal riots. The successive Congress government brought down the Muslims’ share in government jobs to 3 percent. The Congress Prime Minister Narsima Rao –a former terrorist against the Muslim rule in Hyderabad, in collaboration of the Hindutva fascist dismantled the historic Babri mosque to rubbles. But still, the BJP and the RSS axis blames the Indian National Congress for appeasing the Muslims. They could only be pleased with the Congress if their long rule could have cleansed Muslims altogether from the Indian soil.

Under the BJP rule, the anti-Muslim war strategies are now taking new shapes. The intoxication of the Hindus with Islamophobia has reached its record high. They fear that the only Hindu state on the world map will be ultimately lost to the Muslims in the near future. Therefore, decimating Muslims’ power demographically, politically, economically and ideologically stays as the key objective of all Hindutva strategies. For demographic extinction, their prescription is the wholescale genocide against the Muslims. Vinayak Damodar Savarker –the guru of Hinduta revival admired Hitler for his successful genocidal policy against the Jews. He advised his Hindutva followers to deploy the same methodology against the Indian Muslims to cleanse them from the Indian soil. Mr. Amit Shah –the current Indian Home Minister publicly labelled Muslim as termites. Such connotation magnifies the political objective of the Hindutva fascists. Termites qualify only for full annihilation from their habitation. So, the BJP and its allies find the reason to sanction the same fate for the Indian Muslims.

The economic survival of the Indian Muslims is made highly difficult by planned dismantlement of the Muslim business –especially in Hindi heart land. Recently in a mammoth gathering of the Hindus in the state of Uttar Pradesh, an oath was taken from the attendants to boycott Muslim businesses and other social and economic interaction with them. The Muslim cow-traders and butchers are already out of the trade. They are blamed and get executed on the accusation of slaughtering their goddess -the cow. The Muslim communities in Aligarh, Murababad, Meerat, Kanpur and many Indian cities were once famous for handicrafts. But they faced planned arson and destruction in the repeated tides of anti-Muslim carnage. Even the Muslim hawkers selling small items on carts became the target of planned attack. Few months ago a Muslim young man was beaten by the Hindutva thugs in a Hindu area on a fabricated pretext that he was enticing Hindu girls in the guise of a vendor. This has become a common Hindutva trick to lynch Muslims in public. The Muslims are getting insulted and lynched even for keeping beard and wearing head cap.   

The strategy of Muslims’ exclusion from education

Education is the most important tool of people’s empowerment. It helps people to climb up the socio-economic ladder. Recently, Indian Muslims have shown some progress in education. But the Hindutva forces are not happy with the Muslims’ recent progress in education. So, they devise new anti-Muslim strategies. They want to take the ladder of socioeconomic up-climbing from the Muslims by excluding them from educational premises. For that, putting a ban on hijab is taken as a tool. Recently, they BJP government of Karnataka state imposed ban on hijab on Muslim female students. The state’s High Court has ratified the government decision of banning religious symbols in classes. Since it prohibits hijab, the only victim of this court ruling will be the Muslim women. The Sikh men can wear turban everywhere, but the Muslim women can’t wear hijab in class rooms. As if, Hijab is a religious symbol, but turban is not. Such a ruling will only help promote the Hindutva agenda. Since BJP formed the central government, the Indian judiciary is visibly seen to serve the political causes of the Hindutva fascists. Once the Indian Supreme Court opined that Babri mosque must be protected. But when it was razed to the ground in broad daylight, none was punished for such a crime. And the land of the Babri mosque was handed over to the Hindus to build a Hindu temple. This is the standard of Indian judiciary. And the people are asked to believe that the judiciary is infallible.   

Now banning hijab is a new Hindutva strategy to cause more Muslims’ marginalisation and deprivation. So far, hijab was not a problem in attending schools and colleges. Attending lecture classes in colleges is not like playing football. Therefore, why should there be a problem with hijab in classrooms? The Muslim female students with full hijab and even with nikab are participating in schools, colleges and universities in the UK, the USA, Canada, Australia and many western counties without any problem. Even in non-BJP states of India like West Bengal, Kerala, Rajasthan, the Muslim women are attending classes without any problem. Therefore, why should it be a problem in Karnataka? In fact, the problem is not hijab but the bigotry against Muslim and Islam.

Since banning hijab has anti-Muslim political and social utility, the BJP fascists have manufactured it as a problematic issue to exclude Muslim girls from education. They know that hijab is a Qur’anic decree. It is a visible emblem of Muslims’ submission to the Almighty Allah Subhana wa Ta’la. The noncompliance with such a Divine decree tantamount to disbelief in Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’la. Any noncompliance with the hijab is an expression of rebellion against the rule of Almighty Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’la. Therefore, those who are truly faithful Muslim will prefer to leave the classes than leaving the hijab. Already the Muslim parents of Karnataka have stated to social media that they will send their daughter to colleges that permit wearing hijab. For a Muslim, education is a secondary matter, but pleasing the Almighty Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’la by full submission to His Qur’anic command is the first and the foremost priority of Muslims’ survival. Otherwise, his rebellion against the Divine prescription will lead him or her to the hellfire for an eternal life. Therefore, a faithful Muslim girl can’t think of an iota of non-compliance with the Islamic dress code. The Hindutva fascists know this; hence banning hijab is taken as a convenient tool to enforce the Muslim women’s exclusion from education.

The suicidal path

India has taken a suicidal path. India has 200 million Muslim population. Every citizen is bestowed with precious physical, intellectual and innovative endowment; hence, is an invaluable asset for a country. Therefore, a civilised country never excludes its own citizens. Rather emphases on their inclusion in all developmental activities with the full potentials. But India is an awful exception. It has implemented a national policy of exclusion of a huge number of its own people. Not only 200 million Muslims are excluded from India’s politics, economics, and civil and military bureaucracy, but also more than 200 million Dalits are excluded. Therefore, if more than 400 million people are excluded from the participation in state building, how can India progress? In fact, this is the key reason that India stands far behind even Bangladesh in per capita income and other development indicators. This is why the largest number of poor people live in India. Bangladesh could go ahead of India because of its policy of inclusion. The door is open for every one irrespective of his or her religion. Therefore, everyone in Bangladesh from a village to a city can invest his or her potential in the development of the country. But such an opportunity is forbidden in India in the name of religion and caste.

Playing with fire

The Hindutva forces are playing with fire. Can India win a war against 200 million Muslims? The world’s most mighty power like the USA and its more than 50 partner countries couldn’t win a war against 38 million Afghans. Now, the Indian Muslims have their back on the wall. They are left with no option but to fight back. In such a desperate situation, people make revolution in thought and politics. Muskan Khan -the young Muslim woman of Karnata is an example. She has ignited a new flame of inspiration and confidence in the hearts of millions of Muslim men and women all over the world. In the midst more than 50 Hindutva thugs she valiantly chanted “Allahu Akbar.”  It is immensely symbolic. It will work as the beginning of a new era of Muslims in India.

More than six hundred thousand Indian soldiers are fighting a war in land of 9 million Kashmiris. But they couldn’t win the war in more than three decades. If they fight for another hundred years, they will not win. Along with loss of human lives, that will only multiply India’s economic loss. War against a people is unwinnable. Every long war causes huge bleeding to the economy. The bleeding Indian elephant is bound to collapse without any external war, as happened to the Soviet Union for its war in Afghanistan. Now another disaster of India is in the making. The Hindutva fascists are expanding the war against 200 Indian Muslims inside India. Moreover, India is the most hated country by all of its neighbours. It is an isolated country in South Asia. India’s stern enemies like Pakistan and China earnestly wish that India stays in war in Kashmir and in its own domestic corridors until it fully collapses. While India is committing its own suicide, the enemies need not fire a single bullet.

War always generates war. Extremism always generates extremism. The Hindutva extremism will certainly generate the Muslim extremism. Only six Pakistani commandos could cause the collapse of Mumbai -the business capital of India for several days. If a few hundreds of the Indian Muslim turn extremist, what will happen to the Indian economy is easily conceivable. India’s war on Muslims will have other consequences. Muslims in the neighbouring countries will not stay sitting on the fences, they will be drawn in the war field. Enemies’ war against Muslims always becomes a perfect jihad. And jihad in India will attract jihadists from all over the world -not only from neighbouring Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. Then, the whole India will turn into a global battleground. Once Maulana Abul Kalam Azad – a veteran Congress leader wrote in his weekly Al Hilal: “If a Turkish Muslim soldier in the Balkan war gets a bullet wound in his leg, if you don’t feel the pain in your heart, by Allah, you are not a Muslim.” The same heart to heart connection among Muslims all over the world works even today. This is why thousands of jihadist landed on Afghan soil to fight against the enemies of Muslims. And the enemies were badly defeated.

So fighting against the Muslims of India is indeed fighting against all the Muslims of the world. Is India going to be a killing ground for the Muslims? If the Hindu fascists take that route, the war on Indian Muslims will not remain an Indian matter. India will never be a Spain for Muslims. Spanish Muslims didn’t have Pakistan and Bangladesh as neighbours, but Indian Muslims have. The Hindu fascists have already earned its notoriety all over the world as the worst enemy of Muslim and Islam. The history books have a lesson for them. Fascists may win some skirmishes or battles, but can never win a war. 11/02/2022