The Times They Are A-Changin’. Or are they? Arshad Madani of the Darul Uloom Deoband has now come out in support of the statement by RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat saying that there is nothing wrong with the statement that Muslims of India and Hindus share the same DNA.
According to reports, Madani said that he likes the statement made by Mohan Bhagwat. He said that in India, there are Gurjar, Rajputs and Jats, for example, amongst Hindus and Muslims both, therefore, there is nothing wrong in saying that Hindus and Muslims in India share the same ancestry. He is further claimed to have said that RSS is “changing its old ideology and is now on the right track”.
While the statement by Mohan Bhagwat in isolation seems like a hand extended in friendship and the statement by Arshad Madani seems like that hand in friendship has been accepted, there is certainly more than meets the eye here.
When Mohan Bhagwat made that statement about the shared ancestry between Hindus and Muslims, there was widespread outrage by sections of Hindus and Muslims alike. The Hindus who took umbrage to what Bhagwat said claimed that the RSS was softening its stand against Muslim fundamentalism and therefore, the Sanghis were simply not Sanghi enough. The Muslims, on the other hand, said that RSS was ‘anti-Muslim’ and was somehow denying the Islamic heritage and claiming that Muslims from India were Hindus, in some sort of an attack against the Muslim community.
Both groups were, of course, off the mark. Mohan Bhagwat had categorically also said that Islam as a religion came to India through invasions. Essentially, there is nothing wrong with what Mohan Bhagwat said. Indeed, Islam is a foreign religion to India and came to Bharat only after barbaric invasions by Muslims rulers. Thereafter, as is the norm in every Caliphate, the process of conversion began. The Islamic invaders proceeded to destroy temples, rape women, kill men, tax kafirs and give Hindus the option to convert to Islam, pay Jizya or die. Several Hindus in that era converted to Islam for fear of retribution by the barbarian rulers. It is the lineage of those who today call themselves Indian Muslims.
Therefore, it is not far from the truth when Bhagwat says that Hindus and Muslims in India have a common ancestry. Muslims today were Hindus then, who were converted by force. This is not to say that Indian Muslims are Hindus today and neither does it whitewash Islamic fundamentalism in any way. It is a simple historical fact. Muslims in India are Muslims because their Hindu forefathers converted under barbaric Islamic invaders. That is that. It is what it is.
On the face of it, Arshad Madani agreeing with what Mohan Bhagwat said is not wrong. It is good that he admits that Indian Muslims share their ancestry with Hindus because the forefathers converted under barbaric rulers – they were, at some point of time, Hindus.
However, there is a deeper meaning to what Arshad Madani is trying to do here and we must acknowledge it before the fundamentalists manage to set a narrative that whitewashes Islamic terrorism.
Arshad Madani, the principal of Darul Uloom Deoband who is also president of Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind doesn’t believe the Taliban as a terror outfit, and, he adorns Taliban and Talibanis as freedom fighters.
In an exclusive interview given to the Dainik Bhaskar recently, Madani said that if fighting against subjugation is terrorism then by this logic Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Maulana Hazrat Shekhuddin were also terrorists. It must be noted that the Taliban is believed to have drawn inspiration from the Deobandi movement which originated in Uttar Pradesh’s Deoband.
As the Taliban has come to conquer Afghanistan a large number of Muslim scholars, politicians and leftist media are trying for the makeover the image of the Taliban as ‘Good Taliban.’
“Anybody fighting against subjugation we don’t consider them as a terrorist. We clap if the Taliban are fighting for independence because everybody has the right to independence. If this is terrorism then Gandhi, Nehru and Shekhuddin were also terrorists, all those who fought against the British government were terrorists,” Dainik Bhaskar quoted Madani saying.
He, therefore, believes that the Taliban had a right to stone women to death, behead kafirs and those who fought for the people and not the Taliban, ensure that women are covered from head to toe because if they aren’t, men would get lured. He also believes in pushing gay men off buildings and a host of other problematic, barbaric actions taken by the Taliban in strict accordance with Shariah law. He did not say any of this explicitly. But, of course, if one defends the Taliban while they are doing all of this, one has to assume that their actions are also acceptable to the individual.
In the same breath, when Madani says that Hindus and Muslims in India have the same ancestry, it must be understood that he is not really referring to a biological and historic fact. What he is trying to do is normalise his vile thoughts and insinuate that there is no difference between Hindu and Muslim ideology per se.
This brilliant admission will serve multiple purposes for the cabal. Firstly, it will give way to the narrative that if there are “bad apples” in the Muslim community who indulge in terrorism, there are also “bad apples” in the Hindu society. This is a classic strawman which is deliberately created by the apologists of Islam. Essentially, to say that humanity is the same and that the intrinsic problems in Islam that lead to terrorism are a figment of the Hindu imagination.
What it does further is to say that Indian Muslims are as “good” as the Hindus and any and all criticism of the Muslim community, that regularly indulges in terrorism and commits atrocities against Hindus is misplaced.
What this admission does is to give the “narrative pushers” a chance to create false equivalences between Hindus and Muslims. In fact, they would go a step further and create a false equivalence between Hindu “terrorists” and Muslim terrorists – saying that “terrorists” are in all faiths and no disproportionate criticism should accrue to Islam.
This, notwithstanding that Muslims, till a few days ago, were criticising Mohan Bhagwat for mentioning a historic fact because they believed that their Islamic heritage was being denied.
Madani is essentially not agreeing with a historic fact. He is using this to whitewash terrorists. To mainstream what the Taliban does and to create a straw man where all criticism of Islam can be branded as Islamophobia and Hindus becoming “intolerant”.