In a Hindu-majority India, ‘secular’ politicians take delight in turning secularism and ‘bhaichara’ into a brutal whip against the Hindus to pander to Muslims. On 12th March 2025, Anjum Ara, the Mayor of Bihar’s Darbhanga issued a statement asking Hindus to take a “two-hour break” from Holi celebration to accommodate Jumma Namaz on Friday (14th March).
In her statement, Darbhanga Mayor Anjum Ara urged local Hindus to pause Holi festivities from 12:30 pm to 2:00 pm, saying, “Jumma time cannot be extended, so there should be a two-hour break on Holi. This would enable people from both faiths to carry out their respective practices without any hassles. We understand that Holi comes only once in a year. But we also need to keep in mind that for Muslims, it is the holy month of Ramzan.
Furthermore, she urged Hindus celebrating Holi to maintain distance from mosques. This statement was issued by the district administration after a peace committee meeting ahead of Holi.
Why not? After all, that exactly has what ‘secularism’ been in this country. Hindus must always make sacrifices, and play the role of “Bada bhai” (elder brother) so that the “Chhota bhai” (younger brother) can do whatever he wants. Darbhanga Mayor Anjum Ara’s “Hindus should not play Holi for two hours, because Jumma Namaz time cannot extended” reminds one of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s diktat prohibiting Durga Visarjan to facilitate observance of Muharram a few years back.
The so-called ‘secular’ politicians always pick Hindus to be the scapegoat of their lopsided appeasement in the name of preserving communal harmony. Then it was Durga Visarjan in West Bengal, now it is Holi, a festival celebrated by Hindus with unbridled joy, is being asked to pause, effectively to kneel before the rigid timetable of the Muslim community’s Jummah Namaz in Ramzam. Contrary to what the Islamo-leftist propagandists masquerading as secularists suggest, this is not about protecting communal harmony but about prioritising the convenience of Muslims over the celebration of the once-in-a-year festival of Hindus.
Anjum Ara suggests that Hindus should maintain distance from mosques to avoid clashes. This is basically a warning-cum-threat to Hindus that if you happen to go near a mosque and get seen celebrating your festival, it would be justified for Muslims to get offended, and resort to stone pelting and assaulting Hindus. There have been numerous instances when Islamo-leftists justified violence by Muslim mobs against Hindus just because the latter were taking a procession near a mosque playing bhajans, or raising Jai Shri Ram slogans. This, however, is dangerous and solidifies the Islamist assertion that non-Muslims should avoid entering ‘Muslim areas’ to avoid offending Islamists and getting attacked by them.
The Darbhanga Mayor’s statement is not something new, rather it is just a continuation of a broader pattern where politicians, often draped in secular rhetoric pander to Muslim sentiments at the expense of Hindu sentiments and festivals. The underlying message of doing so is that Hindu beliefs and festivals are somehow negotiable, adjustable, and dispensable while those of Muslims are sacrosanct. This is a blatant exploitation of the inherently tolerant and accommodating nature of Hindus. In Hindi, there is an adage “Seedhe ka mooh kutta chaate” which implies that the virtuous ones get easily suppressed or cornered. Hindus are ideologically very divided and have independent thought processes when it comes to politics, however, the Muslim community has historically been a consolidate votebank of certain political parties.
While Hindus see politics from the frame of development, jobs, infrastructure, freedom of speech etc, a significant section of Muslims sees politics as yet another tool for the expansion of their religious dominance. It, is thus convenient for the self-proclaimed secular politicians to appease politically and ideologically more united groups than a religious group that does not operate as a consolidated votebank. The Muslim appeasing political parties know that their neglect and suppression of Hindus and their beliefs would not trigger as fanatical and violent a protest as doing the same to Muslims would, they take advantage of this to issue diktats directing Hindus when and how they can or cannot celebrate their festivals.
During Ramzan, especially on Fridays, public places witness amplified calls to prayer, road blockages for offering namaz or iftar gatherings etc with little pushback from the authorities. Even if the police try to remove those offering namaz on roads, the Islamists and their sympathisers in politics and on social media villainise the authorities, painting them as oppressors of ‘minorities’. Contrast this with the curbs placed on Hindu festivals be it firecracker bans on Diwali or restrictions on Ganesh Chaturthi processions in states ruled by ‘secular’ (read Muslim appeasing) political parties. Apparently, the Darbhanga Mayor’s proposal adequately fits into this divisive trend, wherein politicians declare that Hindu traditions can easily be sliced and diced to fit the demands of or to appease a vocal and ready-to-get-offended-over-nothing minority, all under the guise of maintaining ‘communal harmony’.
Hindus should pause festivals, but Muslims cannot even allow processions to pass on a road near a mosque
However, far from fostering peace and upholding communal harmony, such moves only embolden Islamist Jihadis who interpret this as weakness, and assume that somehow they have the right to get offended and resort to violence if a Hindu procession passes by a mosque or simply Hindus are seen celebrating their festivals in a Muslim area. Emboldened by the appeasement of politicians and “Masjid ke saamne Jai Shri Ram chillaoge toh ye hi hoga” justification by Islamist sympathisers online, the average Jihadist uses petty excuses to vent out hatred against Kafirs (infidels) and assault them.
The recent violence in Jharkhand’s Hazaribagh wherein Muslims pelted stones from Madarsa on Hindus for installing Mahashivratri flags and loudspeakers. One wonders, if Anjum Ara was Hazaribagh’s mayor, she would have ordered Hindus to not install religious flags and play bhajans on loudspeakers to avoid offending Muslims. This wasn’t an aberration. In Madhya Pradesh’s Mhow, Muslims pelted stones on local Hindus for taking out a rally celebrating the Indian men’s cricket team winning the Champions Trophy. All was well until the celebratory procession passed Jama Masjid where a mob from the Masjid raising Allahu Akbar slogans started pelting stones at those celebrating India’s victory. While police were investigating the matter, Islamists on social media handed clean-chit to their riotous co-religionists giving fake excuses like firecrackers were hurled inside the mosque, and blaming Hindus for instigating Muslims by simply raising flags of Lord Hanuman and chanting Jai Shri Ram. This came despite the fact that the Imam of Jama Masjid had already admitted that it was the Muslims who started the violence by attempting to lynch Hindus who were chanting Jai Shri Ram during the cricket victory celebration.
There is a meticulous attempt ongoing to normalise the existence of Muslim ghettos/ no-go zones where the mere existence of Hindus exercising their right to worship is a potential trigger for violence and an affront to the Muslim community. Even last year, the court directed Hindus to change their Ram Navami Shobha Yatra routes ensuring that they do not traverse paths with mosques on them. This automatically shifted the onus of responsibility from the aggressor to the aggrieved. In Jharkhand’s Hazaribagh, a Hindu activist was arrested last year for organising Ram Navami procession in a place where the Hindu festival is somewhat ‘banned’.
Not only last year but in the recent past, processions of Hindus celebrating their festivals be it Ram Navami or Mahashivratri faced orchestrated attacks from Muslim mobs in West Bengal, MP, Gujarat and other states often near mosques. Remember the anti-Hindu violence in Haryana’s Nuh in 2023 wherein Hindus taking out a Jalabhishek Yatra to celebrate Shravan Somwar were attacked by a rabid Muslim mob? The ‘secular’ politicians and their local and foreign media allies shrewdly blamed the Hindus for the violence even though 5 out of the 6 dead in the violence triggered by Islamists in Nuh were Hindus.
Each time, the pattern repeats: Hindu festivals become flashpoints, and instead of condemning the Jihadist perpetrators, politicians villainise the victims and preach ‘restraint’ to them. It was seen in Sambhal last year, how the Samajwadi Party stood rock-solid with Muslim rioters who pelted stones at the police when they arrived at the dispute Jama Masjid to get its court-ordered survey conducted. OpIndia reported earlier that a delegation of SP leaders went to jail to meet incarcerated Muslim rioters. With such political backing, the jihadists get encouragement to attack Hindus and the assurance that they will get away with it sooner or later while all blame will be shifted on Hindus.
Interestingly, the usual players are pushing the argument that even Sambhal CO Anuj Chaudhary asked Muslims to avoid stepping out of their homes if they have a problem with Holi colours and offer Jumma namaz at home asserting that Jumma comes 52 times in a year but Holi comes only once. However, this is a classic case of drawing false equivalence. Sambhal is a communally sensitive zone which became as such due to Islamist violence in December 2024, in Sambhal’s context, it was a pragmatic call to advise Muslims to avoid offering namaz in a mosque or publicly but at home as Sambhal’s history justified caution unlike Darbhanga where there is no as such trigger
Anjum Ara’s “two-hour break” instruction not only causes inconvenience to Hindus, it sends a signal to Islamists that their intransigence pays off. If Holi can be paused today, what’s next, banning Diwali celebrations near mosques? Banning Durga Pooja pandals during Eid? By caving to these demands, politicians aren’t promoting coexistence rather they are fuelling a sense of entitlement among Hindu-hating Islamists who use violence as a bargaining chip. The history backs this up. Communal incidents spike during Hindu festivals, with Muslims being the attackers in almost all cases. Yet, the response is rarely punitive, more often, it is Hindus who are told to adjust, to compromise to maintain the lopsided Bhaichara and preserve the façade of ‘Ganga-Jamuni Tehzeeb’ and other high-sounding pseudo-secular crap.
This is mollycoddling a petulant minority at its worst. Muslims in India are not denied the right to practice their faith, this however, should not be at the cost of the rights and dignity of Hindus or other non-Muslim communities. Ara’s ‘regret’ after the stirring outrage rings hollow as her initial stand reveals the mindset. Such politicians are not mediators rather they are enablers, sacrificing Hindu cultural identity to appease a community that is increasingly conditioned to expect concessions and somehow deems it right to victimise others simply for practising their faith overtly or sometimes simply existing. While true harmony requires mutual respect and not one-sided surrender some politicians thrive empowering those who thrive on discord and draw joy from assaulting Hindus.
