“Those who are determined to be ‘offended’ will discover a provocation somewhere. We cannot possibly adjust enough to please the fanatic, and it is degrading to make the attempt.” – Christopher Hitchens
Amid the whole imbroglio about the remarks of erstwhile BJP spokesperson, Nupur Sharma, a global campaign to attack her on the grounds of an invented victimhood on the grounds of blasphemy has been launched. There are reports that the social media was used to initiate and whip up frenzy from Turkey and Middle East. However, for any social media campaign to create impact, there is a need of foot-soldiers on the ground fanatic enough the carry the hate forward. The tool kit became a twitter storm and a secular, democratic Hindu majority government which was till yesterday silently watching the shameless mocking of Hindu religious symbols, was reproached by the Islamic and Islamist states like Qatar, UAE, Maldives and even Afghanistan for what has been construed to be biggest insult to Islam.
When nations are acting like a mob, what could one say about the half-illiterate mobs provoked by speeches in a Mosque in Kanpur last Friday. These are the same nations which have been happily watching beheading of innocent in the name of blasphemy. The state of Qatar which set the cat among the pigeons, the same cat which goes on the proverbial Hajj after eating hundred mice, carrying the placard of victimhood and pacifism, has its own terrible human rights records. The UN, feeling left out jumped into the farcical debate which was given some sort of legitimacy by none other than Bhartiya Janata Party leadership which suspended Nupur Sharma who had merely quoted the same facts from Islamic scriptures.
Mohammad Zubair, who runs a controversial pro-Islamist portal with Prateek Sinha, largely on donations riding on controversies, curiously tax-exempted by the government of Hindu-majority India was found participating in the beginning, middle and end of this global campaign initiated by IOSPI which was also involved in promoting the banning of French goods after the beheading of Samuel Paty, a school teacher by Islamists. The sustained media campaign in India which initially called the quoting of a section of Islamic scriptures verbatim, uncivil, then rude, then distasteful and eventually joined the bandwagon calling it derogatory to Islam.
The AIMIM politician Owaisi from Hyderabad, whose brother who was caught on camera mocking Hindu Gods in a well-attended public forum has been giving bytes to Indian TV channels on the unbearable pain of being a persecuted minority in India while threatening all and sundry, advising them to surrender before his own faith. Now that most of India knows that AIMIM stands for the Unity of Muslims only, his initial pretence of being a warrior for secularism is gone and he is now blatantly for the Muslims and of the Muslims. The media still remains stuck to his ‘secular’ past.
What was most amusing was that even when we have seen the havoc on civil liberties a fanatic blasphemy law imposed in our neighbouring nations, so-called liberal intellectuals were cheering to the mob of Mullahs baying for the blood of Nupur Sharma, who like Hypatia, the woman philosopher and mathematician from Ancient Egypt (415AD), lynched by Christian fanatics, stood alone, betrayed and isolated. As I write this, the Hindu-majority secular state is filing FIR against Nupur.
I so wish those in power in the government had read Christopher Hitchens. In any case, Tavleen Singh who along with her son, born out of wedlock with a Pakistani politician, was found gloating on the fact that fanatics were attacking Nupur forgot two things. While true Islam in the Land of Pure, Pakistan took the life of her erstwhile associate, Salman Taseer who was murdered by his own bodyguard, merely because he called for the pardon of a Christian woman, Asia Bibi, who was sentenced to death for Blasphemy. An Islamic state also would not have space for her son under Islamic law given his sexual choices. Salman Taseer’s murderer, Mumtaz Qadri was showered with flower petals, by fanatic people of Pakistan. Mumtaz Qadri was hanged by Pakistani courts. I do not know if this case was of India, whether Ms Tavleen Singh would have cheered for the murderer and trying to create public opinion to justify the murderer as she happily shares with her sons the harassment Nupur has been put through on similar, drummed up blasphemy charges.
But then this is a standard process of the fanatics, that they use the same liberal laws whose protection they seek in order to attack liberalism. In his book ‘The Classical Islam’ Gustav E Grunebaum wrote referring to early days of Islam – “Just as today the Communists in a liberal society are protected by the guarantees they seek to destroy, so the Muslims who set up their community in opposition to the tribal society were protected by tribal ethics.” The moderate Muslims, instead of condemning the frenzy, kind of legitimised the riotous outrage that spread across India and even joined the liberals in a shameless ecstasy when illiberal, orthodox, communal regimes condemn the Nation which treats them with kid-gloves. As contended here, they hide behind the liberal Hindu principles which inherently are tolerant and secular, and propagate intolerant, bigoted and violent views.
Much has been made about OIC (Organisation of Islamic Cooperation) as Rahul Gandhi and his gang of dwarfs came out with -Never has been India humiliated like this before in the history- dope. The fact is that OIC, a religious convention of Muslim countries has never been kind to India, nestled between three Islamic nations of Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. I have not mentioned Maldives which lives on the benevolence of Hindu-majority India.
As ironic as it may sound, during global Covid Pandemic when UN stood helplessly as rich nations cornered the vaccines, India came to the rescue of these warriors of Islam out of inherent Hindu kindness embedded in the faith. Instead of singling out Qatar which has particularly horrendous human rights records with near-zero rights for the non-Muslims, gays and women and almost slavish labor laws under Kafala system. What is most interesting that while Indian analysts and intellectuals are crying over how India’s relation with Qatar stand threatened because of one statement on TV by one political spokesperson, the second largest import into Qatar comes from China, which has adopted the persecution of Muslims as a state policy in Uighur provinces, where state heavily prohibits Islamic rituals and practices.
Coming back to OIC, as much is being made about how historically OIC has been supportive of India and now because of Narendra Modi government, that cooperative spirit is going down, let us look at the claims. OIC was founded in 1969 with 57 member states. In spite of member states working with Indian government for their mutual benefit, they have been making public noises against Indian interests since the foundation. While the planing for establishment of such an organisation for in works for some time, it was the burning down of Al-Aqsa mosque, which prompted the first convention in Morocco. This was used as a pretext of creating an Anti-Israel axis as Israel was charged with the burning down of the Mosque. Later it turned out that this was done by an Australian Christian.
The key issue discussed there turned out to be about indian membership, India being a nation with world’s second largest Muslim population. India was invited in the founding session and the first part of it was attended by Indian Ambassador to Morocco, Gurbachan Singh. Before Indira Gandhi could send Fakruddin Ahmad as Indian representative, Pakistan played its hand. In the backdrop of Ahmedabad riots around the same time, India’s presence was objected to by Pakistan and OIC had to acquiesce. In the resolution, India’s presence was mentioned as – A delegation of India Muslim- not as Union of India as the attendee. In 2002, Qatar and later Bangladesh proposed inclusion of India in the OIC as observer but Pakistan did not allow it. However, it was only in 2019, under the Narendra Modi Government, when after an invited delegation under Indira in 1969 had to bear the insult of being prevented from attending the convention, even after reaching Morocco; India was invited as ‘Guest of Honour’, after a gap of fifty years.
During the period of fifty years, India largely ignored OIC, as people who are shocked and surprised at the OIC remarks, under the tutelage of Congress scion, might not be aware, OIC has largely been anti-India in all the matters of international significance. It has routinely been drafting resolutions condemning India on Kashmir at the behest of Pakistan, even when India was ruled by people with better English than the BJP leaders.
In 1994, a Contact Group was established to coordinate among the member Muslim states to organise support for Plebiscite in Kashmir. The Islamic solidarity fund contributed to ‘Muslims’ of Kashmir in 1995. In 1993, Benazir Bhutto accused India of Human Rights Violations, asking UN to send to Kashmir a fact-finding mission. In 1994, OIC sent a fact-finding mission to Kashmir which was not allowed in by India. In 1994, Congress Government allowed separatist leaders attend the Convention in Pakistan, where a resolution was passed to demand Plebiscite in Kashmir. In 1995 session of OIC, a resolution declared Kashmir to be under colonial rule, and demanded reconstruction of Babri Structure. In 1998, Doha session again Kashmir was declared to be under foreign occupation.
Worst was the Kargil war, when the entire world accepted Pakistan as aggressor, OIC passed resolution asking settlement of Kashmir and expressed solidarity to protect territorial integrity of Pakistan. Public memory is short and this allows vile politicians like Rahul Gandhi to claim that this over-enthusiasm of OIC in this fake controversy is in some way justified. Congress-supporters are even reporting gleefully that boisterous challenge put forth by Iraq which was bombed to stone age under fake WMD charges by Christian-majority nations while the Islamic states silently watched.
Speaking of human losses, mainly of Muslims to which these Islamic organisations have been largely oblivious, in Pakistan around 71,000 have died, in Iraq around 2,00,000 civilian Muslims have died, in Syria, US operations killed around 2,27,000 civilian Muslims and the conflict between two Muslim nations, Yemen and Saudi, around 3,77,000 Muslims have lost their lives. These are all the battles among the Muslim nations and therefore it would have been much easier for GCC or OIC to throw its weight to bring in peace and prosperity for the Muslims.
Some may claim that it is not human cost which sways the emotions here, it is about the honour of the faith. But again when we find that the house of Hamza, Prophet’s uncle was flattened to make way for a hotel, the place claimed earlier to be Prophet’s birthplace is marked by Saudi government contradicting the faith, prohibiting any prayers there. The house of the first Caliph and Prophet’s friend is now Hotel Hilton. The organisation which sheds tears at the wrongly built and disputed structures in India calling them martyred buildings of Muslim faith, has been keeping quiet on these developments at the place of birth of Islam where the entire cultural heritage has been wiped off the make way for modern requirements, as The Times reports. But then it is no different from Indian politicians crying rivers for Babri, a disputed structure with no religious significance for the Indian Muslims, but remain silent on Charaar-e-Sharif in Kashmir, a mosque of huge significance burnt down by Islamist terrorists.
As we analyse facts clearly, we understand that there is no religious hurt, there is no significance of the Islamic nation’s utterances, while they sign food security bills with India. India has been importing oil from Middle-East but it has been a relationship which is mutual as India has been supporting them with woodgrains from India. There is a huge commitment going in from India towards non-fossil fuel as Ethanol- based fuel and electric vehicles are being promoted. For now, Russian oil at reduced prices is making its way into India.
These global forces are play, prompting players to play their parts. The problem is that under the influence of clerics and the communists, Indian muslims are pushed into the fanaticism. People are pointing out that the same Qatar which has taken a position for Islamic faith, gave asylum to MF Hussain who trampled over Hindu faith. I would think that in this case it is not Qatar’s fault. The onus was on India to raise the matter strongly with Qatar as a Hindu majority nation when it happened. But at the time, the powers in India were busy shaming Hindus for throwing a talented artist into exile due to their intolerance and bigotry. The fact is that MF Hussain himself confirmed that he was never in exile in an interview he gave.
Unlike a Muslim nation, where it would be absolutely impossible for a non-Muslim to get any state honours, Hussain was much loved and awarded in Hindu-majority india. He moved to Qatar as the cases of tax evasion (in which he was represented by Congress Lawyer, Kapil Sibal’s son) piled up. Even Congress leader’s son confirmed that Hussain has not run away, he will come back and face the law. Still that did not stop the Congress from shaming Hindus of India on national and international platform for hounding away an artist.
The state here is also at fault for ceding to the nonsensical offensive of the fanatics. One would have hoped a Macron from Modi. But that was not to happen as he gave in to the threat of Islamic extremism. A Polish politician repeated what Nupur said, Modi could have at least repeated what Macron said, or at least what Ambedkar said, whose name is brazenly misused by Muslim fanatics like Owaisi.
Ambedkar in his book- Pakistan, or the Partition of India, writes on Muslim aggression- “..the thing that is noticeable among the Muslims is the spirit of exploiting the weaknesses of the Hindus. If the Hindus object to anything, the Muslim policy seems to be to insist on it and give it up only when the Hindus show themselves ready to offer a price for it by giving the Muslims some concessions.” Pondering over the key characteristics of Muslims, of course exceptions would be there, but on the whole, he adds, “the third thing that is noticeable is the adoption by the Muslims of the gangster’s method in politics.”
We find this gangsterism in the politics of Owaisi and his ilk, where every statement is a threat, even when veiled in victimhood. A secular, democratic government needs to have exceptional spine to deal with such politics. That is where Modi government, or Nadda’s Bhartiya Janata Party has made mistake in this episode. There needs to be a zero tolerance on the politics based on threat. As an MP from Telangana, he should be questioned and grilled on the alleged involvement of son of his party MLA in minor’s rape in his state. He is questioned by media on developments in UP, where his party contested elections and lost miserably. That he does not represent people of UP, not even the minorities is settled but the media cannot resist the temptation of inventing another Jinnah.
The government should have stood up to this gangster politics and State Machinery should have acted firm and quick on anyone threatening free speech. If the state needs to act as a religious fanatic, it should act like a fanatic for all the faiths, not for the most belligerent ones.
We are at the cusp of history, attempting to come out of the darkness of an unfair partition. The Government and the people should stand with one another, for the future we stare at is bigger than both of us. While Hindu leaders opposed blasphemy laws, right from the time of Lala Lajpat Rai, even when Swami Shraddhanand was killed in broad daylight for merely supporting a book considered to be blasphemous. The murderer was condoned by Gandhi and legally represented by Jinnah. When hanged, his funeral was attended by Mohammad Iqbal whose song we foolishly adopted as National song, post-partition.
But if a stringent blasphemy law is needed, so be it, as long as it comes in after judicial reforms. Law that acts arbitrarily is no law. A democracy that allows a seditionist go scot-free is no democracy and a judiciary which keeps a young girl in prison for posting a social media post critical of a politician is no judiciary. We have to face challenges and rise up to them. If we start running now, the world will not be enough; if we cede one inch, an abyss of infinite darkness awaits us. There won’t be an Organization of Hindu Nations to stand for the Hindu faith because there are none. We have to stand on our own, alone, unapologetic and unafraid.
