What Is the Future of Muslims in India?
Although Narendra Modi’s BJP is an extreme political outfit that expects every person living in India to be a Hindu, Muslims have been facing varying degrees of persecution under all political parties in India.
By Rakesh Raman
When Syed Ahmed Bukhari, Shahi Imam of Delhi’s Jama Masjid (the largest mosque in India), will anoint his son Shaban Bukhari as his successor or the ‘Nayab Shahi Imam’ (Vice Imam) at a ceremony on November 22, several Indian and foreign political leaders are expected to attend the function.
However, Bukhari did not invite Indian Prime Minister (PM), Narendra Modi, to the event. Bukhari said Indian Muslims have still not been able to relate themselves with PM Modi, who has been accused of playing a role in the 2002 Gujarat riots but has been exonerated by various courts and investigating agencies.
Among many incidents of violence against Muslims in India, it’s alleged that in the Gujarat riots of 2002, nearly 2,000 Muslims were murdered besides there were incidents of rape, robbery, and widespread destruction of property affecting Muslims.
It was also alleged that the killings were executed at the behest of the new PM Narendra Modi who was then the Chief Minister of Gujarat. Although Indian courts have almost exonerated Modi in this case, most Muslims still believe that Modi was responsible for Gujarat massacre.
Incidentally, Bukhari is among those Muslims who feel Muslims are not safe under the Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in India. Bukhari didn’t mince his words when he expressed his opinion against Modi and decided to keep him away from his politico-religious ceremony. Moreover, to add insult to injury for Modi, Bukhari has sent an invitation to Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
As a top religious leader, Bukhari with his gesture against Modi represented about 190 million Muslims in India’s population of 1.25 billion.
Although Modi’s BJP is an extreme political outfit that expects every person living in India to be a Hindu in a Hindu Rashtra (Hindu nation), Muslims have been facing varying degrees of persecution under all political parties in India.
[ Also Read: BJP to Muslims: When in India, Do as the Hindus Do ]
This fact is described in detail in the recent issue of Resurgence, a magazine published by the terrorist organization, Al-Qaeda. Headlined “The Future of Muslims in India,” the Resurgence article discusses the sorry plight of Muslims in a country of Hindus.
It says despite the countless massacres of Muslims across India for over sixty five years (after India’s independence in 1947), those that still insist that Muslims are free in India today, or that they enjoy equal rights, or that their lives and wealth are under no threat, are either naïve fools or are deliberately trying to mislead the world.
Those who insist that the Indian Muslims, despite the countless massacres in more than six decades of Hindu rule, enjoy equal rights or that their lives and properties are protected are deliberately trying to mislead the world as to the desperate plight of that community, says Al-Qaeda in the article.
No doubt, says the article, India has worked hard since its independence to groom officially sponsored leaders in the Muslim community who see it as a matter of duty to parrot such false official claims on the media. To the ordinary Indian Muslim, however, these claims are no truer than those they hear in cheap TV adverts.
[ Also Read: Will Indian Muslims Live and Die for India? ]
In the Resurgence article, Al-Qaeda has given numerous examples of atrocities on Muslims in India. It says whether it is the Bahawalpur riots in Bihar, the riots of Meeruth and Muradabad in Uttar Pradesh, the merciless slaughter of Muslims following the destruction of the Babri Masjid, the electrocution of Muslims, the genocide in Muzafarnagar, or the latest riots in Saharanpur, each time, the chastity of the daughters of this Ummah is violated in broad daylight.
According to the Resurgence article, these tragedies are reminiscent of how upper caste Hindus, in pre-Islamic India, used to violate the honour of lower caste Dalats right in the middle of fields, markets, and public places.
Al-Qaeda believes the same story is being repeated today with Muslims in the modern educated Indian society. Who, then, should be held responsible for systematic violence aimed at the Muslims of India? Sectarian movements? BJP or the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, BJP’s parent Hindu outfit)? The provincial government in Uttar Pardesh or the central government? These questions are raised by Al-Qaeda in the article.
[ Also Read: How “Make in India” Will Break in India ]
Al-Qaeda blames Indian media, saying local media is deliberately concealing facts about the extreme neglect that Muslims are facing in India.
“If you were to follow these events through the eyes of the deceptive Indian media, you will find yourself in an endless maze of confusion and lies. For Muslims outside India lacking access to first hand sources, understanding the plight of the Indian Muslims is next to impossible,” suggests Al-Qaeda.
“For an outside observer, even basic questions remain unanswered: Are the Indian Muslims really free? Do they enjoy the same rights as the Hindus? Are they respected citizens of India? Is their situation any different from that of Dalats, untouchables, and low-caste segments of the society?”
[ Also Read: Al-Qaeda Terror Group Enters India. What Does It Mean to You? ]
In fact, Al-Qaeda’s views are also echoed in the report of Rajinder Sachar Committee, appointed in 2005 by the then Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
The Committee was asked to prepare a report on the social, economic and educational condition of Muslims in India. It revealed the backwardness of Indian Muslims.
Among its findings, the Sachar Committee report stated that the status of Indian Muslims is below the conditions of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, which are downtrodden communities in India. Plus, it said that the overall percentage of Muslims in bureaucracy in India is just 2.5% whereas Muslims constitute above 14% of Indian population.
Al-Qaeda says that the Indian establishment is firmly in the hands of the Brahmans (a Hindu upper caste), but so are all the other instruments of state power, which are used to convince the Muslims of India and the rest of the world that India is a genuine democracy where all citizens, including Muslims, enjoy complete ‘freedom’ and ‘human rights’ and that the anti-Muslim riots and massacres are the mischief of a handful of sectarian elements.
[ Also Read: Al-Qaeda: “India’s PM Modi Is a Hindu Fanatic and Mass Murderer” ]
In a vain attempt to inject some substance into this hollow claim, some political parties come to the fore, presenting themselves as the saviors of Muslims. On other occasions, the Indian Supreme Court makes a big deal out of a routine case, and hands out a light sentence to a few criminals to give the false assurance that India is indeed a secular state that respects the rule of law, argues Al-Qaeda.
In the Resurgence article, Al-Qaeda has also taken a dig at the people in the Indian film industry Bollywood. Al-Qaeda believes that like Indian media, Bollywood films are also presenting a vague picture about Indian Muslims.
“Bollywood comes out with a film to prove that although the real blame lies at the door of the Muslims, the Indian state, out of its ‘boundless magnanimity’, has provided justice to them and punished the criminals,” says Al-Qaeda.
[ Also Read: Why Bollywood Always Makes Bad Films ]
“You will be surprised to know that there is a class of official Muslim ‘leaders’ in India who accept the fiction depicted in these movies as the truth and go around the world showering praise on India’s peacefulness and justice,” says Al-Qaeda.
It further says these ‘leaders’ frequently visit Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to preach the nonsense that not only do the Muslims of India enjoy complete freedom and that the state has given them complete rights, but also that no one can do any injustice to them, and so on.
In this diabolic drama, according to Al-Qaeda, the worst role has been played by those so-called Muslim ‘leaders’ who do not hesitate to sell the Muslims of India for a single seat of the Lok Sabha (Indian Parliament / lower house) or the Rajya Sabha (Senate / upper house).
[ Also Read: How India Is a Defective Democracy – Part 3 ]
“In every age, the Indian establishment keeps at the forefront such leaders who try to hide the ugly face of this Hindu state beneath a veneer of secularism and democracy. The reality is that whatever has taken place with the Muslims of India to date is neither a conspiracy hatched by some sectarian force on its own, nor can it be explained by vote politics to muster support in internal politics,” says Al-Qaeda.
“Rather, behind these events is the iron hand of the Indian establishment, which is working methodically to bring the Muslims down from the level of former kings and emperors to the level of Shudars, Dalits and lower castes so that they lose the will and strength to stand up to the Hindus,” says Al-Qaeda in the Resurgence article.
Finally, the article exhorts, “The time has come for the Muslims of India to play a proactive role in the Jihad in Afghanistan and benefit from the experience of forty years of Jihad so that they may build a better future for coming generations.”
The 117-page Resurgence magazine – published by As-Sahab Media, the publicity wing of Al-Qaeda – aims to revive the spirit of Jihad in the Muslim Ummah. Al-Qaeda, through the magazine, has invited Muslims to participate in this effort.
Photos courtesy: Resurgence
By Rakesh Raman, the managing editor of RMN Company
You also can read: More Articles by the RMN Editor, Rakesh Raman
