Indian Muslims have become second class citizens
Haris Rashid
It is awful to be a Muslim in India. They are treated like rubbish; but they have now learnt to live with insult and prejudice.
Hindutwa forces in India have found a novel way to incite violence against Muslims. Rallies are being carried out in the name of “Tiranga Yatra” and these rallies are intentionally taken through Muslim populated areas and localities where anti-Pakistan slogans like “Pakistan Murdabad” are shouted and it has now become a craze for communal people.
It is apt to raise anti-Pakistan slogans at Jantar Mantar or outside Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi so that it can reach their people and will be broadcast throughout Pakistan. But if they are continuously raising it inside Muslim localities, your intentions are clear. The audience is in no way Pakistan, but those Indian Muslims living there and they are considering them as Pakistanis. You want only them to hear your slogans. That is humiliation in itself.
Hidden agenda is to link Indian Muslims to Pakistan
Actually, it is not about Pakistan at all but the hidden agenda is to link Indian Muslims to Pakistan and label them as Pakistanis just because they are Muslims and people from Hindu community have the gut feeling that Muslims in India have somewhere the soft corner towards Pakistan.
It is so much simple and convenient to shout anti-Pakistan slogans and no power in India can object to that. Pakistan, without any doubt is India’s biggest enemy. Indians have every right to chant anti-Pakistan slogans here in India, and people at times burn Pakistani flag also but they do this all at a place where media can reach and from where Pakistani people can get informed that Indian people protested against them. You register your protest by making your voice and slogans heard by the people you are protesting against.
Innocent Afrazul axed to death
The constant fear and subjugation that Muslims in India live under can be only felt by them. It is painful and heart wrenching to see Muslims getting killed and butchered by the tyrants. The video coming from Rajasthan of the innocent Mohammad Afrazul being axed to death and then burnt in the name of ‘Love Jihad’ can move even stones to tears and can rip apart the heart of heartless.
The kind of hatred, that when Kerni Stena attacked a school bus in Gurugram, people on social media were sharing that Muslims attacked the bus and they even named those Muslims that were supposedly arrested by the police. The police had to later clarify about the incident and the truth was that no Muslim was arrested or involved in the attack.
It is awful to be a Muslim in India. They are treated like rubbish but they have now learnt to live with insult and prejudice. From schools to parliament to news channels to Supreme Court and to social media, everything is filled with hatred against Muslims. The goal is to make you feel helpless. You want to shout and scream, but you don’t. Leaving you with that silent anger, emanating from shame that only Muslims can feel for their own helplessness, in the face of these angry Hindu pseudo-nationalists.
Indian Muslims proudly
chose India
Indian Muslims proudly chose India when they had a choice to go to Pakistan and yet, after seventy years of independence Hindus are asking them to prove their patriotism. This anti-Pakistan sloganeering trend is a stratagem to provoke Muslims and this is nothing but communalism. The point is to make the Indian Muslims feel like second-class citizens. “You are living in India not because you are Indian but because we let you. Do behave or else go to Pakistan.” It is really horrendous to see such cowardly acts being legitimized by camouflaging these by patriotism. It is unacceptable and one doesn’t even know where to begin to respond to such crap. This will spell doom for India.
The political parties in opposition especially Congress and Trinmool Congress at least used to play their politics over such issues by raising their voice against the nefarious design of these communal forces, that would obviously highlight the issue, but after losing the recent elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, they have learnt a lesson and now seem to be in defence mode, busy in appeasing Hindu majority instead of minority.
While they know Muslims will only vote for them, they are securing Hindu votes and in this way they have maintained silence over such issues and the recent Kasganj violence endorses the same.
The largest democracy of the world is practicing majoritarian rule and subjugating its minorities. One thing is certain, we can no longer turn our backs on reality. It is wrong to turn aside from what is happening all around us in India, as if certain situations and ideologies don’t exist. Nobody is man enough to show even a hint of courage. Nobody is Hindu enough to call communalism as communalism. Nobody is proud enough to say — Not in my name.
Source: Kashmir Observer — 06 Feb 2018
