Puppets of Faith: Theory of Communal Strife (A Critical Appraisal of Islamic faith, Indian polity) by BS Murthy (epub read online books .TXT) 📖

millennia, spiritually nurtured by its rishis ‘n yogis, and is not something that was born just in 1947 as the clock struck 12. Even as he took yoga onto the UN stage, he enabled the hitherto sidelined ancient Hindu monuments, along with the towering Statue of Unity, built by him for Sardar Patel, to share the Indian tourist stage with the Mogul era Taj Mahal. So as to instill in the Hindus - slighted by the proponents of Abrahamic Oder, who happened to lord over them in their own land - the pride of being Hindus, he afforded resonance to Swami Vivekanada’s clarion call - garv se kaho hum hindu hai (proudly affirm that we are Hindus) - in the public domain in a way like none else before him did.

Whereas it has become fashionable for the politicians, of all hues and cries, to lace their parliamentary debates with incomprehensible Urdu couplets, Modi began espousing the egalitarian Hindu philosophical thoughts, enshrined in the Sanskrit slokas of the Vedas, Upanishads et al and also in the treasure troves in its native tongues. And to cap it all, come India’s Independence Day, he made it a point to ascend the ramparts of Dilli’s Red Fort to deliver the customary address to the nation as its head, in a flowing turban, in the style of the Maharajas of yore, which symbolism, even as it gladden the Hindu hearts, has become an eyesore to the Musalmans. It is rarely realized that the hostility of India’s Musalmans towards BJP stems not from their feigned fear of its Hindutva moorings but owes itself to their – the ruling class for long - allergy to be governed by an unapologetic Hindu nationalistic dispensation.

It is this mindset of the umma that impels them to hate Modi, the spearhead of Hindu nationalism, nevermind he had economically uplifted the whole lot of their poor brethren in Gujarat as its head, and as India’s mukhiya has been striving to improve their economic lot, nationwide that is, like none else before him did in real terms. Thus, it’s no wonder that his well-meaning initiative to block Muslim males’ easy divorce route through the obnoxious triple talak to emancipate umma’s other half was perceived by the former as his interference in matters of their faith. If anything, his aggressive military posturing against Pakistan’s evil design of bleeding India with thousand cuts with Islamic terrorism, exemplified by the Indian Army’s across-the-border surgical strike, and moreso, the Indian Air Force’s Balakot bombing deep inside its territory, both against terrorist camps, were not taken kindly by India’s Musalmans, owing needless to say, their pan-Islamic affinity to India’s enemy besides the blow it dealt to the Muslim martial pride.

Juxtaposing the sulking of the Musalmans, Modi’s military outreach into the Pakistani terrain enabled the limping Hindu nationalists to walk with a spring in their step, and as it was in that setting the 2019 parliamentary polls were held, the rejuvenated Hindu nationalist sentiment ensured him a second term in office. What’s more, as if goading him to complete Hindustan’s unfinished agendas, India’s Hindus gave him 302 additional hands in the Lok Sabha. Needless to say, Indian umma tried its best to spoil the Hindu party by resorting to ‘tactical voting’ against the BJP, which might have prompted him to add sab ka vishwās (trust of all) to his earlier sab ka sāth, sab ka vikās political mantra. Even this reconciliatory gesture, that too from a position of strength, while having had no impact on India’s bigoted umma, it only managed to ruffle the hardcore Hindu feathers; some falling between two stools. Why, the ‘secular’ media that plays no mean a part in alienating the umma from the BJP yet ticks it off for not giving its party ticket even to a single Musalman in the elections. It’s as if the Musalmans are exempt from life’s ‘give and take’ norm, and that’s what the Islamapologists believe.

Be that as it may, aided by Amit Shah, his capable and committed second in command, Modi cajoled India’s Parliament to resort to doing the unthinkable – abolish the obnoxious triple talak besides abrogating the ‘temporary’ Art 370 of the Indian Constitution, which enabled Kashmir’s Musalmans to plough their separatist furrow, apparently made ‘permanent’ by India’s Muslim appeasement politics. While the Hindus saw in this their moment of reckoning, for India’s Musalmans, who have gained in numbers (demographically doubled in percentage terms and aiming at 60cr figure in the next 30yrs as articulated by some of their guiding heads) and whence in confidence to dictate political terms to the Hindus, it was nothing short of a double whammy. Even before they could gather their religio-political wits, India’s Supreme Court ruled in favour of their hated Hindu litigants in the vexed Ram Janmabhōmi–Babri Masjid land dispute, and it didn’t stop at that.

Well, India’s Apex Court thought it’s time it entered the Islamic ‘No Go’ zone to take a closer constitutional look at the demeaning practice of nikah halala, and the moulvis are awaiting the outcome with fingers crossed in an impotent rage that is. That divorced Muslim couples, even the likes of the celluloid giants, Kamal Amrohi and Meena Kumari, choose to endure the humiliation of nikah halala, which is nothing but the involved woman’s one-night stand with a male stranger, possibly a mullah, for their reunion, even in this age and time, speaks volumes about the power of moulvis derived from umma’s blind belief in the sharia. If not, what prevents such couples from approaching a marriage registrar, instead of going to a kazi, for the facilitation of their blissful ‘civil’ reunion that is after their fateful separation? But what’s the idea of the nikah halala in the Muhammadan law? Approached logically, it’s but a mundane measure meant to restrain hasty divorces in the umma rather than a divine diktat, made out as such for better effect, but then thinking is a four-letter word in the Islamic thesaurus.

Whatever, when Amit Shah got the parliament enact the Citizenship Amendment Act 2019 too to redress the predicaments of the persecuted Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Janis, Christians and Parsis, of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, who had fled earlier to India, while the umma thought enough was enough, the ‘secular’ politicians ‘on the retreat’ saw the natural omission of Musalmans in the list as Allah’s unnatural blessing upon them. Raising the bogey of a Hindu theocratic state ‘in the making’, thereby threatening the very idea of secular India, as envisioned by the founding fathers, whatever that may mean, the Muslim appeasing parties vied with each other in egging the umma to create mayhem across the length and breadth of the country against the ‘discriminatory act’.

Apparently, this cynical recourse taken by the ‘secular’ parties, dubbed ‘sickular’ by the nationalists, was primarily borne out of their compulsive competition for the ‘determining’ Muslim votes in their respective areas of influence. Beside, as a corollary, this divisive strategy was clearly a ploy to destabilize the Hindu voter-tilt towards the BJP by alarming the status quoist Hindus to the frightful consequences of rubbing the sensitive umma on its wrong side. The media, still smarting from their failure, in spite of its all-out efforts, to stop the Modi juggernaut in reaching the portals of power, not once, but twice, saw in the unwarranted Muslim rage the warrant to vent out its accumulated frustrations. And it is only to be expected that Rajiv’s ‘brokers of power and influence’, who have been at gaming the system all along, but felt cheated by Modi for he made his ministers and bureaucrats alike not to touch them with a barge pole, would pitch in to up the ante, and naturally they did with gusto.

Needless to say, this turn of events only suited the ideologically driven left-liberals and Islamapologists, who have been disdainful of India’s governance by the so-called Hindu ‘fundamentalists’. If anything, the rise of the Islamic radicalism in the theocratic Muslim countries that became the breeding grounds for terrorism has come in handy for them to make a red-herring out of Hindu nationalism. So went their argument that any revival of the Hindu fundamentalism, as if there was one in Arya Vartā’s long history, would likewise pave the way for a Pakistani India, with like consequences. Why should the Christian-funded NGOs that mushroomed in India, under Sonia’s watch and ward, whose evangelical reach Modi had curbed by clipping their illegal economic wings lag behind? Joining the anti-Modi bandwagon, while they lamented in the Indian media that secular India has become a Hindu Rāshtra; their godfathers in the west used their clout with the western religious watchdogs as well as its media to go one step further to damn Modi’s Hindu theocratic state.

It’s thus all these, who kept mum over the unceasing ant-national rants by some Indian Musalmans such as Bharat tere tukde honge, Insha Allah Insha Allah (May Allah break up India) and pro-terrorist slogans like terā kātil zindā hai, Afzal ham sharmindā hai -

We’re ashamed Afzal (the hanged mastermind of 2001 terrorist attack on the Indian parliament) that your killers (read India’s Supreme Court Judges) are still alive -

readily took umbrage when the Hindu anger vented itself in counter sloganeering, desh ke gaďaron ko, goli māro sālonko (kill the quislings).

Surely, all seem to be grudging the Hindus for having stopped following Mahatma Gandhi’s advice given to them in that prayer meeting on April 6, 1947, New Delhi, cited in the Collective Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol. 94, Sl. 243, pages 248/249.

“We should dispassionately think where we are drifting. Hindus should not harbour anger in their hearts against Muslims even if the latter wanted to destroy them. Even if the Muslims want to kill us all we should face death bravely. If they established their rule after killing Hindus we would be ushering in a new world by sacrificing our lives. None should fear death. Birth and death are inevitable for every human being. Why should we then rejoice or grieve? If we die with a smile we shall enter into a new life, we shall be ushering in a new India. The Concluding verses of the second chapter of the Gita describe how a godfearing man should live. I would exhort you to read and understand those verses and ponder over their meaning. You will then realize what our ideal is and how far short of it we are today. Our independence is at our threshold and it is our duty to ask ourselves whether we are fit to have it and sustain it.”

While all this sounds music to the umma, surely Hindus must realize that Gandhi was as much a Moodhatma as a Mahatma and the political bhajan to him is better downplayed. By the way, the concluding verses of the Gita as stated by Gandhi describe how a man, not necessarily god-fearing one, should live, and not how to die ‘bravely’ when killed by the Musalmans. And to put Gandhi’s twisted record straight, here are some relevant verses of the Gita’s second chapter.

1  
Thus spoke Sanjaya:
In pity Krishna 
Addressed Arjuna,
Bogged in sorrow  
With tears profuse.

2   
Thus spoke the Lord:
Oh, what affliction
At this juncture!
Wholly un-Aryan  
Unholy as well!!

3  
Mind-set impotent that unnerves
Strengthen thou for fight on hand. 

31  
Being a warrior dharma thine 
That thee fight with all thy might.

32  
For martyrs of unsought wars
Ever open are heavenly gates.                          

33  
If thee back out from duty
Imperil thou thy own dharma    
And that earns thee infamy. 

34  
What for lead a dishonored life 
Why leave legend dubious behind!

35  
Amiss be taken thine intent 
Treat thee coward thy friends ’n foes.

36  
Count on thou thy detractors  
Besmirch they thy character, 
Damned be thine obituary  
By their campaign of slander.

37  
If slain, heaven; alive, it’s reign  
Resolve to fight with right intent.

38  
Shed thy sentiment, guilt unhinge  
Eye not gain as wage thou war.

39  
It's this knowledge that liberates 
And helps thee act, with no restraint. 

 

The above verses are excerpted from the author’s free