[Reader-list] When will Muslims join the mainstream?

[Shivam Vij शिवम् विज्]

I wonder when right wing loonies of the sort who vandalise churches,
burn non-Hindus alive and claim to be perpetual victims - I wonder
when they will join the mainstream?

best
shivam

On Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 2:46 PM, Aditya Raj Kaul
<kauladityaraj at gmail.com> wrote:
> When will Muslims join the mainstream?
> By M.V. Kamath
>
> Organiser
>
> It obviously does not occur to some mullahs and other reactionary
> Muslims that by refusing to sing Vande Mataram and threatening to
> withdraw Muslim children from schools where it is routine to sing
> it, they are only telling their co-religionists to withdraw from the
> Indian mainstream.
>
> Like the Muslim League of pre-Independence days, one Minister of
> Uttar Pradesh has called for the formation of a separate Muslim
> state within the Indian Union instead of Harit Pradesh in western
> Uttar Pradesh. It is one more divisive step that the Muslim
> community is taking which is self-destructive and will only alienate
> Muslims from their Hindu brethren further.
>
> Refusing to sing Vande Mataram on extremely illogical grounds is bad
> enough. Demanding a separate communal state is inviting more
> trouble. Not that the idea will ever get accepted. But what it
> reveals is a sick mind that continues to be rooted in the medieval
> era. The argument one frequently hears is that Muslims are under-
> represented in every State Legislature as well as in Lok Sabha. But
> then whose fault is it.
>
> If Muslims refuse to jo in the mainstream and insist on being
> treated as a minority, they can hardly expect popular support. Past
> experience plainly shows that when communal peace prevails Muslims
> get more seats in the Lok Sabha. It is true that in the last
> fourteen Lok Sabha elections only a fraction of the number of seats
> they should normally deserve proportionate to their population were
> won by Muslims. The truth is that they had, on their own, forfeited
> the confidence of their Hindu brethren. If a minority lives apart
> and stays apart from the majority community how can it possibly win
> the trust, let alone affection, of the latter?
>
> Consider the following figures: In the first Lok Sabha elections, if
> one goes strictly by population percentage Muslims should have got
> 49 seats. Instead, they got 21 seats. In the second Lok Sabha
> elections, the population percentage remained the same—but the
> passions aroused by the Partition was subsiding and the Muslims won
> 24 seats, three more than in the first elections. In the third Lok
> Sabha elections, population percentage-wise Muslim should have
> received 53 seats but they won only 23. The highest number of seats
> Muslims won was in the seventh Lok Sabha elections when, though
> population-percentage wise they should have received 53 seats they
> managed to secure 49—not bad.
>
> Since then, largely because of emotional estrangement, the number of
> Muslims elected to the Lok Sabha has been falling. From the tenth to
> the four teen Lok Sabha elections they should have got 66 seats but
> they could barely manage to get between 28 to 36 seats. The
> fourteenth Lok Sabha elections were in 2004 when Muslims joined
> different political parties, primarily to beat the BJP. Muslims got
> ten seats in Congress, seven in the Samajwadi, four in the CPM, four
> in the BJP, three in the RJD and one each in other local parties.
>
> They can win more, if they get over their antediluvian ideas and
> become a modern, liberated people, instead of a people suspect of
> terrorism and anti-Indian motives. They can't get votes by putting
> their women in burqas and sending their children to madrasas when
> they should be sent to normal primary and secondary schools to be
> one with their Hindu and other students from the majority and allied
> religions.
>
> There is another lesson that they should learn which is that hating
> the BJP and trying to curry favour from the likes of Laloo Prasad
> Yadav or Mulayam Singh Yadav or Mayavati will not help them. They
> will continue to remain estranged from the majority community, no
> matter what arguments the so-called secular parties may put forth to
> win their favour.
> Neither in Bihar, nor in Uttar Pradesh has the condition of Muslims
> changed because they voted against the BJP. As Chaturanan Mishra, a
> former Union Minister of Labour (1996-1998) and a prominent figure
> in the Leftist movement in the country aptly noted in Mainstream
> (August 17) , the Congress, allegedly the largest secular party
> nominated 39 Muslims in 1991 and 1996, of whom only 12 could win.
> Similarly, 32 Muslims were nominated by the Congress in 1998 but
> only seven could succeed.
>
> Religion can never be the base of getting a ticket. Muslim citizens
> must come up in front and be seen as social workers, serving people
> of all religions. If they insist to live in the past as in the Shah
> Banoo case, or if they seem to be supporting SIMI, an ISI-financed
> student organisation—no matter how wrongly—then they doom themselves
> to being eternally marginalised. And they should not blame the
> majority community. As Shakespeare might have said to Muslims, the
> fault, dear sires, lies not in the majority but in yourselves that
> you want to stay separate.
>
> Turks are not less Islamic because the Ataturk threw out the
> Caliphate and liberated Turkish women.
>
> The Indonesians are not less Islamic because they continue to adhere
> in many ways to their ancient Hindu traditions. They are not
> hesitant to call their airlines Garuda Airlines; they are not
> hesitant to give their children Sanskrit name like Meghavati or
> Saraswati (a daughter of former President Waheed); nor are they
> hesitant in putting the figure of Ganesh on their currency notes. An
> Indonesian production of Ramayana would put some of our own Indian
> artists to shame; but here in India a section of reactionary Muslims
> refuse to sing even the first two stanzas of Vande Mataram because
> somewhere down the line in the song there is a reference to Durga.
> And Indonesia is 98 per cent Muslim!
>
> If Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, a great Islamic scholar who had his
> training in Islamic law and jurisprudence in the famous Islamic
> University in Cairo, could respect Vande Mataram and stand to
> attention when it was sung at AICC meetings, surely lesser Islamic
> scholars can take a leaf from his book.
>
> Many Muslim organisations increasingly seem to be taking their cue
> from fundamentalist Islamic organisation in Pakistan. It is not
> going to help them one bit and it is time they realise it. Muslims
> should not consider themselves a minority. India is a democracy and
> all citizens are equal. Hindus are not that stupid as to want to
> hurt Islamic sentiments of Muslims. But we need to live under a
> Common Law as citizens are equal in every way. For Muslims,
> especially, separatism should be deeply abhorrent. It should be
> shunned like the very devil.
>
> We are one people and India, as Mohammad Iqbal once wrote belongs to
> everyone, irrespective of caste, creed, religion or community. Sareh
> jahan seh achcha Hindustan hamara should be our guiding mission.
> Then everything will fall in its place and—who knows—the time may
> come when under sound Muslim leadership, Hindus themselves may vote
> for Muslims. Who, today, is our President? Who, our Prime Minister?
> And who the leader of the Congress Party, oh?
> http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?
> name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=
>
> 150&page=12 ---
> .....................................................................
> ....................................
> http://www.blogs.ivarta.com/india-usa-blog-column168.htm
> Indian Muslims: Dealing with Past
> Mayank Patel
>
> Across the world, Present generation grapples with past wrong
> committed by previous generation. From South Africa to Germany and
> from America to Australia, Most groups have acknowledged past
> misdeeds and apologized for the suffering caused by their action
> toward others. Thus, making genuine progress on path of truth and
> reconciliation.
>
> However, Indian Muslims have taken opposite path of denial,
> distortion and deflection. They=2 0have received more than generous
> help from allies like Marxist, Fabian Socialist, Islamist etc. who
> are co-travelers on this path. In fact, it is the allies who have
> encouraged and lead Indian Muslims on this path. On behalf of Indian
> Muslims, Allies have used denial, distortion and deflection tactic
> to justify even the most unjustifiable mistakes like partition.
>
> Indian Muslim"s pro-partition role is proven beyond reasonable
> doubt. 1945-46 Provincial Elections were fought on a single agenda
> of partition. Partition became possible only because overwhelming
> majority of Indian Muslims indirectly voted for it in that election.
> Any objective analysis of current course and arguments favoring
> course correction is usually greeted by an old tactic of shooting
> the messenger. Three bullets are very popular with shooters.
>
> First bullet is "Present Generation of Indian Muslims should not be
> blamed for Partition". Shooter conveniently and cleverly presumes
> non-existent intent behind analysis. This is absurd. A course
> correction and acknowledgement of past generation"s mistake could
> never imply culpability of present generation. On the contrary,
> Acknowledgement would reassure all that apple has indeed fallen far
> from the tree. This would strengthen trust, improve communal
> relations and lead to reconciliation and closure.
>
> Second bullet is much more lethal. It is "165 million strong Indian
> Muslims cannot be wished away". Let me clarify, I=2 0would not wish
> away anybody regardless of numerical strength. There is also certain
> belligerence behind this quote. This virulent belligerence is quite
> understandable if not agreeable. After all, Indian Muslims are 165
> million strong and allies who have vice like grip over India"s
> media, academia and politics are stronger. However, it does not
> change the fact that current path of denial, distortion and
> deflection could never lead to peace, truth and reconciliation. On
> the contrary, The Logical end of this path is civic strife if not
> civil war in which there are no winners and all losers.
>
> Third bullet is the denial bullet. There are dozens of denial
> bullets. One of the most popular Denial Bullet is silence
> hypothesis. It claims that Indian Muslims are silent and allies who
> claim to be speaking and acting on behalf of Indian Muslims are not
> true representative of Indian Muslims. It further touts this alleged
> silence as proof that there is no alliance and Indian Muslims
> disagrees with current path of denial, deflection and distortion.
> There are many holes in this hypothesis.
>
> Firstly, Silence is not same as acknowledgement of past mistakes.
> Secondly, there is no such thing as silent disagreement.
> Disagreement is always vocal. On the Contrary, Agreement can often
> lead to conspiracy of silence. Thus, Alleged Silence can never be
> interpreted as a disagreement with current path. Finally, Indian
> Muslims are speaking with their votes and participation in massi ve
> political rallies. They consistently vote for allies who favor
> denial path. In fact more an ally denies and asserts innocence of
> terrorist outfits more vote it receives. These votes provide allies
> a claim to speak and act on behalf of Indian Muslims.
>
> The current path of denial is compounding past mistakes. More-over,
> it makes Indian Muslims over reliant on Allies. This over reliance
> is unhealthy and dangerous. Allies have their own ideological beef
> against Hindus and have selfish interest is making matters worse.
> There are many reasons for breaking the alliance and changing
> course. Perhaps the best reason is to end a history of wrongdoing
> and leave a legacy of honesty for future generation.
>
> Related story:
>
> Forgive, not Forget History @
> http://indiaview.wordpress.com/2008/01/25/forgive-but-never-forget-%
> e2%80%93-history/
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