[Reader-list] Offended minorities' panel to decide on Swamy's article

[Subhash]

Offended minorities' panel to decide on Swamy's article

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2306235.ece

Subramanian Swamy had advocated disenfranchisement as a punishment for
Muslims refusing to acknowledge their Hindu ancestry

The National Commission for Minorities (NCM) will take a final view on
Tuesday on an article written by Subramanian Swamy where he advocated
disenfranchisement as a punishment for Muslims refusing to acknowledge
their Hindu ancestry.

The NCM had taken suo moto notice of the article at its meeting on
July 19. The article appeared in the Daily News and Analysis (DNA) on
July 16 – three days after the serial bomb blasts in Mumbai. NCM
chairperson Wajahat Habibullah told The Hindu that while the NCM found
the article offensive in the extreme, a final decision on the
commission's response would be taken when the full bench reconvened on
Tuesday. He said the NCW will go by legal advice it had procured from
within the government: “There are no two opinions that the article is
highly offensive and violative of the law. I'm fairly clear about the
course the NCM should follow, but the decision has to come from the
full Bench.”

Since its publication, Dr. Swamy's article has been hotly debated on
Twitter and Facebook, and last week it raised a storm in Harvard,
where he taught Economics in the 1960s. In an online petition,
students and faculty members demanded that Harvard end its association
with him. The petition said: “While free expression and the vigorous
contest of ideas are essential in any academic community, so too are
respect and tolerance for human difference. By advocating measures
that would grossly violate freedom of religion and the unqualified
right to vote for different religious groups, and by aggressively
vilifying an entire religious community, [Mr.] Swamy breaches the most
basic standards of respect and tolerance.”

In the article titled, ‘How to wipe out Islamic terror' Dr. Swami, who
is also president of the Janata Party said that by 2012, he expected
Islam to confront Hindus to “complete unfinished business.” He said:
“Fanatic Muslims consider Hindu-dominated India an unfinished chapter
of Islamic conquests”. All other countries conquered by Islam 100 per
cent converted to Islam within two decades of the Islamic invasion.
Undivided India in 1947 was 75 per cent Hindu even after 800 years of
brutal Islamic rule. That is jarring for the fanatics.”

Dr. Swami prescribed strategies to defeat the political goals of
Islamic terrorism. Among them: “Implement the uniform civil code, make
learning of Sanskrit and singing of Vande Mataram mandatory, and
declare India a Hindu Rashtra in which non-Hindus can vote only if
they proudly acknowledge that their ancestors were Hindus. Rename
India Hindustan as a nation of Hindus and those whose ancestors were
Hindus.”

“Enact a national law prohibiting conversion from Hinduism to any
other religion. Re-conversion will not be banned. Declare that caste
is not based on birth but on code or discipline. Welcome non-Hindus to
re-convert to the caste of their choice provided they adhere to the
code of discipline. Annex land from Bangladesh in proportion to the
illegal migrants from that country staying in India. At present, the
northern third from Sylhet to Khulna can be annexed to re-settle
illegal migrants.”