There are mainly two reasons for the secularists?, rather pseudo-secularists?, attitude towards Muslims. (Let me dispense with the euphemism, minorities). One is of course political; politicians think Muslims could be cultivated as a vote bank to attain power. The ?secular? political parties compete with one another in appeasing Muslims by giving them concessions while in power and by promising more concessions if they would be voted to power once again. Intelligent Muslims see through the game, but the majority bite the bait. One need not elaborate on how parties like the Congress, the various Janata splinters, the communists, all indulge in competitive Muslim appeasement. UP Chief Minister Mulayam Singh of the Samajwadi Party earned the epithet of Maulana by his bending backwards to accommodate Muslims. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, in his enthusiasm to outdo others in the appeasement game, made the outrageous proposition that Muslims had the first right on India'sresources. But then, all Hindus who want special treatment to Muslims are not having that mindset from a political motive. Some are genuinely moved by the pathetic conditions of the Muslim poor and want to help them get out of their misery. Their excuse is to bring the Muslims into the national mainstream. This much about secular Hindus who are imbued with Muslim mania. Now let us come to those who suffer from Muslim phobia, the attitude that Muslims in general are incorrigible and should be hated and socially alienated. In the name of defending Hinduism, they take the help of scriptures, history and of course Muslim militancy and religio-political aspirations to prove their point. And it is very easy to work up passions especially among people who are shallow and narrow-minded. For, Muslim invasions and rule of the medieval period, separatist politics during British supremacy and above all, Muslim clergy'steachings of international oneness based on religion, all could be used to provoke gullible Hindus to hate their Muslim neighbours. Especially people low on literacy and high on superstitious beliefs are vulnerable to credibility without thinking, not to speak of questioning. The cause of the Muslim phobia is to see the negative side of Muslims and only the positive side of Hindus. These people forget that India is a garland of different flowers of various hues and fragrance, and fraternal coexistence is the only way for the nation'ssurvival. The righting of the wrongs of history is not a tenable proposition. Invaders and those among them who turned rulers have all perpetrated atrocities on the natives who are subjugated. That is no excuse to punish the descendents for the sins of the invaders. No modern system of law including the Indian Penal Code allows it. Therefore, hating the Muslim neighbour for what his ancestor had done, is irrational and unjust. Perhaps the ancestor himself must have been more wronged by the invaders; he or she must have been converted at the point of the sword and mentally and physically brutalized by the invaders. Civilizations have to forgive and forget for survival. There is no need to distort history; the need is for rational assessment of historical incidents in the correct perspective. The effort of painting the reign of Babur or Aurangazeb in pleasant colours is falsifying history. If the intention is to promote communal harmony, it is a vain hope. Delusion by lies will not help; misdeeds have to be exposed. But then, it has to be realised that grandsons can'tbe hanged for the crime of granddads. Religions could be used for good purposes or bad, depending upon the way the followers used them. Branding one'sas perfect and of others as evil, is wrong. All religions are influenced by the time, the environment and the social setting in which it originated. For example, Islam was founded in the backyard of the desert in which tribes fought and plundered one another, lived on looting caravans and in an environment of illiteracy and stunted intellectual development. Establishing a modicum of stability, uniting people under the banner of one faith and one god and establishing the very basics of ethics and morality?this was the mission of Mohammed. He had his limitations and picking out flaws of his faith is unfair. Comparing the social order Mohammed brought about with the modern society is also unfair. What one should do is to evaluate his reforms on the background of the society that had existed in his time. Hinduism is not a religion in the strict sense of the word. It is a culture and social order of ethics and morality evolved through millenniums. While it has no single prophet and holy book, it has been guided and influenced by many scriptures, both of philosophy like the Vedas and historical novels like the Puranas. Also the prophets who guided Hinduism were deified and worshipped as deities or avatars. What is more, Hinduism continued to grow with the addition of new philosophies of great thinkers?Buddha, Jaina, Nanak of the medieval times and Vivekananda and Aurobindo of modern times. Hinduism is a growing religion, growing with time and contemporary thoughts. Of course, the Christian West finds the political arrangement in the Islamic Middle East convenient for the exploitation of resources (mainly oil) and enriching itself. Instead of dealing with a popular government in a democracy, the western countries have only to deal with the rulers and bribe them to get what they want. Therefore, neither the Western governments nor the Christian missionaries do talk of converting the Muslim East. For them, getting oil is more important than winning the people for Christ. No Pope ever talked of winning over Islamic states to Christianity as the late Pope John Paul did during his visit to India. Antagonism between Islam and Christianity, the Middle-East and the West, existed from centuries and wars like the crusades had been fought for years. Later the West subjugated the Muslim countries by their brainpower rather than by weapons. Later, the West used Islamic fundamentalism to fight its own enemy, international communism. Communism died a natural death because of its own internal weaknesses. Now, the US had no more use of the jehadis in Afghanistan and stopped financing their outfits. A fanatic army cannot stop fighting and it turned against its erstwhile patron, the USA. Many of them returned to their base in Pakistan and Pak army intelligence, the ISI, diverted them to India to fight Hindu India. Even in Kashmir, though there was a minority section of Muslims who wanted separation from India, separatism did not assume the stage of terrorism for many years till Pakistani and other trained foreign terrorists overflowed from Afghanistan on a large scale. The minority Kashmiri Pundits coexisted with Muslim Kashmiris for over 30 years since Independence and their ethnic cleansing started only with the influx of foreign jehadis. Of course, the poor Muslims are backward and socially handicapped. That is because they are illiterate and working in sectors like fishing, butcheries etc. But backwardness is not because they are Muslims but such jobs are considered lowly whether a Hindu or a Muslim performs them. Several other communities too are engaged in such jobs, but nobody has asked for a survey of their backwardness to find out the statistics for the purpose of uplifting them. Why was no Sachar Committee appointed to find out the social and economic status of Christians? The fact is, the poor, whether Hindu or Muslim, suffer from social and economic inequities. And the rich, irrespective of the community they belong to, are a privileged lot. Actually, in the Gulf boom, Muslims got more jobs in the Arab countries because of the preference extended to them. If the Sachar Committee had surveyed the massive inflow of money from West Asia, it would have found that the lion'sshare is going to Muslims. As a result, Kerala'surban real estate properties are fast shifting to Muslim hands from the Hindus. The main reason for Muslim backwardness is exactly not illiteracy, but the lack of literacy that fetch them jobs. A great number of Muslim children get madrasa education that is entirely useless to earn a living; it only helps the youth become unemployed and frustrated individuals grounded in religious fundamentalism. However, no Muslim belonging to the middle class would like to send his child to madrasa, but prefer public school that would equip him for the job market with a liberal worldview. So the reason for Muslim backwardness is poverty that could be exploited by religious orthodoxy liberally financed by the Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia. The efforts of the government in the name of uplifting the Muslims to bring them into the Indian mainstream is actually helping to keep them farther away from it. For example, the non-enactment of a uniform civil code, ostensibly as a favour to Muslims, is actually against the interests of the overwhelming majority of Muslims, especially Muslim women. The plethora of suggestions to counter the reasons of Muslim backwardness found by the Sachar Committee, such as reservation and ?first right on national resources? etc. will certainly take Muslims away from the national cohesiveness because other communities would react adversely to the Muslim appeasement. Even the subsidy given to Haj by the government is not only against the principles of secularism enshrined in the Constitution but also against Islamic tenets that insist the pilgrimage should be performed by spending the individual'shard-earned money. If a section of people like Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes are suffering from historical and social factors, it is necessary to uplift them by providing economic aid and other concessions. This is to bring about equity in society. Hindus and Muslims are equal citizens of India; by being a Muslim, one is not suffering from any inequality in his citizen'srights unlike Hindus in an Islamic state. Therefore, giving concession to Muslims to increase their commitment to the nation is like bribing people to make them patriotic. It is an insult to the community, because the inference will be?they are less national. Hindus can be rightly proud of their heritage of a great culture and civilization. But that does not give them any special rights in secular India. Neither can Hindus claim they are more patriotic or national than people belonging to other communities. It is a futile academic exercise to prove that Hindus are nationalist while Muslims can be only patriotic. Such semantic jugglery can only cause confusion and strains between communities. (The writer can be contacted at janunkunju@sify.com)
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