MV Kamath
The sheer arrogance, insolence and impertinence shown by a section of Muslims in Mumbai in the matter of the sponsored riots is nothing short of an insult to secular India, and not only does it need to be strongly condemned, but firm action needs to be taken against those who organised the disturbances. We are noticing that certain Muslim groups can get away literally with murder and arson. The riots in Mumbai were obviously preplanned. So were the SMSs threatening citizens from the North-East settled in places like Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad and Bangalore with dangers to their lives.
The agitation in Mumbai was reportedly organised by an organisation called the Raza Academy with the support of the All India Sunni Jamiat-ul-Ulema and the All India Jamat Raza-e-Mustafa and others of their ilk. Their complaint is that violence against Muslims has been poorly covered by the media. Two points need to be made in this connection. One is that the Central Government is stationed in Delhi and not in Mumbai. The Maharashtra Government is not running the administration in Assam. The other is that, if Muslims outside Assam want to present their distress at events in Assam, they are free to make a representation to the President of India or through representations in Parliament. Taking to violence is not an acceptable option. Not only should the Raza Academy be adequately penalised but legal action must be taken against its leaders. The trouble is that the government in Delhi does not function. Secularism has been reduced to a huge joke. The rioting in Mumbai has been taken with benign indifference to the nation’s shame. Muslims apparently can resort to law-breaking without inviting reprobation. According to Prabhu Chawla, writing in The Indian Express (August 12), some 10,000 Pakistanis had entered Nagpur with proper visas in the past decade but over 7,000 have vanished without a trace”. The local police had forgotten to track them and pack them home. Notes Chawla: Ït doesn’t bother them if the demographic complexion of nearly half a district changes not because of indigenous biological reasons but because if illegal immigration from Bangladesh…. The discourse on Assam carnage therefore is part of a sinister attempt to de-Indianise the Indian mind-set”.
Or listen to Ravi Shankar, also writing for the Indian Express (August 12).Says he: “At the time of Partition, Hindus comprised 26 per cent of the population of Pakistan (then including East Pakistan as well). Now they are barely 2 per cent. Our secularists who got bad throats crying over the Babri Masjid demolition do not mention that out of about 400 temples in Pakistan in 1947, only 26 (now) exist. Even the Hindu dead have been denied cremation in Pakistan”. Ravi Shankar quotes the Asian Human Rights Commission as recording that around 1,100 Hindu girls are kidnapped and forcibly converted every year” in Pakistan with even the Dargah Alia Qadria Bharehundi Sharief of Sind openly declaring its goal of converting 2000 Hindu girls to Islam every year. Or listen to what the well-known journalist Swapan Dasgupta writing in The Free Press Journal (August 7) has to say. He notes that the population of Assam has increased from 3.29 million in 1901 to 14.6million in 1971, and increase of 343.7 per cent compared to the all-India increase of just 150 per cent, in the same period. Dasgupta quotes the Election Commissioner as saying that details of the 2011 Census may reveal that 11 of the 27 districts of Assam now have a Muslim majority. Hindus have been driven out of Pakistan, while India has been letting Muslims from Bangladesh enter its territory with open arms. Yet another expert, Sunanda K Datta Ray writing also in The Free Press Journal quotes, of all organisations, the National Council of Churches of India as claiming that Bangladeshis have appropriated 10,000 sq kms of (Indian) territory with Bodo officials accusing them of occupying 35 per cent of Khas land. All this under Congress administration. As The Sentinel of Guwahati (August 13) noted in a front page editorial, “The indigenous community of Bodos are being gradually outnumbered in their very homeland by immigrants of East Bengal/East Pakistan/ Bangladesh ancestry—which is nothing but a demographic onslaught on sons of the soil of the north eastern region”.
Now listen to what Balraj Puri, a Rajya Sabha member has to say in The Indian Express (August 17). According to him, the entire chain of events show the minority community attempt to impose its dominance in India, cutting through the soft spots of the country”. Pakistan drives Hindus out; in India we magnanimously provide reservations to Muslims in every sphere of activity. In Pakistan Hindu girls are raped, converted. In India we allow Muslim women to wear burqa claiming respect for their so-called customs. What is sad, and even sickening is to see that the Congress Government, while encouraging the illegal migration of Bangladeshis in Assam and other North Eastern States even refuses to recognise Pakistani Hindus as refugees.
We have cowards running this country. Speak out against minority violence in India and one is dubbed as a communalist Narendra Modi is insulted by the United States but Delhi maintains a discreet silence. The cheats in Pakistan’s Army—the ISI—make arrangements for underground passage to Indian territory in Jammu & Kashmir—Some 18 such passages have been so far identified thanks to the findings of a farmer, but the PM’s office maintains a discreet silence. We have to warn both Pakistan and Bangladesh that enough is enough and they may soon have to face adequate reprobation if they don’t mend their behaviour. Hillary Clinton says Pakistan is collapsing and one can expect so will Bangladesh. This could mean fresh influx of our neighbours into India. Delhi is warned. It is time to throw out the present mediocre and cowardly UPA government in Delhi and elect a new and forcesful government take on the challenge.Writing in Business Line (August 15), BS Raghvan has openly suggested that “the time has come for Manmohan Singh to become an Emeritus Prime Minister” and “the greatest and best service he can do at this stage is to hand over the baton to someone else and take some well-earned rest”. But we must demand more. The UPA under Sonia Gandhi has done enough damage to the country by its inefficiency, cowardice and lack of vision. It should be summarily thrown out by the people. It is time for fresh elections with immediate effect and don’t have to wait till 2014 by which time unretrievable damage might hurt India badly. Why not have general elections right towards the end of this year—in December? This nation has had enough of the Nehru-Gandhi dynastic misrule. It deserves to be summarily thrown out if India is to remain peaceful and prosperous.
