Selectively Liberal, Conveniently Progressive

The first interview of Hasan Suroor is about his latest book ‘Who Killed Liberal Islam?’ According to the interviewer, the book is mainly focused around the question: ‘Are liberalism and Islam compatible or are they mutually exclusive?’ In the very first answer, Suroor admits that he himself is a ‘Left-liberal Muslim’ and that “this book is a sort of mea culpa” i.e. admission of ‘my own fault’ and that the original title of this book was ‘Confessions of a Liberal Muslim’.

Exposing the political agenda of ‘Left-liberal Muslims’ he says that his fight is “…with those who have no roots in the Muslim community and yet presume to speak on its behalf. I count myself among them…” And focusing on his answer to this double whammy of Indian leftist (Marxist) and ‘liberal’ Muslim loudmouths he says, “…if you are looking to bring about change in the Muslim community then we should be encouraging moderate voices from among practising Muslims rather than chest-thumping non-practising left-liberals who are not so much interested in reforms ….”

As if only to prove that their lifetime bed fellow Suroor was 100 per cent correct in his assessment of his ‘Mullah Marxist Biradari’, over a hundred ‘Renowned Muslims’ (read: ‘leftist’ and ‘liberal’ Muslims) issued a joint statement which is smart enough to be rewarded as the best textbook examples of ‘running with the hare and hunting with the fox’. On November 26 The Times of India (New Delhi) prominently published this news item under the headline “100+ Renowned Muslims Oppose Ayodhya Review”. The news item was displayed with a photo of popular cinema personality comrade Naseeruddin Shah who has come to stay as the most popular poster boy of Indian Mullah-Marxists. Interestingly, this three-column news item was closeted with another two-column news item headlined “Sunni Board to Take Call on Plea Today”. The list of other ‘renowned’ Muslims who signed this statement reads like a who’s-who of Indian biradari of comrades and self-styled ‘liberals’. Some examples: film actress Shabana Azmi, poet-Urdu columnist Hasan Kamaal, journalist Javed Anand (yes, the very same celebrity of Sabrang NGO fame and husband of Gujarat riots activist Teesta Setalvad), activist Feroz Mithiborwala and most others equally known for things other than their love for secularism.

As it always happens with the Marxist propaganda machinery, the timing of this statement was perfect as the Sunni Waqf Board was going to announce on that very day whether the Muslim community will go for an appeal against the Supreme Court judgement on Ayodhya case or not.

On the face of it the statement appears to be calling upon the Indian Muslims to accept the court verdict and go for reconciliation with the Hindu community. But in real details, it further cements their anti-Hindu phobia by underlining that “…continuation of the dispute will add fuel to anti-Muslim propaganda and Islamophobia and aid communal polarization…” In this statement these ‘renowned’ Muslim intellectuals not only reject the Supreme Court verdict but also unequivocally insult the highest judicial body of the country by condemning its judgment as ‘judicially flawed’ and also for placing ‘faith above law’. In addition this statement makes the claim that the Muslims of India are unhappy over this judgment—proving Suroor perfect in his assessment that this Biradari of self-proclaimed leftist liberals and secularists have the brashness of speaking on behalf of entire Indian Muslim community and putting their own words of judgment and bias in the community’s mouth.

As per the Times of India the statement reads, “We share the unhappiness of the Indian Muslim community, constitutional experts and secular organisations over the fact that the highest court has placed faith above law in arriving at its decision. But while agreeing that the court order is judicially flawed, we strongly believe that keeping the Ayodhya dispute alive will harm, and not help, Indian Muslims…”

This is not the first time that the Indian leftists and their allied ‘liberal’ and ‘secularist’ intellectuals and activists have shed crocodile tears for the ordinary Indian Muslim citizens. It has become a trend to see these self-styled champions of Islam doing chest-thumping and selectively blowing up localised unfortunate incidents, in which a Muslim is killed by a rabid mob of non-Muslims, into a ‘national’ emergency. Some cases involving Muslim victims like Pehlu Khan, Junaid Khan or Tabrez Ansari have been used more by this gang as an opportunity to brand Modi government as ‘anti-Muslim’ and India becoming a ‘lynchistan’ than making any contribution towards solving this problem.

But these revolutionary voices suddenly go mum every time and indifferent whenever many horrible events involving Muslim mobs killing local Hindus and burning houses and shops happen in many parts of West Bengal and Bihar. Or when scores of Kashmiri Pandits and Kashmiri Sikhs are butchered by Islamist Jihadis in the name of establishing Nizam-e-Mustafa in Kashmir. Their propaganda machinery goes in overdrive when a French magazine publishes cartoons depicting Prophet Mohammad in bad taste but they refuse even to react when Islamic terrorists kill and maim two dozen journalists and newspaper workers in the magazine’s office in Paris. This entire Biradari of Naseeruddins and Shabanas have yet to condemn the Fatwas against celebrated Muslim writers like Salman Rushdie and Tasleema Nasrin. Indian people are yet to hear the first words of condemnation from these ‘progressives’ and ‘liberal’ leftists against public abduction, rape and forced conversion of Hindu and Christian girls in Pakistan.

Rabid allergy towards the Sangh associated organisations and Modi government and selective sensitivity of leftist propagandists and their fellow ‘progressive’ intellectuals of India on issues related to communalism and human rights has stunted their political and ideological growth over the past five decades. Over these years almost all anti-Sangh Parivar parties have come to believe that their commitment and responsibility towards secularism and democracy starts and ends with criticising and abusing the Sangh associated organisations. This may not have helped the Marxist parties of India to expand their base, but it did help them to sell their anti-Sangh agenda and political vocabulary to the leaders, ideologues and intellectuals belonging to almost all anti-Sangh parties and interest groups.

One funny part of Marxist ideology is that it calls for strongest nationalist commitment from the party members if they are Chinese, Cubans or Russians (in the erstwhile Soviets of USSR). But it clearly dictates them to keep interests of the communist movement above their national interests if they are Indian or are functioning in some other country.

Only that can explain why a secularist and progressive Naseeruddin Shah or a Shabana Azmi or a Javed Anand must shed tears for a Muslim being killed in India for whatever reason, but he/she must remain totally oblivious to thousands of Uyghur Muslims being murdered without trial by the Public Security Bureau, the Gestapo of Xi Jinping. The leftists of India used to organize massive public rallies in support of the Palestinian people as long as the Soviet funds were flowing liberally in India but they don’t find it an issue worth even issuing a statement when two million Uyghur Muslims are kept in Chinese concentration camps of Xinjiang (original name ‘Republic of East Turkistan’ before Chinese occupation in 1949)

Similarly, the leftist lobby of India considers it religious duty to fan out in the university campuses for the democratic rights of Kashmiri terrorists and their ‘Tukde-Tukde’ front desk army. But for past nearly six months they have failed to notice why two million youths of Hong Kong out of just 7.5 million population come out in the streets to defend their democratic rights from the Chinese communist rulers and their People’s Republic Army?

The communists of India along with their Church financed leftist NGOs have all the energy, time and resources to agitate against and to stop bauxite mining in Niyamgiri of Orissa but they won’t open their mouths when China is blatantly looting mineral and timber wealth worth billions of dollars every year from colonised Tibet, Xinjiang and Chinese occupied South Mongolia.

These deliberate and selective omissions and commissions of India’s so-called ‘liberal’, ‘progressive’ and ‘secularist’ leftists may have won some news headlines and cheers the JNU like campuses, but as far the thinking and patriotic Indian is concerned, these loudmouths have exposed the shallowness and hollowness of their commitment towards democracy and human rights.

And as far as the attempts of Mullah leftists towards running down core institutions of democracy like the Supreme court of India are concerned, they have proven beyond doubt that a leftist Muslim is far more dangerous and injurious to the Indian Muslim society’s interests than the Jihadist terrorists.