JEDDAH, 15 May — Long ago in his book, Islam and the Myth of Confrontation, Fred Halliday predicted that Indian Muslims should prepare themselves for the same kind of ethnic cleansing as Bosnian Muslims. The riots in Bombay after the demolition of Babri Mosque and the latest Gujarat carnage bear witness to Halliday’s farsightedness.
Now the question before the world and especially Indian Muslims is whether there is any force in India to fight the purveyors of hate who are responsible for the carnage. The answer is no. Because according to eyewitnesses and media reports policemen whose job is to preserve the peace now team up with killers and stand aside until a Muslim area has been ethnically cleansed and all its inhabitants murdered in cold blood. The army is then deployed in these areas and the police move in to protect the dead.
The cameras roll on, and an attempt is made to deceive the world that the streets of the city are in the safe hands of the army and police. Arab News in its Letters to the Editor column published two letters on March 2 by Gujarat Muslims who were on the receiving end of the violence. The letters were from Ahmedabad and Himmat Nager town of Gujarat, the areas worst hit by the riots. In the letters the Muslims of Ahmedabad and Himmat Nager requested the world to save them from ethnic cleansing. As they wrote the letters, they saw Gujarat police firing at Muslims. Gujarat is still burning. But it is not only Gujarat that is burning but also Indian democracy and its secular mask. More than 100,000 Muslims are still unable to return to their homes.
Thousands of Muslim homes and hundreds of mosques have been burned and totally destroyed. A few homes in Hindu-dominated areas, which were not destroyed display graffiti saying that if Muslims return, their wives and daughters will be raped. Baroda’s Hindu District Collector has admitted openly that he is aware of these conditions. He says there is little he can do. The Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee is untiring in his praise of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and BJP’s performance.
Indian Muslims have lost hope that Muslim countries or world human rights organizations will do anything in these circumstances. How long will this ethnic cleansing go on? The well- known Indian journalist Praful Bidwai says, “You cannot separate the sectarian violence in Gujarat from its political side.” That was also the opinion of Yasmin Alibhai-Brown — that the madness was one of politics rather than religion.
A woman who worked with victims in refugee camps asks,” How can one help women who have been mass-raped and seen their families burned in front of them? What can one do to help the relatives and neighbors of the pregnant woman whose fetus was ripped from her womb and burned in the fire? How can these people be convinced to return?” According to the latest reports, peace lovers and Gandhians closed their doors as Gujarat burned. Mohandas Gandhi who led India’s freedom movement against the British, was also from Gujarat. Praful Bidwai and Yasmin Alibhai-Brown say that only politics is to blame for the carnage. But my opinion is that Hinduism which is very famous for its Bhakti Movements is no longer the same religion as it once was.
The Hindu fascist elements have hijacked a peace-loving religion for their own selfish ends. Hindu religious heroes who have long been symbols of truth, love and peace are now defined as warriors. The extremist Hindu elements use the ancient epics and mythical stories to pollute the minds of the uninformed Hindu masses.
If this campaign continues unchecked, no one can save all of India from becoming another Gujarat. When people such as Arun Shourie and Nobel Laureate V.S. Naipaul are involved in this blame game, when Hindu intellectuals defend this change of attitude in Hindu religion, things are desperate indeed.
Muslim scholars, poets and social workers must come forward to make a dialogue with the Hindu majority as their ancestors did in the Turkish and Moghul periods. It is time for Muslims to follow the teachings of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. He gave a detailed plan for Muslims who did not migrate to Pakistan. I think if we could implement Azad’s plan, the 100 towns where Muslims number more than 20 percent could change our fate.
