Puppets Of Faith Theory Of Communal Strife (A critical appraisal of Islamic faith, Indian polity ‘n more)

by BS Murthy

  Though for centuries, the gods, who paid a deaf ear to the Hindu prayers to get them rid of the M uslim rule, granted them their 'man for the moment' in Sardar Patel but they had to contend with Gandhi the autocrat, who by then was deified by them as the M ahatma of the time. Well, Gandhi had cleaned the public toilets alright but did he not force his reluctant wife to do the same against her will, and in embracing celibacy prematurely, had he not deprived Kasturba the warmth of his marital embrace. Won't that make food for thought?

  Whatever, Patel, who filled the Hindu emotional space like a colossus, should have made it to the Dilli gaddi, but Gandhi's 'peculiar' weakness for Nehru, bordering on physical love, ensured that it didn't happen. That was, in spite of the overwhelming support the Sardar received from the congressmen and women of that era, from all over India. That's about Gandhi's democratic ethos, and fondness for the favoured, not discounting his prejudice towards Ambedkar, Subhas Chandra Bose, Prakasam et al, who tended to be independent of him. Wonder how in the Gandhi-thrall, the world glosses over the fact that while his steely resolve helped India to get rid of the British yoke, yet his naivety of Hindu-M uslim amity had imposed many an Islamic constraint on 'free' India.

  While Nehru's foolhardy in taking the Kashmir issue all the way to the United Nations and his credulity in taking a plebiscite pledge therein, it was Patel, who had coerced the recalcitrant Nizam and other vacillating Rajas, into the Union of India. It is another 'foolhardy' matter though that Nehru relinquished the offer of the powers that be to India to take a permanent seat in the all-powerful Security Council of the same world body, insisting that it was China's due, as if to highlight his Hindi Chini bhai bhai myth! Whatever, in trying to be a world leader, while Nehru sacrificed his country's interests, China that sits in the Security Council by default is ever at blocking India's entry into it in its national interest; and that's some contribution by the one whom Gandhi thrust upon India as its 'wooly' head of state! While the Sardar was not destined to live long enough to see Bharat M dta bear the fruits of his sagacity, Nehru had survived long enough to witness the divisive affects of his plebiscite folly in the Kashmiri valley that gave Pakistan a potent stick to beat India with at every international fora that was till his daughter Indira forced Bhutto to revise the rules of the ongoing game at Shimla. Thus, while Nehru deservedly earned the disregard of the Indian nation, Patel became a living legend of its nationalist sentiment.

  If J innah couldn't consolidate the gains for Islam in Pakistan, Nehru failed to formulate a socio-political code in India that took into account the Hindu sensitivities and the M uslim interests in the same nationalistic vein. And to add insult to the Hindu injury, the Nehruvian foreign policy was fashioned to address the fundamentalist ethos of the Muslim minority rather than to serve the national interests of the new India. Thus at best, Nehru was a sophist in shaping the foreign policy that understandably became the political Bible for the Congress party, and at worst, it can be said that he eyed for a secular slot in the pan-lslamic history, but to no avail. However, in spite of his innumerable flaws, his place in the Indian history should be secure as the founding father of its democracy, though he could have become the Caesar, and what is more, besides diligently nursing it in its infancy, he meticulously guided it into its adulthood; if Gandhi got freedom to India then Nehru mothered it into a democracy, which later his daughter Indira had set on a dynastic course.

  When Nehru died broken-hearted, after the demise of his pet panchshel in the ignominy of a defeat at the Chinese hands in the Himalayas, the Indian democracy had had its first triumph as the humble Lai Bahadur Shastri made it to the premier post. After his brief rein though, the Congress and India came into the dynastic clutches of Nehru's devious daughter, delivered to her on a platter by the petty Syndicate to deny Morarji Desai his political due. Predictably, Indira stretched her father's Muslim leanings to ludicrous lengths in claiming the membership for India in the Organization of Islamic Countries on the premise that it was the home for a large body of umma in the world! Naturally, the Rabbat snub, engineered by Pakistan, rubbed salt into the wounded Hindu pride, which the Congress party didn't mind to amend.

  Whatever, Indira exhibited both courage and conviction at times, and became the apple of the Hindu eye and the solace of the Hindu hurt for the way she exploited the brewing Bangladesh crisis to dismember Pakistan. And that 'allegedly' made Vajpayee deify her as Durga that he denied, even as the media dubbed her as the Empress of India. But her maternal weakness for her roguish younger son Sanjay, in time, afflicted her personal character and affected her political judgment, pushing Mother India into the political abyss of her Emergency Rule. That was before Sanjay's death, and it was only a matter of time before the 'political devi' became the 'devil's advocate of graft' by infamously stating that corruption was a global phenomenon.

  Nevertheless, her death was as poignant as her life itself, which had put the thoughts of the East and the West on the same philosophical page. While it was her destiny of a violent death that could have earlier made her nurture the Frankenstein Monster of a Sant Bhindranwale to politically browbeat the Akali Dal, proves the karma sidhdnta governs destiny one's nature -, her insistence on retaining her 'religiously agitated' Sikh bodyguards in the aftermath of the 'Operation Blue Star', to set an example of secular conviction and personal courage, would prove the Western philosophy true in that one's nature dictates his fate.

  However, the Nehru dynasty's real disservice to India lay in denying the due political space for the leadership of the backward classes in the Congress arena, and that hurt the Indian democracy, rather, grievously at that. The independence that saw the beginning of the end of the Brahmanical order, and with it the advent of the universal literacy, in time, raised the abilities as well as aspirations of the teeming millions of the backward classes and the other backward castes. If only their legitimate aspirations of political ascendancy were allowed to come to fruition under the Congress banner, the politics of the day would not have degenerated into caste combinations and communal permutations. While the dynastic order blocked the top slots for the emerging leaders of the backward castes, what is worse, it blotted the lower rungs of the party with the sycophantic upper caste men and women.

  It was thus, the aspirants from these classes began to see beyond the Congress, and it was not long before two wily Yadavs - Mulayam Singh of U.P and Lalu Prasad of Bihar floated their own political outfits by tailoring their own caste suits with M uslim Apparel for better affect, and that altered the old electoral order in the strategic cow belt in the Hindi heartland, seemingly forever. After all, it doesn't require the brains of an Einstein to realize that an electoral alliance between the Musalmans and the Yadavs (M-Y in political parlance) in these two States would ensure political dividends in many a constituency. What with these two Yadavs successfully calling the minority bluff of the Congress at the hustings, the secret was out; that it is the 15% or so M uslim vote of the Indian democracy, which is vital to the Hindu politicians to enter into the portals of power. That the M ayawatis and the Nitish Kumars too have come to master the winning formula and what is worse; down the Vindhyas too as the politicians are not taking

  chances any more with even the inconsiderable M uslim vote that is there, tells the ugly story of the Indian democracy.

  That the cynical Hindu politicians have made the time-tested tactic - give the poor M usalmans more of Islam that keeps them calm - of the M uhammadan despots their own, they have come to hurt the umma's economic well-being, that is besides debilitating India's democratic vitality, hampering its social integration, and degrading its intellectual integrity. What might even be worse for the country is that as calamities follow the follies of man, more and more of India's political future could be mortgaged in the Muslim Vote-Banks. So, when the minority vote swells up to a healthy 25% or more, as it may be sooner than later, that is if the umma is not compelled to procreate less, this 'power at all costs' electoral pursuit of the short-s
ighted politicians, Mamata Banerjee of West Bengal being the worst example to date, is bound to boomerang on them not to speak of the Indian nation. Why vote for a Hindu when we have the numbers to elect our own, so could be the logic of the Indian M usalmans at some point of time in the years to come. Who cares about that, anyway, as the Hindu wisdom was never known to factor the Islamic expansionist credo into the Indian realpolitik.

  So, the majority community's cynical 'minority politics' is bound to facilitate the growth of M uslim separatism, which in turn would bring about the inevitable disorder of the Indian political order. And nearer to our times, we might as well see the spectacle of the de facto merger of the six districts of Assam namely Angoon, Dhobi, Catcher, Barletta, Sniper, and Karuk with Bangladesh, which to build the Muslim vote-bank, the Congress allowed them to be infested with the illegal Muslim intruders. And ditto with West Bengal's districts bordering Bangladesh, but with a difference in that it was the Communists, who paid a blind eye to the illegal M uslim influx into it that added to their vote bank. No wonder that M amata Banerjee, who upturned them in time, in turn holds on to the 27% Muslim votes as one would his lifeline, without pretence at that. That being the case, one would expect that the future travails of Bharat should be scaring the Hindus, but then they are a different kind of an 'indifferent' people.

  But then how does India fare on the intellectual front in this regard? Why the leftliberal spearheads of the Hindu 'intellectualism' of the day, are no less constrained by their ignorance of Islam and Christianity as 'spreading' cults. These gullible guys bite the 'Islam is a religion of peace' 'n 'terrorism has no religion' bullet and end up being Islamapologists to join the Islamist chorus that it's all the fault of 'the others', the Hindu fundamentalists included. No wonder all these tend to ignore the religious urge of the Musalmans to procreate in plentiful and the evangelical zeal of the Christians to proselytize more and more to the Hindu hurt. That being the case in this information age, why blame the Brahmans of yore for messing up things on the socio-political front to turn it into a fertile ground for the Islamic spread in Hindustan? They too were human after all.

  Chapter 27 The Wages of God

  The WE-THEY obsession of the Islamic ethos debilitates the M usalmans with troubled minds. While the ayats of Quran spell out who THEY are - the Jews, the Christians and the idolaters (read Hindus, in later centuries) - the Islamic theology defines who THEY are, the Sunnis, the Shias and the Sufis et al. And the political divide too is clear as to who THEY are - the Iranians and the Iraqis, the Pakistanis and the Bangladeshis, Saudis and Yemenis all M usalmans though.

  Well, for those perceived as WE, Islam is all green but it turns blood-red when it comes to those who are seen as THEY. This is the moral code of Islam, which in Arabic means peace, and also surrender. While Muhammad taught his medieval flocks to

  surrender to Allah to serve his cause, insensibly the umma got stuck in the obsolete Islamic era of servitude, not only to 'the God' but also to His messenger. Well Allah's covenant for the 'hereafter' might be eternal for the M usalmans but sadly for them, or so it seems, the way of life 'here' is forever altering for them to comprehend it. What with Muhammad having convinced them, once and for all, that the succor of 'the hereafter' is the solace of the M usalmans, they tend to disregard life 'here', which makes them obliviousto the realities of the ever-changing world.

  This as was seen is owing to the Decommissioned Adult, the Parent-contaminated Adult and the Child-contaminated Adult, prevalent, by and large, amongst the Musalmans, in some degree or the other. While the Muhammadan Decommissioned Adult is incapable of analyzing the current realities, his Parent-contaminated Adult harps on the past glories of the Musalmans, and the Child- contaminated Adult lives in delusions of a rosy future for Islam. Moreso, when it comes to the Jews, their estranged religious cousins, it is as if the M usalmans have got stuck in the time zone when their life and limb, not to speak of their faith, depended on the whims and fancies of Muhammad.

  However, before M uhammad came up with the Quran, the progeny of Isaac, having been driven out from their Promised Land, lived in peace and prosperity amidst the posterity of Ishmael by the oases of Arabia. But as the Straight Path of Islam came to be laid by M uhammad, the Jews got a bumpy ride on it even though the Quran endorsed their M oses as a Prophet of yore. The enduring hatred of the Jews that M uhammad had inculcated in the followers of his cult would forever stymie the psyche of the Arabs towards their cousins in Israel, and understandably the umma at large, so it seems.

  It was thus, the boasts of Gamal Abdel Nasser that he would push the Israelis into the Red Sea sounded like music to the ears the Musalmans the world over for Allah's faithful then, and Nasser seemed like the Pharaoh of Islam, about to enslave the hateful Jews all again. But the unmitigated Arab disaster that was the Six-Day War left the shellshocked umma clueless about the Islamic calamity, and though the Yom Kippur war that followed, which had initially raised the tempo of the M usalmans, yet left them sullen in the end, well, owing to the brilliance of thejewish military prowess.

  But the M uhammadan Decommissioned Adult of the hadith vintage wouldn't realize that the world had changed beyond recognition since the time of Muhammad and his Caliphs, who conquered much of their neighboring lands and forced their peoples into the Islamic fold. If only the M usalmans could deviate a little from their believing course of the 'Angles of War' that Muhammad had charted for them, they would realize that those were the days of mortal combat, when the Islamic creed of huris for the shahid and a fair share of the 'spoils of war' for the survivors that gave the cutting edge to the Muslim swords.

  Well in those battles of yore, the jihadis vied with each other to die for the joys of the 'Hereafter' that M uhammad had promised them, which earned laurels for the M uslim coat of arms, but sadly for the coats of Muslim mail, the modern warfare is as much about machines as men behind them that THEY have come to master on both counts. So, in battle after battle, and war after war, in the modern era, whenever the M usalmans itched for a fight, the patriotic sense of THEY, alien to the M uslim ethos, had been proving to be much more potent than the religious zeal of the faithful to die for Islam.

  Besides, in the modern warfare, of what avail is the famed Arabian horse, the swiftest breed on earth that served the Musalman marauders so admirably in their plunders of yore in the Islamic folklore? In contrast, the heaps of shoes that Nasser's soldiers rid themselves of so as to run faster to safety in the Sinai desert give an

  unerring account of the martial decay of the once dreaded M uhammadan Armageddon. What with the battles of the day being fought on the borderlands that dampen their spirits for the 'spoils of war', the material incentive 'here' for them, it is as if the fauzis of Islam have lost interest in making it to the 'Hereafter' that M uhammad said was laid for the martyrs amongst them.

  Thus as the Decommissioned Adult of the M uhammadan wouldn't be able to grasp even the apparent military might of the non-lslamic world of the day, so the M usalmans are ever prone to wait in perpetuity for a Saladin to appear on the Islamic horizon that has only been turning gloomier by the day. However, the umma mistook the bravado of Saddam Hussein, in leading up to the fiasco of the 'Mother of All Battles', for the bravery of Saladin at the Horns of Hattin; 'dekhiye, 0 Saddam hai, Saddam 'Look he's Saddam but Saddam' - many a Musalman in India proudly proclaimed thus with a boding sense of an impending doom to the U.S. the Great Satan to the umma. Thus, as the anticlimax of a swift Saddam surrender became a shocking reality to the M usalmans the world over, the umma was crestfallen once again, and began to sulk all the more. It seems as though the psyche of the M usalmans is that of the front-benchers at the cinemas, who visualize the unreal on the reel as the real in life to relieve themselves of the drudgery of the reality, though momentarily.

  Nonetheless, Anwar Sadat, Nasser's successor, who made peace with Israel to get back their Sinai, would have been M ustafa Kemal Ataturk of Egypt, if only its M usalmans were less hostile
towards their own visionary. But as the unbound hatred towards 'the others' rules the demented minds of the M usalmans, they made him pay with his life for their blind prejudice towards the Jews. It's as though the jihadi Arabs wouldn't mind Israel keeping their land so long as they have a cause to hate the Jews and hope to annihilate them in the end, let it be just before the end of the world! In what could be the greatest irony of their faith, the Arabs eye the promised land that their own God gave the Jews, not prepared even to share it with them. It's as if Allah, aided by the followers of his Messenger seeks to evict Jews, His chosen people from the promised land into which He, in His Jehovah avatar enabled his Prophet to lead them into, but to no avail. Strange are the changing moodsof the Semitic God!

  Well, having failed to have their way with the Jews with their warmongering, the Palestinians could have pored over the hadith for an alternate strategy to hurt the enemy. And find they did that lies in the following episode from Muhammad's life sketched by Martin Lings.

  "About the same time news came of the danger of another projected raid from further south; but in this instance the Prophet divined that the hostility against Islam was all concentrated in one remarkably evil man, the chief of the Lihyanite branch of Hudhayl. If they could be rid of him, the danger from that quarter would become negligible; so he sent 'Abd Allah ibn Unays, a man of Khazraj, with instructions to kill him. "0 M essenger of God,” said 'Abd Allah, "describe him to me that I may know him.” "When thou seest him," said the Prophet, "he will remind thee of Satan. The certain sign for thee that he is indeed the man will be that when thou seest him thou wilt shudder at him." It was as he had said; and, having killed the man, 'Abd Allah escaped with his life."