April 29th, 2002
Jinnah sold the idea of a homeland for Muslims by conjuring up the spectre of Hindus forming a brute majority. The Hindus claimed that tolerance was a way of life with them.
2002 developments from 27th February onwards in Gujarat appear to be Jinnahs nightmare come alive. The assiduously cultivated myth that some religions [the Hindus and Jains] are tolerant and others {Muslims} intolerant has been exposed.
Everyone can see it except Vajpeyi, Advani and Krishnamurthi. They are all RSS Prachaaraks The rhetoric and catechism which they have learnt and taught in shakhaas saves them from facing the reality of Truth.
The Truth is a thousand dead Muslims and a hundred thousand homeless refugees who took no part in the violence of Godhra.
Although this does not justify the outrage, those attacked at Godhra were militant Hindus on a return trip from Ayodhya. The Ram Mandir movement that took them to Ayodhya is not designed to spread communal harmony and peace.
Whatever the provocation the attackers of the train should have been brought to book. The RSS had no business to take the law into their own hand to punish Muslims of Gujarat. Specially as the parivaar are in power in the state. The action by the ruling party shows scant respect for the Rule of Law. Those killed raped burnt and looted were innocent Muslims unconnected with Godhra. The desecration of the grave of a musician known for his mastery of what is called Shaastreeya Sangeet or Classical Indian Music deriving from the Sama Veda ( Aaftaab-i-Mauseeqee Faiyyaaz Khan) and a poet (Wali) smacks of a pogrom.
The PM, Atal Behari Vajpeyi has absolved his fellow Prachaarak Chief Minister and tried to shift the blame on to jehadi Muslims. He has also aired the conversions story which he used earlier to cover up the Staines murder when a man and his two teen age sons were burnt alive by the same kind of lumpen who have killed nearly a thousand people in Gujarat.
The label intolerant stuck again on Islam by the P.M. is used to justify all manner of outrage and barbarity.
This ploy is of European origin dating back to the 8th Century when Arabs conquered Spain and Portugal. The Crusades hardened attitudes further from the 10th century onwards. The Islam is intolerant myth was evolved by Europeans to give Muslims a bad name so that they be viewed as less than human and ill treated with a clear conscience.
Another myth of the time was that in the East, either in Africa or Asia there was a Christian country with a ruler called Prester John. All captains heading missions sent East by Portugal were asked to bring back spices such as pepper and to contact Prester John.
Like Prester Johns existence the existence of tolerant and intolerant religions is a myth. It is individuals who are tolerant and intolerant and not religions. Upbringing and parentage or heredity and environment do not appear to be the most powerful determining factors.
We cite the example of two famous Indians of the 17th Century. They were born of the same mother and father and were not step but uterine brothers. One became a symbol of peace with all faiths and religions (sulh-i- kul) while the other is notorious for his narrow- minded bigotry.
The brothers we have in mind are Dara Shukoh (d 1659) and Awrungzeyb Alamgir(d. 1707). In the War of Succession (1658 1659) Dame Fortune favoured the bigot and he became Emperor while Dara Shukoh was tried for apostasy, sentenced to death and executed.
Dara was a believing Muslim. Faith was a matter of great importance to him. He and his sister Jahanara were formally initiated into an established order of Islamic Sufiism.
Like Bhakti Sufiism is heterodox and at the other end of the spectrum from bigotry
Dara has a verse in which he defines Paradise as a place where Mullahs do not exist.
It is time we heeded him to stop playing the games taught during British Rule to make Hindus and Muslims criminal and delinquent in relation to each other. Only then will India cease to be the hell it has become and again be a bird of Gold, a Paradise.