And they are not Muslim
In Defence of India’s Second-Class Citizens
KS Muralidharan
No country can challenge India when it comes to being unique. Where else will you find a majority community which comprises over 80% of the population being treated as second class citizens in their own country?
This, let us admit, is an elephant-in-the-room kind of truth. But ironically, it is barred from public discourse, not forcefully by any diktat, but politely as a matter of “courtesy”.
You can only say it in a hush-hush kind of way, because the truth is not palatable to the ears of the liberals. For them it is in bad taste. How can you complain? Second class citizens don’t enjoy that privilege!
The rioting at Nuh saw four Hindus killed, apart from one person from the minority community but the headlines screamed at us that a Muslim cleric was a victim.
4 to 1: The binary is in-your-face. So the life of a Hindu comes cheap. And when you simply point to this fact, you are dubbed as being right wing, a Sangh Privar apologist, and worse. As if the left wing is shorthand for god. And as if Sangh Parivar is shorthand for the devil. And as if not taking any position either way is shorthand for something that is divinely ordained!
Truth blowing in the wind
Take any issue that is dear to the Hindus. Like the Gyanvapi case which is being heard by the court. The simple point here, as UP Chief Minister, Yogi Adityanath dared (!) to point out was that when the inner walls are dotted with Hindu imagery and symbols including that of a Trishul, is it right or fair to call the Gyanvapi a mosque?
Now, this is not something that is visible only to the eyes of (a) Yogi! It is there for the whole world to see. And yet the majority community have to fight and claw their way through every inch of the system in their own country, in the only land that they can call their own, historically, culturally and civilizationally, and with the entire world arraigned against them, for daring to reclaim what is rightfully and originally theirs. And no, no one will call on the minority community to voluntarily give up their claim, as a matter of principle!
Though there is even more evidence available to prove that Gyanvapi was a temple but everything and everyone is determined to close their eyes to all this and deliver their own warped sense of justice.
The blindfolded lady of justice is supposed to be symbolic of the merits of justice, but here it is taken in its literal sense. The preferred word going by the fashion of the day is to call it “constitutional justice”. In other words, it is perfectly legitimate for this constitutional justice to take precedence and bury the tenets of social, cultural, historical and civilizational justice!
If you follow closely, the argument about constitutional justice is always made to drive a wedge between what is right and what is the law, and what is moral and what is the law. This dichotomy will only end up compromising the law and make it more morally neutral. This “morally neutral” law is another thing unbelievably unique about India!
Reverse the binary of 1:4 at Nuh for a minute and the whole world will fall on you like a ton of bricks: The response by default is, when the victims include one from the minority community, you (the Hindus) are guilty till you are proved innocent. And when the victims include those from the majority community, you (the minority) are innocent till you are proved guilty!
Hindu hurt, acceptable?
We have seen this play out umpteen times almost without exception.
Before Gyanvapi, the Ram Jamnabhoomi Ayodhya issue was fought in the courts for decades. As a socio-cultural and historical issue, it was in reality the ultimate humiliation for a nearly 100 crore Hindu populace to be compelled to fight for decades to reclaim the revered birthplace of their god according to their faith, and when they have no other land and history to claim as their own. Today, though that dream is on the verge of being realised, we should not forget that it is being built, not just on the sacrifices and stupendous efforts made by countless people, but also on the humiliation suffered directly and indirectly by crores of Hindus.
This humiliation continues even today in different forms, subtle and brazen, direct and indirect, casual and serious. The left-liberals get away each and every time in the name of secularism — which has evolved in Indian politics into an art form to hurt the majority community, needlessly and deliberately, and most of the time if not always.
This takes many forms in daily life. A communal riot like Nuh is editorialized only because it has a victim from the minority community, and not because there are more victims from the majority community. This is certainly not about taking a head-count of victims. Recall how a similar riot where Hindus are almost the sole victims, do not merit editorial censure. For example, the Bengal violence after the assembly elections last year and the Panchayat elections this year were covered only in passing if at all. What about a public discourse on the mayhem and the massacre that prolonged there for many weeks? None, barring some noise in prime time debates, but who takes them seriously?
Not surprisingly, the society too takes the cue, just like how the secular community responds to a dog whistle. If you raise any issue that even remotely resembles a Hindu cause, you are dismissed as communal or a low-brow Hindu. High-brow Hindus are the exclusive domain of the liberal-left and the pseudo-intellectual, who in reality are unable to think out of the colonial mind-set.
To give an example from daily life, why do we need permission for a Hindu procession to go through minority-dominated areas? Quite simply because the people there will not allow it. This is a superior “right” the minority community enjoys over the rest of the people. That is what being second class means, right?
True fakers, not fact-checkers
Another tactic used by the liberal-left eco-system is to fashion themselves as self-styled fact-checkers with the help of dubious rent-a-tweet social media warriors like the dubious Mohammad Zubair and Rana Ayyub. In the Gospel Truth of such characters, all the lies, real and perceived, are on the side of the Hindus, while their “facts” are as pure as the driven snow! This tactics work many a time for them because the secular lobby is more organised, cohesive and practically owns the eco-system. So they are able to disguise their own fakes as facts and fake the true.
In short, the Hindus may be 80% of the population, but more or less have their backs to the wall most of time, because a) the secular eco-system is strongly entrenched b) the intellectuals are dominated by the liberal-left who thus make and unmake public opinion c) anyone taking up any Hindu cause is always put on the defensive d) there are few people willing and able to take up the Hindu cause — while the young are disinterested, the old are apathetic and cynical f) the typical Hindu suffers from a deep-rooted lack of self-respect or reluctance to stand up for his own cultural, historical and social value-system and g) the religious Hindu is content to wrap himself and his world in his own rituals.
Does this mean the Hindu is orphaned? Almost, but for the exception of the Sangh Parivar, who are the only ones willing, able and ready to fight and stand up for their cause. In a sense, they are the unsung heroes, who protect us within the country, just like the soldiers at the battlefront who protect us from external enemies.
Imagine for a moment what would happen to the Hindus in an India without the Sangh Parivar, or even to an India where the Hindus are just about diminished in numbers, not to think of being reduced to a minority. Heart of hearts, we all know the answer just as well as the liberal-left-secular clique — even if the latter are ungrateful and refuse to accept it, or unwilling to admit it in public, or just plain incorrigible, adamantly sticking to their cocooned & colonial mind-set.
Majoritarian rule, a canard
A lot of people believe that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has ushered in majoritarian rule which is mainly premised on the revocation of Article 370 and Ram temple in Ayodhya. But what’s all the fuss about? Is peace in Kashmir an issue that resonates with only Hindus and not others? And can a country dismiss the faith of 80 crore people because it wants to pander to the minority? The fact is in the kind of coverage we see of incidents like Nuh, and even Manipur to some extent, we are being “Zubaired” to feed into a patently false narrative.
Last and most important, the word ‘Hindu’ through the entire article includes not just native Hindus but any one sharing and cherishing Indian cultural values. This one for the truly secular…