Bangalore:
The RSS mass-circulated, English weekly journal, “Organiser,” (Nov. 1) has published an article by one Mrs. Vatsala Kashyap of New Delhi under the headline, “But the Muslims of Jamshedpur were following Their own Religion,” and sub-headings, “Not a single Muslim Sufi Saint protested Against the Injustices heaped on the Hindu Kings,” “The idea of human brotherhood is as Foreign to Islam as Brotherhood with the Jews to the Nazis”.
According to her the Jamshedpur Muslims have been accused by the RSS of aggression without reference to the Islamic tenets. She then goes to “reproduce” these tenets and concludes: The Muslims in Jamshedpur as elsewhere are only living up to this Islamic tradition when they object to Hindu processions passing near mosques or Muslim localities. Unfortunately for them, India is no more a Muslim state which can compel the Hindus not to “practise their customs openly in the presence of Muslim”. The next best thing the Muslim can do in defence of their faith is to prevent the Hindus from this sacrilege by a shower of brickbats and/or bullets, from their mosques and houses. If the Hindus misrepresent as ‘aggression’, this legitimate use of force by the Muslims, they are to be pitied for their ignorance. The Hindus are in a hurry to shout sarve-dharma-sama-bhava without consulting the spokesmen of Islam. They forget that Islam is not a dharma but an ideology for conquest of political power in the service of monotheism and iconoclasm. Islam has never accepted that any other creed can be equated with it. – While we leave it to experts to comment upon Smt. Kashyap’s criticism of the Islam, the facts of the case in Jamshedpur were otherwise. It was on the other hand, the Muslims who were on the receiving end. No doubt the RSS and its political wing, BJP, had engaged the “national press” to heap abuses on the Jamshedpur judicial inquiry report. The RSS often says Muslims enjoy complete religious freedom in India but non-Muslims are restricted in Arab countries. Does it not mean that India should also curtail the religious freedom of non-Hindus? The BJP, which is swearing by secularism, will have to state whether its commitment to secularism is absolute or conditional upon the behaviour of Arab countries. Does it want to punish the Indian Muslims for the actions of the Muslim countries abroad? Does it mean to say that Muslims here are not entitled to equal treatment before law? Does it mean to say that religious freedom to Indian Muslims will be granted only on the condition that Muslim countries abroad give equal treatment to non-Muslims? In what way Indian Muslims are responsible for the behaviour of the Muslim govts abroad? Did the Hindus stop taking up lucrative jobs in Arab countries? Left parties and those interested in social and economic change in India cannot make any difference between citizens and citizens. As long as 90 per cent of the Muslims are poor and majority of them live below the poverty line, they will be entitled for all the attention. To such parties and organisations Muslims are just suffering people and a persecuted minority, but not so to the RSS and the BJP which always divides the Hindus frame the rest – Muslims, Christians, Sikhs etc. By such a religious division of the society, the RSS-BJP has made the virus of communalism penetrate deep into our social fabric. The Moradabad riots have proved that RSS has infiltrated into the police, PAC, military police. Lately they are also trying to befriend the Defence services, although in the top echelons of the Defence it has its sympathisers. But many a time the persecuted minorities and the Dalits are getting a doubt. Whether there is any method in this madness? Why this RSS hate-campaign against the Muslims and Christians ? Is [it] to see that they continue to vote for the ruling party?
