Dr Swamy speaks about 26/11 attack on Bharat Mata

[Guest guest]

Out of the box

Subramanian Swamy

Organiser Weekly, Dec. 21

 

 

The India of today would not have been in existence had the attempts

to divide Hindus succeeded.

 

 

In the 20th century, a sinister attempt to divide the Hindu community

on caste basis was made in 1932 when the British imperialists offered

the scheduled castes a separate electorate.

 

 

What does the despicable terror and mayhem in Mumbai on November 26

signify for India? Shorn of the human tragedy, wanton destruction, and

obnoxious audacity of the terrorists, it signifies a challenge to the

identity of India from radical Islam.

 

 

Cinema actor Shahrukh Khan may wax eloquent about the " true Islam " on

TV, but it is clear that he and other such Muslims have not read any

authoritative translations of the Koran, Sira and Hadith which three

together constitute Islam as a theology, and which is a complete menu

of intolerance of peoples of other faiths derisively labeled as

kafirs. Hence, instead of talking about the " correct interpretation "

of Islam they ought instead be urging for a new Islamic theology

consistent with democratic principles.

 

In 2003, two years after the 9/11 murderous and perfidious Islamic

assault on USA, resulting in killing of more than 3000 persons within

two hours, and which was perpetrated by leveraging the democratic

freedoms in USA, the Saudi Arabian Embassy in the website of its

Islamic Affairs Department [www.iad.org] laid down what a " good "

Muslim is expected to do.

 

 

Dr. Steven Stalinsky of the Middle East Media Research

Institute[MEMRI] based in Washington DC accessed it and published it

in issue No.23, of the Institute newsletter, dated November 26[what

irony!] 2003. I have to thank a NRI in US, Dr. Muthuswamy for this

reference. In that site it is stated:

 

" The Muslims are required to raise the banner of Jihad in order to

make the Word of Allah supreme in this world, to remove all forms of

injustice and oppression, and to defend the Muslims. If Muslims do not

take up the sword, the evil tyrants of this earth will be able to

continue oppressing the weak and helpless "

 

Now who is more authoritative—Sharukh Khan or Saudi Arabia ? Obviously

the latter. The above quote is what in substance is being taught in

every madrassa in India, and can be traced back to the sayings of

Prophet Mohammed.

 

 

I can quote a plethora of verses from a Saudi Arabian translated Koran

[e.g., verses 8:12, 8:60, and 33:26] which verses justify brutal

violence against non-believers. If I delved into Sira and Hadith for

more quotes, then I could risk generating much hatred, so it will

suffice to say that Islam is not only a theology, but it spans a

brutal political ideology which we have to combat sooner or later in

realm of ideas.

 

Some may quote back at me verses from Manusmriti about brutality to

women and scheduled castes. But as a Hindu I have the liberty to

disown these verses [since it is a Smriti] and even to seek to

re-write a new Smriti as many, for example, Yajnavalkya have done to

date. Reform and renaissance is thus inbuilt into Hinduism.

 

 

But in Islam, the word of the Prophet is final. Sharukh Khan and other

gloss artists cannot disown these verses, or say that they would

re-write the offensive verses of the Koran. If they do, then they

would have to run for their lives as Rushdie and Taslima have had to do.

 

 

Leave alone re-writing, if anyone draws a cartoon of Prophet Mohammed,

there will follow world-wide violent rioting. But if Hussein draws

Durga in the most pornographic posture, the Hindus will only groan but

not violently rampage.

 

We Hindus have a long recognised tradition of being religious liberals

by nature. We have already proved it enough by welcoming to our

country and nurturing Parsis, Jews, Syrian Christians, and Moplah

Muslim Arabs who were persecuted elsewhere, when we were 100 per cent

Hindu country.

 

Moreover, despite a 1000 years of most savage brutalisation of Hindus

by Islamic invaders and self-demeaning brain washing by the

Christians, even then, Hindus as a majority have adopted secularism as

a creed. We have not asked for an apology and compensation for these

atrocities.

 

 

But the position of Hindus in this land of Bharatmata, where Muslims

and Christians locally are in majority, in pockets—such as in Kashmir

and Nagaland, or in small enclaves such as town panchayats of Tamil

Nadu, is terrible and despicable. Even in Kerala where Hindus are 52

per cent of the population, they have only 25 per cent of all the

prime jobs in the state, and are silently suffering their plight at

the hands of 48 per cent who vote as a vote bank.

 

The 26/11 Mumbai slaughter therefore should teach us Hindus that the

time has come to wake up and stand up—it is now or never. If we do not

stand up now to Islamic terrorism, then India will end up like Beirut,

a permanent battlefield of international terrorists, buccaneers,

pirates and missionaries.

 

What does it mean in the 21st century for Hindus to stand up ? I mean

by that a mental clarity of the Hindus to defend themselves by

effective deterrent retaliation, and also an intelligent co-option of

other religious groups into the Hindu cultural continuum.

 

Mental clarity can only come if we are clear about the identity of the

nation. What is India? An ancient but continuing civilisation or is it

a geographical entity incorporated in 1947 by the Indian Independence

Act of the British Parliament ?

 

 

What then does it mean to say " I am an Indian " ? A mere passport holder

of the Republic of India or a descendent of the great seers and

visionaries of more than 10,000 years ? Obviously our identity should

be of a nation of an ancient and continuing Hindu civilisation,

legatees of great rishis and munis, and a highly sophisticated

sanatana philosophy.

 

If Hindu culture is our defining identity then how can we co-opt

non-Hindus, especially Muslims and Christians ? By persuading them by

saam, dhaam, bheda and dand that they acknowledge with pride the truth

that their ancestors are Hindus. If they do, it means that they accept

Hindu culture and enlightened mores. That is, change of religion does

not mean change of culture. Then we should treat such Muslims and

Christians as part of our Brihad Hindu family.

 

Noted author and editor M.J. Akbar calls this identity as of " Blood

Brothers " . It is an undeniable fact that Muslims and Christians in

India are descendents of Hindus. In a recent article in the American

Journal of Physical Anthropology, an analysis of genetic samples [DNA]

show that Muslims in north India are overwhelmingly of the same DNA as

Hindus proving that Muslims here are descendents of Hindus who had

been converted to Islam, rather repositories of foreign DNA deposited

by waves of invaders.

 

Akbar thus asks rhetorically: " When have the Muslims of India gone

wrong? " and answers: " When they have forgotten their Indian roots " .

How apt !

 

 

Enlightened Muslims like Akbar therefore must rise to the occasion and

challenge the reactionary religious fundamentalists. That is India is

not Darul Harab to be trifled with.

 

 

In a conciliatory atmosphere the minorities would willingly accept

this. It is also in their interest to accept this reality. Hindus must

persuade by the time honoured methods Muslims and Christians to accept

this and its logical consequences.

 

This identity was not understood by us earlier because of the

distorted outlook of Jawaharlal Nehru who occupied the Prime

Minister's chair for seventeen formative years after 1947 and for

narrow political ends, had fanned a separatist outlook in Muslims and

Christians.

 

The failure to date, to resolve this Nehru created crisis, has not

only confused the majority but confounded the minorities as well in

India. This confusion has deepened with winter migratory birds such as

Amartya Sen descending on the campus of the India International Centre

to preach inane taxonomies such as " multiple identities " .

 

There has to be an over-riding identity called national identity, and

hence we should not be derailed by pedestrian concepts of multiple or

sub-identities.

 

" Without a resolution of the identity crisis today, which requires an

explicit clear answer to this question of who we are, the majority

will never understand how to relate to the legacy of the nation and in

turn to the minorities.

 

 

Minorities would not understand how to adjust with the majority if

this identity crisis is not resolved.

 

 

In other words, the present dysfunctional perceptional mismatch in

understanding who we are as a people, is behind most of the communal

tension and inter-community distrust in the country.

 

" In India, the majority is the conglomerate or Brihad Hindu community

which represents about 81 per cent of the total Indian population,

while minorities are constituted by Muslims [13 per cent] and

Christians [3 per cent]. Sikhs, Jains, Parsis, and some other

microscopic religious groups, represent the remaining three per cent.

 

 

Though also considered minorities, but really are so close to the

majority community in culture that they are considered as a part of

Hindu society. Unlike Islam and Christianity, these minority religions

were founded as dissenting theologies of Hinduism. Even Zoroaster can

be traced to leader of Vahikas in Mahabharata who migrated to Persia.

Kaikeyi in Ramayana was from Persia when that country was hundred per

cent Hindu. Thus these religions share the core concepts with Hindus

such as re-incarnation, equality of all religions, and ability to meet

God in this life.

 

 

That they feel increasingly alienated from Hindu society nowadays is

also the consequence of India's identity crisis caused by British

historians and their Indian tutees in JNU.

 

The India of today would not have been in existence had the attempts

to divide Hindus succeeded.

 

 

In the 20th century, a sinister attempt to divide the Hindu community

on caste basis was made in 1932 when the British imperialists offered

the scheduled castes a separate electorate. But shrewdly understanding

the conspiracy to divide India, Mahatma Gandhi by his fast unto death

and Dr. Ambedkar by his visionary rejection of separate electorate,

foiled the attempt by signing the Poona Pact.

 

But the possibility that such attempts at dividing India socially may

be made again in the future, a possibility that cannot be ruled out.

Indian patriots will have to watch such attempts very carefully.

 

 

Segmentation, fragmentation, and finally balkanisation have been part

of the historical process in many countries to destroy national

identity and thereby cause the political division of the nation

itself. Yugoslavia is a recent example of this, which has now been

divided into four countries, largely due to Islamic separatism and

Serbian over-reaction.

 

Virat Hindutva can be achieved in the first stage by Hindu

consolidation, that is achieved by Hindus holding that they are Hindus

first and last, by disowning primacy to their caste and regional

loyalties.

 

 

This would require a renaissance in thinking and outlook, that can be

fostered only by patient advocacy and intellectual ferment.

 

For this we need a new History text, and a proper understanding of the

distinction between the four varnas [not birth based but by codes of

behavior for devolution of power in society] and jati [which is birth

based and mostly for marriages].

 

 

Just as Valmiki and Vyasa are regarded as Maharshis despite being of

different jati from Parasuram, hence Dr. Ambedkar should be called a

Maharishi for his sheer depth of knowledge of Indian history.

 

 

That he had become bitter because of Nehru systematically sidelining

him is no reason not to do so.

 

India thus needs a Hindu renaissance today that incorporates modern

principles, e.g., of the irrelevance of birth antecedents, fostering

gender equality, ensuring equality before law, and accountability for

all. It is also essential to integrate the entire Indian society on

those principles, irrespective of religion.

 

 

Uniform Civil Code for example, is something that the vast majority of

Muslim women want, but because this demand has been usurped by those

who deny the equality of nationality to the Muslims, hence comes the

resistance to a eminently reasonable value.

 

 

The Muslims think that this is the first step in several to subjugate

them or wipe out their identity. But Muslims have quietly accepted

Uniform Criminal Code [the IPC] despite that it contradicts the Sharia.

 

In other words, Hindutva has two components—one that Hindus can accept

[such as caste abolition, eradication of dowry etc.] without any other

religion's interests to consider. The other is the embracing by

minorities of the core secular Indian values which have Hindu roots.

 

 

This would require, particularly Muslims and Christians, to

acknowledge that their ancestry is Hindu, and thus own the entire

Hindu past as their own legacy, and to thus tailor their outlook on

that basis. This would integrate Indian society and make the concept

of an inclusive[brihad] Hindutva and rooted in India's continuing

civilisation.

 

Thus, if India has to decide to have or not have good relations with

Israel, Pakistan, Iran or US, it cannot be on the basis how it will

impact on India's Muslims and Christians, but on what India's national

interests require. If India has to dispatch troops to Afghanistan,

Iraq, Sri Lanka or Nepal to combat terrorism, that policy too has to

be decided on what is good for India, and not what any religious or

linguistic group identifies as it's interest.

 

Thus such an Hindutva is positive in outlook, while raw Hindu

xenophobia is negative and based on Hindu hegemony which will frighten

all. Such a Hindutva will resolve our current energy-sapping identity

crisis, which otherwise will completely emasculate India in the long run.

The choice for the patriotic Indian is thus clear: We need a clear and

positive view of our national identity based on our Hindu past and a

Hindu renaissance to unite the Hindus with constructive mind-set as

well as persuade the minorities to be co-opted culturally with Hindu

society.

 

Once being Indian means Virat Brihad Hindutva, we can tackle terrorism

by an effective strategy of defence. What are the components of that

strategy is the subject matter of my next column here. (To be concluded)