People of Karnataka spoken out

Message is clear and loud to Hindutva forces.

By Latheef Farook

In the  Indian State of Karnataka Assembly election on  May 13, 2023, the  people   rejected hate politics  and violence dividing communities, threatening  democracy  and  the  multi ethnic, multi religious and multi-cultural  social fabric of the  country.

Describing the results as the defeat of power of crony capitalism by the power of poor people, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said “market of hatred is shut, shops of love opened”.

 Well known columnist Ram Punyani said the results of the Karnataka Assembly election have not only come as a big relief but also may herald the change for the journey towards ‘Unite India’ and retrieve the values of Indian Constitution.

The Rastriya SwayamSevak Sangh, RSS, front Bharatiya Janatha Party, BJP, government in Karnataka implemented   extremely vicious and destructive policies aimed at wiping out anything and everything to do with Islam and Muslims. This was part of the overall BJP policy to turn Muslims in India a non-entity.

For example the defeated Karnataka Education Minister B C Ganesh, the  architect of Hijab ban and economic boycott against Muslims, sparked controversy with his statement that religious texts like the Bible and the Quran should not be equated with the Bhagavad Gita. Due to his Hijab controversy 50% of Muslim students dropped out of government colleges and started going to private schools.

Going a step ahead Shiv Sena legislator Sanjay Shirshat demanded that the grave of the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb in Maharashtra’s Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar should be shifted to Hyderabad.

Assam chief minister says he has closed down 600 madrasas and wanted to close 300 more.

Muslim Mughal Empire made immense contributions for the overall betterment of the country. They built great historic monuments and hatred was unknown then as Hindus were part and parcel of their administrations.

One reader commented that “had the Muslims held the same sentiments towards Hindus for 700-800 years when the Muslims were in the ascendancy in the subcontinent, do such hate mongers ”think” there would be a single Hindu left in that region today, let alone the many thousands of Hindu Temples and other sites of huge religious significance (to them and their faith) that have been protected and safeguarded under the Muslim rulers for all those centuries..?  And yet, as soon as Muslim rule is eliminated by the troublemaker   Colonialists [BritishRaj], and the extremists  Hindutva_RSS_BJP given the reigns of power, we see these thugs very quickly forget their history under – as if suffering from Selective Amnesia

Throughout Muslims lived in harmony with Hindus .  For example while  Muslim  ruler    Tipu Sultan fought the British and sacrificed his life, the  RSS, founded by British imperial power as stated by Sashi Thahroor , was implementing the evil agendas of British rulers against their own country. 

Hostility towards Muslims by politically oriented racist minority began during freedom struggle and in the aftermath of the partition of India. There were hundreds of violent attacks on Muslims, especially in the north during congress governments.  For example even the destruction of Bari Masjid took place during the congress government of late Prime Minister Narasimha Rao although the crime was committed by Hindutva forces.

However since the May 2014 election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, accused of being the architect of Gujarat massacre of Muslims in 2002 and was declared persona non grata even by United States, organized violence against Muslims became too open and intensified as government policy.

Hindutva street thugs were law unto themselves and  free to unleash violence against Muslims. Even last week two Muslims were lynched.

For example the government backed organized violence by hired Hindu mobs against Muslims in New Delhi in 2002, were multiple waves of bloodshed, property destruction and rioting.  Since then demonizing Islam, beating Muslims to death, lynching, demolition of their commercial ,  residential  and industrial properties, burning Muslims alive  and  other such organized crimes  by  the  Hindutva thugs have become  daily occurrences  especially in the north and north east.

They caused terror among Muslims   with police connivance under a politicized judiciary.

The situation is such that extremist priest, Jagadguru Paramhans Acharya Maharaj    openly called for the genocide and   extermination Muslims. He claimed that he had discussed ethnic cleansing of Muslims with Prime Minister Modi and requested that he   be given the reigns of the country for just one hour to make this a Hindu Rashta and make it akhand (meaning exterminate everyone who is not a Hindu).”

This statement sent shockwaves.

He could make such statements because India was absorbed into the anti-Muslim axis of United States, Europe, Russia and Israel. Muslim world is virtually dead as the secular Arab dictators have abandoned Islam and Muslims.

Peaceful Hindus have no say as their once lively media was silenced by Hindutva violence which has   spread to the west including Britain.

Millions of Indians   in the Gulf counties remit billions – United Arab Emirates alone   around 90 billion rupees. Angered by the Hindutva violence the people in the Gulf started demanding to send Indians back.

Commenting on the plight of Muslims columnist Haider Abbas had this to state; Muslims all across the nation are the same dispossessed, hounded and reviled, visible as individuals but invisible as a citizen. There is virtually no policy or an agenda for Muslim emancipation, in terms of health, education, economy or security, from any government, from decades, though with some tokenism for some time, in the form of reservation etc, that too, to be later struck by the Court. The Sachar Commission report and the Ranganath Misra Commission reports, have proved, at best to be only misnomers.

On the contrary, the entire polity is factored against Muslims. This has become all the more aggravated after the free-lease of social-media, as a mob lynching of a Muslim, in a remote Odhisha village becomes an instant rage throughout the nation, leading to further xenophobia against whom? Against Muslims.

The victim is to be blamed, shamed and slammed. This is the prevalent logic. The ruling party-BJP, has proved to be thoroughly hollow, as there hasn’t been any consonance between the words and deeds.   It is in the midst of this darkness comes the light of hope in the form of people’s verdict in the Karnataka Assembly elections. Ends