Friday, September 12, 2014

Hinduism losing its benign face… no one at top stepping in: Fali S Nariman - The Indian Express

My comments posted on Indian Express article: Hinduism is losing its benign face:
 

  • Hold on, this is waiting to be approved by Indian Express.

    "Can anybody in India see the hand of neocon/CIA in supporting another Hindu Taliban movement just like they did in Afghanistan, to fish in troubled waters. They first support such fascist movements,and later when their clients go on rampage, they turn around, demonize them and come in to 'save' the country. In the NDTV interview, Sheshadri has very mildly alluded to this danger. However, the media is still happy with its circulation and TRP games. Let the country go to hell."

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http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/hinduism-losing-its-benign-face-no-one-at-top-stepping-in-nariman/99/

Saturday, Sep 13, 2014
 

Hinduism losing its benign face… no one at top stepping in: Fali S Nariman

nariman-main Fali S Nariman delivers a lecture on “ Minorities at Cross Roads : Comments on Judicial Pronouncements” in New Delhi on Friday. (Source: PTI)
 
Express News Service | New Delhi | Posted: September 12, 2014 10:14 pm | Updated: September 13, 2014 8:08 am

Hinduism is losing its traditional tolerance because some Hindus have started believing that it is their faith that has brought them political power — and because this belief is not being challenged by “those at the top”, Fali S Nariman, one of India’s most celebrated jurists, said on Friday.

Nariman said he agreed that the “majority government at the Centre” had done nothing to stop the recent repeated tirades by individuals or groups against members of minority communities.

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Nariman criticised the NCM for not carrying out its “main task”, the “protection of the interests of the minorities”.
 
The eminent constitutional expert delivered the Annual Lecture at the National Commission for Minorities (NCM), titled ‘Minorities at Crossroads: Comments on Judicial Pronouncements’.

Nariman, who began the lecture by saying that he welcomed the single-party majority government at the Centre but also feared it because of “past experience with majoritarian government(s)”, said Hinduism has traditionally been the most tolerant of all Indian faiths.

“But — recurrent instances of religious tension fanned by fanaticism and hate speech has shown that the Hindu tradition of tolerance is showing signs of strain. And let me say this frankly — my apprehension is that Hinduism is somehow changing its benign face because, and only because it is believed and proudly proclaimed by a few (and not contradicted by those at the top): that it is because of their faith and belief that HINDUS have been now put in the driving seat of governance,” he said.

[Underlining and capitals Nariman’s; text of the speech made available by the Ministry of Minority Affairs.]

“We have been hearing on television and reading in newspapers almost on a daily basis a tirade by one or more individuals or groups against one or another section of citizens who belong to a religious minority and the criticism has been that the majority government at the Centre has done nothing to stop this tirade,” Nariman said. “I agree.”

BJP MP Yogi Adityanath has delivered a series of speeches at election meetings in the recent past, for which the Election Commission reprimanded and cautioned him on Thursday, and ordered that an FIR be registered against him. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat has described India as a “Hindu nation”, and several political leaders linked to the Sangh Parivar have made allegedly provocative statements since the Narendra Modi government came to power.

Nariman criticised the NCM for not carrying out its “main task”, the “protection of the interests of the minorities”.

“Every government…will do or not do whatever it considers expedient to advance its own political interests… This is why…Parliament has…set up an independent Minorities Commission…

“…The main task of the Commission is ‘protecting the interests of minorities’. And how does one protect the interest of minorities who (or a section of which) are on a daily basis lampooned and ridiculed or spoken against in derogatory language? The answer is by invoking the…law enacted in the Penal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code. Otherwise the Commission is not fulfilling its main task which is the protection of the interests of the minorities…

“Those who indulge in hate speech must be prevented by Court processes initiated at the instance of the Commission because that is the body that represents Minorities in India. Whoever indulges in such hate speech or vilification (whatever the community to which they belong) they must be proceeded against and the proceeding must be widely publicised,” Nariman said.

The remarks were made in the presence of Minority Affairs Minister Najma Heptulla, who presided over the function. Later, asked by reporters about the minister’s silence on recent instances of hate speech, Nariman said, “You should ask her that.”

Nariman lauded the role of the Supreme Court in upholding minority rights on many occasions, describing it as a “Super Minorities Commission”. However, he said, the judicial outlook has undergone gradual change since the early 1990s when the BJP introduced the phrase “appeasement of minorities” in the political lexicon.

“The label stuck; ‘minority’ became and has become an unpopular word. And after the same political party had included in its Election Manifesto in the general election of May-June 1991 the party’s resolve if and when it came into power to amend Article 30 to the disadvantage of minorities, ‘minority rights’ got less and less protected by Courts (including the Supreme Court of India) than they were before,” Nariman said.

Heptulla, in her presidential address, reiterated the NDA government’s commitment to “sabka saath sabka vikas”. “One of the important constituents of such an approach is the need for safeguarding the constitutional and legal rights of the minorities and provide them protection and equal opportunity to ensure their economic and social betterment… Government is doing its best for communal harmony and will continue to do so,” she said.

She later defended the government, saying Prime Minister Narendra Modi had told her that Muslims had been “deprived” of their basic rights all these years, and that he wanted her to fulfil the promises the BJP had made to minorities in its manifesto.

She said Modi believed in “inclusive development”, and that there would be no discrimination against anyone on the grounds of religion, language or caste.

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UP 2014, like Punjab 1947 - By Rajmohan Gandhi - The Indian Express

http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/up-2014-like-punjab-1947/99/

Opinion  

Friday, Sep 12, 2014

UP 2014, like Punjab 1947

The supposed civilisational war between the West and Islam, and the emergence of fanatical groups like the ISIS, are directly relevant to the 40 million or more Muslims living in UP. 
The supposed civilisational war between the West and Islam, and the emergence of fanatical groups like the ISIS, are directly relevant to the 40 million or more Muslims living in UP.
 




















 
Written by Rajmohan Gandhi | Posted: September 12, 2014 12:14 am | Updated: September 12, 2014 8:42 am

Not long ago, while working on a history of undivided Punjab, I found that in 1914 that vast province was seen as the subcontinent’s hope for economic progress and inter-communal understanding. Yet, in 1947, both halves of divided Punjab saw carnage that no part of the world should witness.

Recent events in Uttar Pradesh should caution Prime Minister Narendra Modi and others that this state, with its immense population, may now be drifting towards a tragedy the nation must never allow again. The Punjab tragedy involved the Empire. On February 20, 1947, London announced that it was about to leave all of India including Punjab, without saying who would inherit the province.

Either “the existing provincial government” would take over, said Her Majesty’s Government, or another arrangement that “may seem most reasonable” would be made. That word triggered two things. One was a Muslim League-led mass movement, which in a fortnight forced out the province’s coalition ministry, led by Khizar Hayat Khan of the rapidly declining Unionist Party but mainly sustained by the Congress and the Sikhs. The other was the creation of separate militias, Muslim, Hindu and Sikh, to force the future of different parts of Punjab.


After the killings in early March 1947 in the towns and villages of Rawalpindi and Multan, Lieutenant General Frank Messervy, the region’s top British officer, recorded his shock that “the normally chivalrous and decent Punjabi Muslim peasant” had been “aroused to such frenzied savagery”, and added: “There has also been a widespread desire to rid many areas of all Sikhs and Hindus, entirely for ever.”

Messervy had identified ethnic cleansing, but the Empire in retreat chose to look away. While London was focused on the safe return of India-based soldiers to Britain, there were elements in the Empire that did not mind an all-out conflict between Indians. Five months after Messervy wrote his note, the great bloodletting of August-September 1947 took place. A major incident, now entirely forgotten, had also occurred in western UP. In November 1946, a number of Muslims were massacred in Garhmukteshwar, not far from Meerut, Muzaffarnagar or Moradabad.

There is a global context for UP’s current tensions too. The supposed civilisational war between the West and Islam, and the emergence of fanatical groups like the ISIS, are directly relevant to the 40 million or more Muslims living in UP. Also of relevance to UP’s Muslims is the national and provincial context. From India’s ruling establishment, which includes the RSS and other workers/ warriors for Hindutva, two distinct and conflicting suggestions have emanated: build and burn. Construct bullet trains, bathrooms, bank accounts for the poor, bright cities and so forth — this is Prime Minister Modi’s call. The other appeal, voiced by many in the ruling establishment though not in the government’s name, is for polarisation and an apparent readiness for violence, but a violence that justifies itself as a reply. In their script, the initiators of violence are always, without any exception, Muslims, even though almost always, a majority of the violence‘s victims are Muslims.

Where Hindus are a clear majority but Muslims a substantial minority (as is the case in UP and some other places), polarisation-riot followed by heightened polarisation-bigger riot is a sequence that has fetched electoral benefits for the BJP. However, riots interrupt and reverse growth.

Not only would the BJP like to have its own government in UP, the party president, Amit Shah, has said he wants the party to command more than 50 per cent of the state’s vote. But are elections won for presiding over a burning state?

Already, UP has seen localised ethnic cleansing, which the state’s SP government seems unable to prevent or rectify. UP’s police has frequently appeared to be out of its depth in coping with acts of violence. The civilian administration also seems helpless. And the state’s secular political parties seem lost on how to deal with the BJP’s provocative — and electorally promising — strategy of focusing on a supposed “love jihad”.

Yogi Adityanath, the BJP MP from Gorakhpur, has tried to relate violence in different parts of UP to their Muslim percentage. But the question can also be posed: how should UP’s 40 million Muslims respond to a Lok Sabha from which they are totally excluded? Not one of the 80 MPs from UP in the current Lok Sabha is a Muslim, a whitewash that has not occurred before.

Among the many voices reaching these 40 million Muslims are those of the ISIS and similar groups, who push the line that the West, backed by India and Israel, is out to get the world’s Muslims, and that the latter must hit back.

A large factor in Punjab’s 1947 tragedy was the inability of politicians to engage with the Other. The Indian National Congress in Punjab was in effect only a Hindu party, and also only an urban party. As for the Muslim League and the Sikh parties, these groups did not even pretend to be interested in persons outside their communities.

Today, few Hindu politicians in UP openly ask for Muslim votes, and few Muslims for Hindu votes. As is true of UP today, Punjab in 1947 contained a large number of decent citizens who easily outnumbered the bad guys. Many saw what was coming but did not or could not intervene. Citizen groups did not protect lines of communication across communal borders, or between communities and the police.

Are UP’s good citizens asking themselves what they can do to help? Lest we forget, independent India solemnly assured equal rights to all, irrespective of caste, religion or class. But since the stakes are so high, Prime Minister Modi, who represents a UP constituency, and Home Minister Rajnath Singh, a former chief minister of the state, must also intervene. Bringing on board Mulayam Singh, Mayawati and others with influence, they should convene a “save UP” roundtable, where exercises to burn are identified and abandoned.

The writer is research professor at the Centre for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, US

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Forced Conversion: the untold truths - By Dr Javed Jamil



Forced Conversion: the untold truths

What is however is not being debated at all in the mainstream media is that if any forced conversion is taking place in India, it is the conversion of Muslims to Hinduism. In most cases, such conversions take place under compulsion or as a result of lucrative offers. To make it look technically correct considering the fact that Hinduism does not permit conversion, the term “Re-conversion” is used.

Dr Javed Jamil

If the media reports and the statements emanating from the Hindutva brigade are believed, it would appear that conversion in India is a one way affair, with Hindus converting to Islam. Whatever the reasons of the conversion, the picture which is presented for public consumption is of a large-scale conspiracy, most likely a part of the global effort, aimed at converting Hindus to Islam so that the demography of the country tilts in favour of Muslims. ”Love Jihad”, they seem to argue, is the latest in a series of the methods used for the purpose. The idea that even if any conversion to Islam is taking place in the country, it is not only very low in magnitude but is also voluntary in most cases is conveniently forgotten. Even the conversions as a result of love marriages are mostly voluntary if not by heart, the reason being that most of Muslim boys do not like to flout its religious position, which disallows marriages with polytheists. Fallen in love, girls prefer to marry even if it means abandoning their religion. This is among many compromises that the couples make in order to marry one another.
What is however is not being debated at all in the mainstream media is that if any forced conversion is taking place in India, it is the conversion of Muslims to Hinduism. In most cases, such conversions take place under compulsion or as a result of lucrative offers. To make it look technically correct considering the fact that Hinduism does not permit conversion, the term “Re-conversion” is used. The way things are looking, Re-conversion can soon become a national campaign. If one surfs the Internet, one will easily find such news items on the websites dedicated to Hinduism. A report entitled, “More than 5500 Christians and Muslims returned to Hinduism in UP” says:
A Great News from the heart land of Uttar Pradesh. Thousands of converted Hindus have been opted again their faith of their forefathers and returned to Hinduism again.
“On the eve of Christmas there was a hue and cry that the saffron brigade of RSS (Rashtriya Swamsevak Sangha), VHP (Vishwa Hindu Parishad), Bahrag Dal, Arya Samaj and Hindu Yuva Vahini would march forward to accept and assimilate their own brothers and sisters who shifted out of faith decades back in a spell of blunder and within an fraudulent ambit of allurement of the evangelical groups or the repressive Islamic elements empowered with inhumane forces.
“On the very 25th Dec this year 2013, more than five thousand people returned to Hinduism and said  goodbye  to Christianity in a vast area of  Uttar Pradesh  in the localities of Agra, Aligarh, Kasganj, Bareilly, Badaun, Bijnor, Shahjahanpur, Mainpuri  and Firojabad.
The highest re-conversion (Suddhi) in Aligarh, where 2000 Christian became Hindus, was held by Dhrama Jagran Samiti, a specific unit of VHP to make special efforts to sensitize the sense of Dharma in the marginal Hindus in any vulnerable condition, likely to be grabbed by the evangelic elements or other vicious elements like Zakir Naik .
“Chanting of Vedic mantras,  purification with Ganga Water,  wearing of sacred threads and sacrifice to the fire God were the prime rituals that had helped the aspirants to get an warm entry to Hinduism once gain and for ever. Most of the people who took the refuge of Hinduism in these programmes, told that they went to another faith by allurements and embraced Christianity . Seven Muslims in Shahjahanpur also adopted Hinduism.
“Upon a complaint, details of conversion in Bijnor, the administration is trying to get exact numbers of such ‘returned to home’ (gar wapsi). From a source it is known that more than five hundred families (1600 people) became Hindu again. These people are mainly hailed from Malkan Rajput and belonging to  Jat Muslim clan.
“Mayor of Agra Town, Sri Indrajit Arya was also present in the program. In the ceremony held at Saraswati Vidya Mandir at Kasganj, 350 families (about 1,000 people) and Firojabad 66 families (200 people) rejected Christianity and returned to their traditional faith Hinduism once again.
“Prominent RSS , Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Hindu Vahini, Arya Samaj and Bajrang Dal leaders  and the saints of  Hindu organizations were present in these religious programmes. In Bareilly, six hundred people embraced Hinduism. Swami Yaswashi Arya of Arya Samaj  sprinkled the holy Ganges water to the aspirants and initiated them with sacred thread (Yajna-Upaveetam).
“With chanting of Veda mantra and offering sacrifice in fire the converted Hindus in dilemma, strongly returned back in Hinduism with full dignity and assurance of the Hindus society in every respect. In the programme of Draupadi Devi Inter College campus in Badaun, some 918 people of two hundred and twenty families were accepted Hinduism again by rejecting Christian hegemony and discrimination in such ‘homecoming’ program.
“Various Hindu organisations have declared to extend their utmost support for providing the free education, health and rehabilitation for these brothers and sisters came to their own fold of faith almost a decade after”.
Earlier, some 325 Muslim members of 150 families of Eta, Farukhabad, Pilbhit, Kashganj, Mainpuri, Bareilly and Badaun were assembled in Eta Arsha Gurukul, where they were reconverted into Hindu Dharma again in presence of Jagadguru Swami Rajrajeswaram of Badrinath Dham. The Swami initiated all the aspirants in the Hindu Dhrama without discriminating any caste or creed.
“Saikh Jabbar of Farukhabad and Mohammad Rauf of Pilvit told that they had a very low position in Muslim society as their forefathers went to Muslim community from a poor section of Hindu society.
“Though some Hindi media like Aaj Tak and Jagran highlighted this news of huge mass re-conversion in Hinduism, the English media (both print and electronic) skipped the same in a very strange manner.”

The long report is enough to indicate the scale of conversion, the active involvement of Hindu organizations in the exercise, open programmes of conversion in big gatherings and the lure of better worldly life and opportunities. There is also a visible expression of excitement, happiness and aggression. .

There is another report which tells how Hindutva activists created horrible conditions for a family that converted to Islam resulting in the “Ghar waapasi”:

“Four men of a family who were arrested on Wednesday in Madhya Pradesh's Shivpuri for converting to Islam have done a U-turn. On Thursday, hours after being released by the police, they embraced Hinduism at a local temple in presence of Bajrang Dal activists.

”Religious conversions are allowed in the state only if they are not forced. The people converting have to declare that it is voluntary and seek the state's permission. This was what the men - Tularam Jatav, his son Keshav and relatives Maniram and Makhubhai Jatav - had apparently failed to do when they converted to Islam nine months ago.

”So on Tuesday, these four men accompanied seven of their family members who wanted to convert to Islam to the district magistrate to seek his approval, but activists from Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad protested and tried to convince the family to give up the idea. A day later, they again took their relatives to the magistrate but were arrested and booked under Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act 1968.

”Seven other family members, including three women, were detained for questioning. If found guilty, the men would have been sent to jail for two years.

”On Thursday, the police, without disclosing any information, let off the four arrested men on bail and the seven detained. The Jatavs reached their village in Thaniyadana area, offered their prayers at a local temple and after a "shuddhikaran" or purification ceremony, again adopted Hinduism.

"I feel I am happy to return back to my religion. We had converted earlier to Islam as we were being discriminated, whereas in Islam, everyone is treated equally. But now that the family and relatives convinced me, I have re-converted," said Maniram.

”Local Bajrang Dal leader Manoj Kumar said, "These people were misled and now they have come back to their own religion. We are happy to welcome them back."

”The VHP and Bajrang Dal are both part of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-led pro-Hindu conglomerate that includes the state's ruling BJP.”


Yogi Sikand, a social scientist who converted to Islam several years back and married a Muslim girl later, has also written on the subject, and has described how certain communities like Rajputs and Jats, particularly in Rajasthan and Haryana, are vulnerable to the efforts of the Hindutva organisations. These communities living in the midst of a dominant and aggressive Hindu majority find hard to resist the pressures built on them by Hindutva forces. Once back in the Hindu fold, they are offered lucrative jobs and other supports. The numbers of such conversions, according to the writer, are large.


The Hindutva ideologues and political leaders are busy proving that the number of Muslim boys marrying Hindu girls is much greater than the number of Hindu boys marrying Muslim girls. This may be true. But the reasons are not what they are trying to prove. If Muslim boys are marrying Hindu girls, the reason is simply that Muslim boys come into contact with greater number of Hindu girls than Muslim. In my college, King George’s Medical College, Lucknow, for example, there were 9 Muslim boys in my batch out of a total number of 170 students. There were around 40 girls, with only 2 being Muslims. If none of my Muslim batch mates happened to marry a Hindu girl, it was not because they did not get the opportunity. If they had chosen, at least some of them would have easily married Hindu class fellows. But they preferred to marry within their own religion on account of the obvious reasons.

Not only Hindu girls are more in number, they tend to be more open to love marriages. Muslim families resist love marriages more than Hindus. Majority of Muslims also tend to have stronger religious convictions than majority of Hindus. Moreover, love marriages with Muslim boys more often than not are solemnised without any dowry, and this may be one of the reasons why Hindu parents tend to accept these marriages.

As far as the issue of converting to Islam is concerned, I know many Hindu men and women who have converted to Islam without a love affair. Most of them had to face serious threats from the Hindutva activists. I know some Hindus who did not convert to Islam despite the fact that they loved it just because of the social complications it created. The truth is that if any Hindu is accepting Islam in India, this is not due to any pressure from Muslims but despite the pressure by Hindu organisations and families against converting.

Muslims have already clarified in no uncertain terms that if there are any cases of fraudulent marriages involving Muslims, they do not support them and all these cases must be dealt with in accordance with the law of the country. This is another matter that many laws relating to such marriages need to be revisited. Fraudulent marriages are increasingly becoming the order of the day in the country, and an overwhelming majority of these marriages has nothing to do with religion or caste.

The conversion for the sake of allurements like money and under compulsion has no place in Islam. Such “Muslims” are no Muslims in the sight of God. But it appears that conversions from Islam to Hinduism for similar reasons are openly relished by the Hindutva lobbies.  The campaigns against “Love Jihad” and “forced conversion to Islam” are only aimed at justifying their own sinister plans for the future. They have no love for their religious principles; they are only interested in dominating the country through consolidation of Hindus on the plank of hatred. Mercifully for the country, the true Hindus who love their religion are too many to let these forces prosper for long. But the dangers loom large on the solidarity of the nation.


* Dr Javed Jamil is India based thinker and writer with over a dozen books including his latest, “Muslims Most Civilised, Yet Not Enough” and “Muslim Vision of Secular India: Destination & Road-map”. Other works include “The Devil of Economic Fundamentalism”, “The Essence of the Divine Verses”, “The Killer Sex”, “Islam means Peace” and “Rediscovering the Universe”. He can be contacted at doctorforu123@yahoo.com or 91-8130340339. For his shayri visit http://urduyouthforum.org/shayari/poet-Dr-Javed-Jamil.html

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