By MM Special Correspondent,
New Delhi: Renowned thinker and analyst, Dr. Javed Jamil has called upon all lovers of peace to realise the dangers ahead, not only on account of violence of various kinds, but also on account of the Second Round of Privatisation, which has begun under Modi Government. He was delivering a talk on “Growing Fascism in India, its causes and solution” at Jamaat-e Islami Hind Headquarters on Saturday.
Explaining the term “fascism” he said that while the actual word came into usage after the First World War, Pharaoh was perhaps the first fascist ruler in the history of mankind who practiced all the elements of fascism including authoritarianism, radicalisation, intimidation and violence in suppressing the minority community of the Descendents of Israel. He said that “while at the international level, currently America is involved in the most dangerous kind of fascism, in India Hindutva represents the same ideology of radicalisation, authoritarianism, specific kind of nationalism and intimidation.”
Giving statistics, Dr jamil said that “Communal Violence is a much bigger threat than Terrorism, and Hindu Terrorism more dangerous than Muslim Terrorism” He said that the few biggest terrorist attacks in India did not kill more than 300 people while a large number of communal riots killed several thousand people. Not only around 80 percent of the dead in communal riots belonged to minority community, out of all terrorist related deaths, those attributed to Muslim outfits are an insignificant minority. He said that while the official figures indicate a death toll of around 15000 in Hindu-Muslim riots in last 50 years, the unofficial estimated figures may well be near one hundred thousand. He told that out of around 35000 terrorism related deaths in India, only 1500 have allegedly been by Muslim terrorists. Naxalites have killed more than 11000 in last 30 years and Ulfa have killed more than 18000 in last two decades. Still, Hindutvavadis have the audacity to say that “all terrorists are Muslims.”
He told that Hindutvavadis try to argue that Naxalites are non-believing Hindus but forget that Census shows them as Hindus. “If they have any new definition of Hindu, they should declare all leftists as non-Hindus”.
Referring to Dadri cold-blooded murder of Akhlaq, he said “even if the family was really eating beaf, the mob cannot be allowed to take law into its own hands” and it was a clear example of how rumours are deliberately spread to incite violence against a particular community. He called for booking ther culprits under POTA.
Dr. Jamil called upon Muslim intellectuals and organisation to stop being apologetic and defensive always giving explanations to the questions raised by the enemies. They should be in a position to pose questions to them. They should produce all the relevant statistics on Communal Violence. At the same time he cautioned against allowing Communalism to become the central issue in Indian politics.
This will be like playing into the hands of communal forces.
He said that the communalism of the late 1980s and 90s was a cover up for the first round of privatisation, and by creating communal frenzy, any popular movement against the new economic policy was forestalled. Even leftist forces got befooled and instead of opposing Privatisation used all their energies in fighting communalism. Now when Modi has started Second Round of privatisation, communal frenzy is again being generated. Media and the intellectual circles and the political parties are again busy debating communalism rather than discussing the huge aggravation of Economic disparity the new round of Privatisation is going to cause.
Dr Jamil warned that 2017 may be year when big communal riots can hit the country. “If the party in power fails to retain the confidence of its supporters, it might resort to instigating big riots based upon its belief that communal riots bring big political dividends,” he said.
He called upon Muslims not to overreact and prepare a long term plan with wisdom and farsightedness. He explained that while International fascism is primarily against the morality which Islam preaches, Indian fascism is not against these values but against the Muslim identity. He said that the moral values of all religions are almost the same, and this commonness must be explored to de-poison communalism.
In an answer to a question, Dr Jamil expressed his disappointment that despite the huge efforts he made in preparing “Muslim Vision of Secular India: Destination & roadmap”, Muslim leaders and organisations only paid lip service to it and did not take a lead in implementing the comprehensive roadmap given in the document. “It is a much bigger exercise than Sachar Committee or Ranganatahn Commission Report, as it presents Muslim problems and Muslim view in entirety and provides a comprehensive framework for the progress of Muslims comprising Ideological empowerment, political empowerment, social empowerment and economic empowerment,” he said.