Event: Organizer meeting. Premises of SC. Speaker Senior Advocate! Statements regrettable distortions. False narrative: CAA good, necessary, innocuous, not against anyone, rectifies wrongs to select nations’ select groups. Afghan-Pak-Bangla Constitutions bad.
Information: Wikipedia: Organizer, an affiliated publication of Hindu nationalist organisation RSS; despite professed claims of independence regarded by scholars as official organ of RSS.
Escape: get away (as by flight). Velocity: rate of change of position with respect to frame of reference. Escape velocity: speed at which one escapes from something holding it back. Usually, speed at which projectiles leave earth’s gravitational pull.
What escape velocity is needed to leave behind claims based on falsehood, distortion, lies, hate-mongering of puppets of regimes desperate to have or hold on to power?
Claim: comparing census figures of 1941 to present, Pakistan’s Hindu population down from 23% to 3%: that establishes Hindus in Pakistan have been decimated.
Note: 1947 exodus, Muslims India to Pakistan, Hindus Pakistan/Bangladesh to India, unconnected to “persecution”; comparison deliberately defective; entire communities migrated out of preference.
Claim: Bangladesh saw three major exoduses into India, one because of changed constitution.
Note: first exodus, most massive, had nothing to do with persecution; second when East Pakistan became Bangladesh, was Pakistan’s army atrocities, not religious persecution, human rights violations affecting all including Muslims.
Claim: India’s Muslim population up from 15% to 24%.
Note: J&K status uncertain, plebiscite pending, hence population (mostly Muslim) not included in 1951 census; added in subsequent census; distorted narrative projected supporting insinuation Muslims multiply faster, someday overtaking Hindus making them minority in “their own” country: mischievous minds use figures to falsify, disregarding fact and truth; mischief mongering, nothing else.
Claim: 1941 Western Punjab census shows Hindus 29.1%, Sikhs 14.9% Christians 1.9%; 2019 these are less than 1%.
Note: using 1941 census ignores 1947 mass exodus from Western Punjab now Pakistan; projecting falsehood and distortion to “justify” CAA: seeing through this, voices raised against CAA include Christians and Sikhs as prominently as Hindus. Lies don’t work; comparison mischievous, defective.
1941 census shows population of Hindus in Sindh, Pakistan was 27%, now diminished to only 3%.
Note: ask “Why quote 1941 census, not later ones?” to know truth; hysteria masquerading as history; 1947 exodus (Muslims and Hindus) linked not with persecution, but choice. Naturally figures changed dramatically, when entire communities migrated changing demography.
Claim: Undivided Bengal 1951, Muslims were 55%, Hindus 42%, tribals 3%: 1951, Hindus diminished to 22.9% and 2011, Hindus and tribals 9.6%.
Note: undivided Bengal, substantially Muslim, divided: people in different districts counted as residents of those; ignoring migration to towns for livelihoods, comparing census figure of undivided unit with fragment of divided unit, concocting unjustified “conclusions of convenience” fabricating false anti-Muslim narrative: verbal sleight-of-hand creating animosity between communities, hate-mongering, poisoning minds.
Claim: This is reason for CAA.
Note: Statements of BJP, VHP, RSS leaders mention other “reasons”; some communities selected only to exclude Muslims fascists have visceral hatred for; nations cited not because of constitutions of those or CAA favours persecuted, but because this feeds into RSS narrative of Hindu Rashtra Akhand Bharat of Hindustan-Pakistan-Bangladesh-Afghanistan.
Claim: 1st distress exodus of minorities into India in 1947 “remained unabated”.
Note: Laughable; unabated means same level. Hindu exodus to India, 1947 as unparalleled as Muslims exodus to Pakistan; attempt to substitute history with hysteria.
Claim: 1964 Chakmas who were Buddhists were evicted from East Pakistan.
Note: though Buddhists included, Myanmar excluded from list of nations although Buddhists, Rohingya both refugees in India, basis religious persecution. Exclusion is only based on hate against Muslims.
2nd distress exodus 1971 prior to Bangladesh war, 10 million took refuge in India.
Note: 1971 exodus from Bangladesh because of Pakistani Army atrocities; Muslims, Hindus, both escaped; religious persecution not involved.
Claim: Of 10 million refugees 6.8 million returned, 32 lakh people remain here.
Note: possible 32 lakh remain but still the job of State to identify them, not of every Indian to establish his Indian nationality to hostile regime claiming Muslims alien, outsiders, threat to security, labelling Muslims and Christians as foreigners, hostile to their very presence, testified to by long series of hate speeches genocidal attacks mob lynchings etc., latter also accompanying slogans Jai Shri Ram/Bharat Mata Ki Jai to be raised by victims: State complicity in systematic hostile discrimination is testified to by Establishment registering cases, registering FIRs against victims of such violence instead of against perpetrators of violence.
Claim: Constitutions of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh are very harsh to minorities.
Note: not a single provision cited, unsubstantiated allegations, superficial alleged study which destroys its own credibility.
Claim: In Afghanistan minorities population reduced to 3,000 from 3,00,000. 60% of country under Taliban who do not believe in human rights.
Note: Which minorities? During which period? For what reasons? Nothing stated. No mention of wars: Afghanistan invaded by Russia; situation of continuous warfare; American-funded Taliban (student group fighting off kidnappers of women) successfully compel Russian exit; American troops attempt filling vacuum; situation created. No religious persecution anywhere.
Claim: studied “whole two pages” Pakistani Constitution but refrains from comment because SC is hearing CAA.
Note: whole two pages? Baap re! Amazing going on saying “refrain from commenting” merely insinuates there’s horrible stuff one can but isn’t saying, pretending respect: actually incorrect; if judges hearing matter see this video and believe contents, doubtless they can be misled into making up their minds before hearing. Such attempts occurred earlier: in campaign against tobacco when WPs questioning fiat for printing terrifying alleged cancer pictures on cigarette packets were listed; I have seen evidence NGOs funded by foreign campaigners deliberately placed strategic public hoarding ads where SC judges would notice them en route, influencing them.
Observations
MP alleged “Dhimmis” are second-class citizens in Islamic dispensation: baseless falsehood. Arabic not having alphabets P and T, Arabs pronounce petroleum “bedroleum”: Arabic Zimmi is by writers spelled “dhimmi”:
zimmi connotes one in another’s responsibility as in another’s zimmedaari: living in an Islamic State, one who is not Muslim is not required to defend host Muslim nation against attacks of non-Muslim groups (situation during Prophet’s time when Meccan invaders etc.
Were attacking nascent Islamic State in Medina): establishes that notwithstanding refusal to fight against attackers sharing their ideological (non-Islamic) views they still were entitled to protection of Muslims, i.e., were Muslim Zimmi/responsibility; since their homes/businesses were fought for and protected by Muslim army, a tax “jizya” was collected: at that time armies did not have budgeted parliamentary allocation as armies now and money required to fight wars was generated by such means.
To an open mind truth becomes apparent. This truth is what hostile people are afraid of, which is why they stifle dissent and lock up people speaking truth from public platforms.
Statements are there is no detention centre, videos prove otherwise; parliamentarians say NRC not even discussed, HM says otherwise.
Presidential address (cleared by Cabinet) says government bringing legislation, PM HM publicly assert NRC not even discussed in Cabinet… top leaders publicly “deviate from the truth”, admit statements are not to be relied upon, hate speech against minorities rampant, attacks on places of worship of two religious denominations increasingly commonplace, judicial reluctance to act is perceived, bias of Executive perceived, media’s partisanship subject of ridicule world-over, faced with massive human rights violations 150+ days of lockdown Court intervention is non-urgent, aggressive uniformed attacks on Universities causes SC to expect violence first stop though available evidence suggests violence was by members of political party’s hammer and lathi wielding foot-soldiers, without VC permission police entering libraries and hostels, brutally thrashing students, yet when goons attacked students who do not subscribe to their masters’ political ideology, failed to protect victims claiming absence of VC permission, media selectively peddles false narratives, some judgements surprise the country and the world, right of peaceful protest is taken away, prime casualty is truth… No escape velocity needed: just walk away, padayatra style.
Believe what you wish, reality is independent of one’s belief. Machiavellian machinations acquire ominous backlash-momentum of their own. Agitating students and intellectuals this time round, future puncture-wallahs (leaders who will puncture those out to destroy the Constitution) will emerge from these agitated, secular, well-informed, capable, sincere youths.
CAA cannot be viewed divorced from mentality of people harbouring toxic corrosive hostile thinking implementing it. Not apprehension or conjecture, this has played out the last few decades. Alleged intellectuals supporting CAA surely are able to see through sinister ulterior objectives lurking in the shadows. Paraphrasing someone again:
Ae ahlé taáleem … zauq-e-taáleem kkhoob hai laékin …
Jo reading between the lines na jaáne voh taáleem kyaa !
Shafeeq R. Mahajir is a seasoned lawyer based in Hyderabad.