Hyderabad: Back in 1947, Muslims in India had the option to move to Pakistan, which many choose while others did not.
Many Muslims who chose to remain in India said they would be safe only in this newly created state where they and their co-religionists were among the majority population.
They chose to remain under the aegis of the secular constitution that would protect and shield them from discrimination.
However, leading up to this unconstitutional Citizenship (Amendment) Act and parallel National Register of Citizens that seek to render Indian Muslims stateless, the process of demonizing Muslims by rewriting history was only just the beginning.
For instance, if this notion of Muslims forcibly converting Hindus was true, these Hindus who constituted the majority then and now, would probably have fled Indian soil. Plus, they wouldn’t have remained as a majority in this country.
Such rhetoric that was, for the most part, dismissed as noise emanating from fringe has now very much engulfed the axis of the mainstream. These aforementioned claims attributed greatly to the post-12th century invaders reek of falsehood as well whereas overlooked aspects of proselytization find little to no mention. For instance, the first mosque ever constructed in India was created by the Prophet Mohammed’s (SAW) Persian companion Malik Deenar in 629 AD.
Claims of forceful conversion to Islam only after Muslim rulers invaded India in the 12th century are false too as the oldest Mosque constructed in India is in Kerala which dates back to 629 AD built by Malik Deenar who was Persian companion of Prophet Mohammed SAW.
It was the southeast Monsoon that has brought the caravan of Muslim traders to the Indian subcontinent. The business flourished so has the fragrance of love and brotherhood bloomed from India to other countries.
Furthermore, claims that Muslims’ genetics is identical to that of the Hindus are buttressed on so-called DNA tests. Although a detailed probe into this matter revealed that the Muslims’ DNA actually belongs to the scheduled tribes and scheduled castes who were welcomed into Islam to fight inequality in India, at times when Hindus were treating their own inequally.
Hindutva-ridden hate speeches against Indian Muslims deem Muslims as refugees in this nation deserving of expulsion. Yet the truth of the matter is that Muslims of this nation are more Indian than any Hindu as they become one with the soil upon their burial, whereas, Hindus are burnt after which their ashes are thrown into the Ganges, Godavari, and etc.
The Hindu religion in India has never been known to treat its own with equality. Moreover, the right-wing Hindutva ideology propagators are attempting to change the secular Indian nation into a Hindu country through such vitriol.
This process began much before the path that lead to the CAA-NRC in 2002. The Gujarat riots of that year — where Muslims were butchered like animals with full impunity against instigators and the Chief Minister behind them — are engraved in the minds of Indians.
Plus, there was a time when media, the fourth estate, spoke truth to power and was taken into confidence by the powers that be.
Zaheeruddin Ali Khan, Managing Editor of the Siasat newspaper, recalls a delegation which he also accompanied the then Indian PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee attended by many BJP politicians and 54 journalists.
Today journalists, editors, and reporters are being brutally killed in broad daylight. Rather than developing the nation amidst an already collapsing economic landscape, BJP politicians have sent the nation’s economy into a deep slumber with blunders like GST and demonetization.
As the social and economic crises engulf the country, voices against Assam’s NRC experiment that left lakhs of Muslims as well as Hindus stateless were scarce. Additionally, with the CAA BJP politicians have brought in the amended legislation to grant citizenship to any individual persecuted in three countries except Muslims.
Reservations for SCs, STs, BCs and Dalits too have been removed with Hindu politicians crushing these communities under their feet in Parliament.
Voices of dissent, common, poor, lower, as well as middle-class individuals raising questions against this discrimination, are being silenced or killed.
Individuals like Kanhaiya Kumar, other Dalit, Scheduled tribe individuals are wielding only one sword that is of ‘education’ is now being suppressed by the Hindutva hate mongers.
Speaking of unemployment in India, a 2017-18 report reveals the unemployment rate in India is 6.1%, a four-decade high since demonetization in 2016.
Although now the NRC-CAA has bought together divided castes and religions together as we share the same blood of our forefathers.