The spectacular commercial success of Pathaan does not require the film to have any spokespersons at all, especially not some non-celebrity like me, nor am I seeking to be a spokesman for the film, but for those still believing in boycotting it or possibly some feeling guilty about having watched it, this article may well be of some interest.
There are unfortunately a lot of ‘secular’/‘liberal’ clowns on the loose who have given a field day to bigots to give all those genuinely seeking to uphold liberal and secular values a bad name. Those trolling the film Rocketry: The Nambi Effect for showcasing the Hindu religiosity of that eminent scientist Nambi Narayanan (certainly an eminent scientist, even if he has arguably exaggerated his achievements) as being a sign of communalism or regressiveness belong to that category. I support the freedom of anyone to not at all identify with his/her birth-based religious identity and even dismiss scriptures of his/her birth-acquired faith, but to extrapolate your criticism of scriptures to all practising adherents of that faith, even devout ones who may interpret the scriptures differently, is not on. Whatever opinion one may have of Ram abandoning Sita in the Ramayan, for instance, it is not on to suggest that all Ram-bhakt men are bad husbands, and that way, Abrahamic scriptures and prophets too have been subjected to much criticism, including by those born into those faiths, and those communities too see their gender-related and other social evils in the name of faith, but would the same set of left-liberals trolling Rocketry: The Nambi Effect troll a film for showcasing a Muslim or Christian character’s piety? No, they would not! Practising Hindus too have, ever so often, demonstrated a humanistic outlook towards those of other faiths, as you can see here, here, here and here, nor is it fair to suggest that practising Hindus have not offered anti-casteism theological interpretations, as you can see here, here, here and here. If anything, the film Nambi touched my heart as someone who values the Nehruvian legacy of ISRO (in the initial years of which not only Hindus like Dr. Vikram Sarabhai but also a Parsi scientific genius Homi Bhabha, a young, namaz-offering Muslim engineer APJ Abdul Kalam and a Christian priest Father Peter Bernard Pereira played very key roles), proving what a developing nation can well be capable of, but even more so for one dialogue R. Madhavan, playing Nambi, delivers to Shah Rukh Khan towards the end of the film (recalled from memory) - “Ab toh main sirf apne liye lad bhee naheen raha hoon. Kitne log hain meri tarah! Kitne log, Mr. Khan! Jinhein bewaqoofon ki deshbhakti ka shikar banaya ja raha hai. Main unke liye ladunga, aakhri saans tak ladunga, I will fight…” (And now, I am not even fighting for myself alone. There are so many people like me, Mr. Khan! So very many! Who are being made targets by patriots of the loony variety! I will fight for them, I will fight till my last breath, I will fight…) That this dialogue was delivered not to someone like Akshay Kumar or Anupam Kher, who is known for eulogising the prime minister ever so often, but to Shah Rukh Khan, a Muslim actor who has been branded as anti-national on several occasions and has been subjected to severe criticism and name-calling for being critical of saffron fascists and their enablers in power politics, is hugely pertinent, and the film should be congratulated for its boldness in times of trolling and boycott, and a time when maximum people since the Emergency have been jailed for frivolous sedition, NSA, UAPA, Section 66A of the IT Act (despite its being struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court) and other charges for dissenting on matters not even relating to religious identity or national security as you can see here.
Circulating false rumours has been a propaganda tool known to humanity since forever and it is quite effectively employed by fascists to demonise minorities as “anti-nationals” and in the name of protecting the nation-state from internal and external enemies, claim all opposition to be anti-national and destroy civil liberties to snuff out all dissent. What we are seeing with India’s much loved film icon Shah Rukh Khan for quite some time now is a perfect example.
However, I must hasten to add that unlike some other critics of the Hindu far-right, I do think it is counterproductive to shy away from publicly acknowledging that, as Fareed Zakaria, a Muslim himself, has admitted, “the reactionaries in the world of Islam are more numerous and extreme” than those in other religious groupings, and since the 1980s, global jihadist terror has emerged as a huge problem (those offering conspiracy theories denying the same are requested to see this). Having said that, harbouring generalised hatred for Muslims to support indiscriminate hate speech, mob violence or institutionalised discrimination against them, other than being grossly unfair and inhuman, will only help jihadist recruiters, of which there are indeed numerous examples, and those arguing that retributive hatred was completely absent among the Japanese in the wake of nuclear bombings in 1945, Kashmiri Pandits in the wake of their exodus in 1989-1990* or Jews who faced the Holocaust should see this. To my mind, there is no doubt that Islamism (right-wing political Islam) is the biggest ideological threat of our times to human rights values globally the way Nazism was once, but just as genocidal hatred of Germans did not lead to Nazism’s defeat, but in fact, the support of anti-Nazism Germans did, liberal and moderate Muslims valuing humanity (see, for example, this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this, nor is it the case that such Muslims are necessarily either apostates of Islam or highly ignorant of their scriptures, as discussed here), who need not be seen as exotic exceptions, should not be alienated, and one should not become the monster one wishes to defeat.
Without endorsing the same, I do not find incomprehensible the greater acceptance of anti-Muslim bias, even anti-Muslim bigotry, among Indian Hindus, even among some strongly opposing it earlier, since the rise of the ISIS, this greater acceptance of anti-Muslim bias being a phenomenon not limited to Indian Hindus but which unjustifiably but understandably resonated in good measure with non-Muslims globally, contributing to making us witness the rise of leaders like Donald Trump, Boris Johnson and Jair Bolsonaro. The fact, however, is that the ISIS has never represented the average Muslim (not even the average puritan Sunni) of Iraq or Syria [as I have logically explained at length here and here, also emphasising that any criticism of Islamic scriptures, including by apostates of Islam, often called “ex-Muslims” (scriptures of other religions are also criticised by their apostates) does not validate stereotyping Muslims or even practising Muslims as people], let alone elsewhere globally, least of all in India, where the ISIS recruits have been miniscule, given the size of our Muslim population.
As for those ringing alarm-bells about Muslim demographics in India, it may be noted that overall, the Muslim population growth rate has been declining in India with greater access to education, something acknowledged for Indians across religious lines even by India’s current foreign minister S. Jaishankar from the BJP, and there is much regional disparity, with the population growth rate of say, Muslims in Kerala being less than that of Hindus in Uttar Pradesh owing to the former, as an aggregate whole, being more educated, and the Muslim-majority Union Territories of J&K and Lakshadweep have among the lowest fertility rates among Indian states and Union Territories. And yes, even otherwise, if someone sees Muslims potentially outnumbering Hindus in India as a real problem, they should appeal to the Indian government to legally impose a two-child norm for all Indian citizens, irrespective of religion (private member bills by BJP members aside, the Modi government has not yet endorsed the idea of such a legislative proposal), which will make it completely impossible for Muslims to outnumber Hindus and is, in any case, much-needed given the strain on resources (something also pointed out by Congress leader Manish Tiwari in the wake of the shortage of hospital beds during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic), and there is no naivete or purblind sentimentalism in pointing out that randomly rioting against or lynching some average Muslims, which can indeed even provoke a counter-reaction, is neither a fair nor a sensible way of dealing with the supposed demographic threat! As for those advancing the now in-any-case irrelevant contention that all Muslims should have been expelled from India at the time of the partition (for which Muslims born in India after 1947 still cannot in the least be blamed even by this bigoted line of argumentation), it is essential to understand that that would have involved ceding Pakistan more territory resulting in even more Hindu displacement, and basing the very idea of nationhood on monochromatic lines has never worked well for any country. It may also be noted that even in the 1940s, there were secular Muslims (not just some theocratic-minded clerics seeking large-scale religious conversion and an orthodox Islamic agenda for the whole of undivided India but even genuinely liberal Muslims defying them) subscribing to the idea of a united India, some of whom like Allah Baksh, Maqbool Sherwani and Shoebullah Khan were martyred opposing Jinnah’s two-nation theory.** The Congress of the freedom struggle all along opposed the idea of partition on the ground that India would be for all Indians, who would be given equal rights, irrespective of religion. Therefore, to do a sudden U-turn on the part of the Congress and change its standpoint of India being for Indians of all religious groupings on the eve of the partition would have validated the Muslim League's rather nonsensical allegations before the world. More importantly, an India that denies itself to some Indian citizens may go down the slippery slope to be denied to all Indian citizens with puritans trying to define “Indian-ness”. We've seen how countries like Germany, Myanmar, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, which chose the path of exclusion, lost their democratic character (and the authoritarian Chinese state’s suppressing news of the coronavirus pandemic showed how Chinese citizens and the rest of humanity had to pay a price for lack of democratic accountability there) and/or got embroiled in civil war. Since independence, many Indian Muslims have indeed served Indian national interests well as diplomats as also in the security forces and the intelligence agencies, even in foiling the Pakistani deep state’s nefarious designs, and there is no rational basis to categorise Muslim citizens of India with a sense of loyalty to the country as being completely exotic exceptions within their religious grouping in India. If someone is more comfortable with 'Jai Hind' over 'Vande Mataram' for he/she can respect, but not bow before or worship anyone other than God, be it his/her own parents or motherland based on his/her religious convictions, so be it, if he/she is otherwise a law-abiding citizen (bowing before graves of Sufi saints is also seen by many law-abiding, moderate Muslims as un-Islamic) and a green flag with a crescent is a flag of Islam, like a saffron flag is a flag of Hinduism or a blue flag with a discus is a flag of Ambedkarite Buddhism; a green flag with a crescent is NOT a flag of Pakistan, unless accompanied by a white strip to the left. It is wrong to suggest that an Indian Muslim should be seen as being guilty of being anti-national until proven innocent. However, just as much as just like many Indian Tamils wanting the Indian state to harbour complete antipathy to the Sri Lankan state and many Indian Gorkhas wanting unconditional friendship with the Nepalese state, many Indian Muslims do have a strong affinity to non-Indians from their community, like the Palestinian Muslims, and therefore, want the Indian state to harbour complete antipathy to the Israeli state, unfortunately complicating Indian strategic and economic interests owing to vote-bank considerations, and some Indian Jews born and raised in India prefer to serve in the Israeli military rather than the Indian military, something people from all these communities must ponder over, and it may also be mentioned that there are Indian-origin far-right Hindus living and working in Muslim-majority and Christian-majority countries, sometimes even acquiring their citizenship, but with hatred of Muslims and Christians, wanting their own security as minorities but shamefully not for Muslim and Christian minorities in India, but in any case, whatever one’s peacefully held views, however problematic, no one ought to be subjected to unlawful violence, any tolerance of which only paves the way for a breakdown of the rule of law. While national patriotism is often the last refuge of many a scoundrel, as some would argue is the case with Gautam Adani, trying to portray foreign research on his alleged wrongdoings as an attack on India, healthy national patriotism is necessary till national borders remain a reality, and just as we care for the security and prosperity of our household, our nation-states remain our larger homes, and if we want the state framework to deliver for us, we too should be invested in the same, especially with a democratic framework. While the dynamics of a conflict zone like Kashmir are different and there have also been some non-Kashmiri Indian Muslims who have cheered for Pakistan over India in cricket based on religious affiliation, overall, there is no evidence to suggest that they represent the Indian Muslim sentiment at large. In fact, a Hindu acquaintance of mine, who studied at Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), told me that while those cheering for Pakistan in cricket were quite a vocal lot there, most Muslims cheered for India, and this was in a Muslim-majority setting where the apparently pro-India majority did not have to conceal its true feelings, and another friend of mine, who is an Assamese Hindu from Guwahati and who is very resentful of the Bangladeshi Muslim influx in his state, told me that on a train journey, he overheard a conversation between two Muslims from AMU bashing the students who cheer for Pakistan. Also, another friend of mine, whose father is an Indian Army officer, once told me that he loves the Muslim community (though I don’t support any stereotyping, positive or negative!), for once, his father was fired at by militants in Kashmir and his father’s driver, a Muslim, rushed to bear the bullet to save his father’s life! He also narrated another anecdote of how a Muslim officer once donated blood to save his father’s life and asserted that he was not in the least ashamed of the fact that “Muslim blood” (whatever that is supposed to mean!) runs through his veins! Just to be clear, I do not particularly advocate looking at national heroes and heroines through the prism of their religious identity, nor do I necessarily attribute such heroism to the religion such heroes/heroines were/are born into or chose/choose to subscribe to (to take an example, the great freedom fighter Obaidullah Sindhi, who opposed the politics of the Muslim League, was a convert to Islam from Sikhism), but only to clarify that people of no religious identity should be negatively stereotyped, and it must be mentioned that there is actually room for interpretation of Islamic scriptures in conformity with humanism and secular national patriotism, to which many devout Muslims subscribe. Also, like with other communities, there are Muslims who may be rational on some issue from our standpoint and irrational or biased on another, but so long as they are not committing any heinous crime, they cannot be dehumanised.
It is essential to distinguish between a Yasin Bhatkal and an APJ Abdul Kalam, a Mumtaz Qadri and a Salman Taseer, an Aurangzeb and a Dara Shikoh, a Burhan Wani and a Maqbool Sherwani, a Jinnah and an Ashfaqullah Khan. Otherwise, should all Sikhs and Tamils be hated for the actions of Khalistanis and LTTE respectively? It is evident how unfair and counterproductive Hindu extremism is to fighting Muslim extremism, which is only pushing more and more moderate Muslims to radicalism, other than taking the country as a whole in a fascist direction by interfering with people's civil liberties.
Speaking specifically of Shah Rukh, his father, a follower of Frontier Gandhi's, fought for the independence of a united India (and fake news has been circulated to suggest otherwise) and rejected the idea of partition, upholding secular values, which he passed on to his children. By the way, many other Pathan followers of Frontier Gandhi’s were subjected by Jinnah’s regime to a horrendous massacre in Babrra. General Shahnawaz Khan of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose’s Indian National Army, who was one of the three accused in the historic Red Fort trial and rejected the politics of the Muslim League, was like a godfather to Shah Rukh’s mother. From being extensively involved in charity work (as you can see here, and as you can see here, even doing India proud for his charity work also getting international recognition), even during the coronavirus pandemic, to his inspiring patriotic fervour by way of movies like Swades (which even inspired Indians settled overseas to actually contribute to rural development in India!) and Chak De India (the title emerging the cheering slogan for our hockey players, and drew attention to concerns of tribals from Jharkhand and Northeast India) to generating mental health awareness and a positive outlook by way of Dear Zindagi to putting a smile on the faces of millions of Indians by way of sheer entertainment, his services to India far exceed those of corrupt BJP politicians like Ajay Sancheti, Purshottam Solanki, Babubhai Bokharia and Bangaru Lakshman and BJP goons like Vitthalbhai Radadia. His movie My Name Is Khan ideologically rebutted not only Islamophobia but even extremism from among Muslims (recall the scene of the protagonist’s mother, hearing her son repeating some anti-Hindu slurs he heard in his Muslim locality in the wake of a Hindu-Muslim riot, telling him that there are good and bad people among both Hindus and Muslims, and the scene in which the protagonist rebuffs a terror-recruiter he encounters in a mosque, whom he has the US intelligence tipped off about). All those accusing Shah Rukh of labelling our beautiful country as intolerant must know that he never did so, in fact, he has repeatedly taken pride in his family's participation in the freedom struggle and opposition to the partition of India, nor did he ever say that he would leave the country if Modi became PM, as has been falsely circulated on the social media – it was Kamaal R. Khan who said so.
Unfortunately, the idea of “the BJP is fanning a climate of religious intolerance” or “Hindu majoritarianism is on a rise in the polity, media and other social spaces" is being twisted to “India as a whole is and has been a very intolerant country” and attacks are then made on Muslim public figures like Aamir Khan and Shah Rukh Khan for what they never even said! That being said, some left-liberals do complicate matters by declaring India as “lynchistan”, but that is absolutely no fault of these particular Muslim public figures being targeted. A climate of religious intolerance cannot be gauged only by the number of people killed in violent hate crimes (which, I agree, do take place globally), but about whether the government has done enough to assuage the fears of the religious minorities. There are numerous statements and acts of BJP leaders and elected representatives, including the current PM after 2014, who can’t all be dismissed as “fringe elements”, pointing to a spirit of anti-Muslim intolerance, as you can see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here, and that leaders of Muslim-majority countries deal with Modi for geostrategic or economic reasons doesn’t undermine our Muslim fellow citizens’ concerns, nor is it the case that leaders of Muslim-majority countries have never expressed reservations about the Modi sarkar’s problematic intolerance towards Muslims manifesting from time to time; that said, it is certainly true that parties opposing Hindu majoritarianism weaken their case when they accommodate communal and regressive Muslims (like Abu Azmi, Azam Khan and Shafiqur Rahman in the SP, Yakoob Qureshi in the BSP and Arbaz Khan in the NCP, among others) to play the religious card in some Muslim-majority constituencies, a tendency they should backtrack on ethically, and now, even practically given how it contributes to Hindu consolidation across caste lines in favour of the BJP, and to that end, occasional minority-appeasing statements by Hindus in these parties, like this one and this one, should also now stop for good. When multiple local BJP politicians in UP condoned the Dadri murder (Rajiv Gandhi did pass one irresponsible public statement in the wake of the horrendous anti-Sikh riots in 1984, which must be condemned in the strongest terms, but multiple people from his party did not justify the riots, nor did the party sustain politics based on antipathy to Sikhs, later giving India a Sikh prime minister for a decade and coming to power in Sikh-majority Punjab more than once after 1984), followed by cabinet ministers like Mahesh Sharma calling it an accident and Rajnath Singh just calling it unfortunate and saying that it wasn’t a communal incident (and this was after the forced displacement of the Muslims of the village of Atali in Haryana for wanting to build a mosque on land that was judicially upheld to be theirs!), following which the prime minister, while campaigning in Bihar, ridiculed the Muslim amulet taweez (something he would never do for rudraksh) and talked of Muslims stealing quotas from Dalits, it was only natural that Muslim citizens would feel insecure, for they expect the central government to protect them if the state government fails. In other words, the outrage against intolerance was not only because one man was mercilessly killed over an unjustifiable reason to kill, that too supposedly on suspicion, but because of the chain of remarks justifying or condoning that hate crime, not only from “fringe elements” but with ministers like Mahesh Sharma calling it an accident and Rajnath Singh denying the communal nature of the hate crime. It is worth mentioning that those returning the awards protesting against the climate of religious intolerance included Salman Rushdie, who is not in the least a Muslim extremist, and by the way, he is someone with great regard for ancient Indian heritage, especially the Natya Shastra, and Ajay Raina, a Kashmiri Hindu who has made documentaries on the suffering his community underwent on being displaced from their homeland and on the problems faced by Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan. Those supporting the return of awards and agreeing that there was indeed a climate of intolerance included business personalities who had earlier supported Modi like Narayan Murthy and Kiran Mazumdar. Many of those returning their awards, like Nayantara Sehgal, had openly condemned the carnage in 1984 and the emergency. That it perhaps did not occur to anyone to protest against the riots in 1984 by returning awards didn’t make returning awards any less of a valid form of protest in 2015. What was so wrong then in Shah Rukh endorsing the award wapsi in an interview to Barkha Datt? Or Aamir Khan doing the same, even mentioning candidly that his wife and he felt so for according to them, the government wasn’t doing enough to check the intolerance, spontaneously adding in the flow of the conversation that his wife had even thought of leaving India, fearing for her child’s safety, a statement which had shocked him? Far from calling our whole nation intolerant, Aamir had, back in 2002, in an interview for a British newspaper, criticised Mani Ratnam for showcasing in the movie, Bombay, regular Hindus as having participated in the Mumbai riots of December 1992-January 1993, though according to Khan, in actuality, only Shiv Sainiks were involved. And so much for him acting in pk, he did not produce, script or direct the film, he acted in a film critical of organised religion as such and godmen of all faiths in general and not Hinduism or only Hindu godmen in particular. It showed how some Muslims tried to physically attack, possibly lynch, the alien when he tried to enter a mosque with wine bottles, it showed a terrorist attack justified by terrorists in the name of Islam, it showed Christian missionaries calling Christianity the only way to heaven as a “wrong number”. And it is indeed ridiculous to hold actors responsible for screenplays of films they have themselves not produced, even if you have a huge problem with the screenplay. Besides, movies like Oh My God and Dharmasankat lampooned Hindu godmen much more than pk, but is that fine just because Paresh Rawal is a Hindu? Such hypocrisy! Further, it is bizarre to compare Aamir’s wife feeling insecure about her child and considering leaving the country to the wife of a defence veteran wanting to have her children enrolled in the defence forces. While we all salute the security personnel for their sacrifices for the nation, everyone can’t be expected to join the defence forces (which also have their tales of corruption and other wrongdoings, by the way), and most people making this comparison are not army men themselves, and are most likely to consider going wherever possible if they feel unsafe. Besides, defence veterans like Admiral Ramdas have also expressed concerns about religious intolerance, and that he was in the AAP doesn’t take away from his having served the nation in the navy, and by the way, he had left the AAP when he wrote his letter of protest against religious intolerance to the prime minister. Besides, if we are to give so much premium to statements, back in 2003, Aamir went to meet jawans in harsh terrain and inhospitable climate, and declared that he would be the first to give his name if the army needs civilian recruits. He supported the agitation led by Anna Hazare against the corruption of the Congress, too. And if he met Lady Erdogan while shooting in Turkey (where many Bollywood movies have been shot over the decades), may it be noted that and yes, despite having been a critic of Modi's since 2002, Aamir Khan has met Modi numerous times, even after he complained of the Modi sarkar creating a climate of religious intolerance in 2015. So, in that case, what is the big deal in him meeting Lady Erdogan, and how is that an endorsement of her husband’s politics?! And no, contrary to false propaganda, Aamir never posed with terrorists. And yes, there was also fake news of Aamir having given some very problematic interviews about only caring for his own religious community, which the police helped bust. And while he has every right to campaign for or against any politician, he never appealed to the people of India to vote against Modi before the elections in 2024, contrary to fake news circulated to that effect.
Moreover, to stereotype every love affair between a Muslim man and a Hindu woman to be a case of “love jihad” is bizarre and baseless (yes, there have been some real cases of attempts at forced religious conversion of Hindu women to Islam by their Muslim husbands after marriage, sometimes with the husband initially having concealed his Muslim identity altogether and pretended to have been Hindu or even otherwise, and such extremists should indeed be punished as per the law but not this should not be misused to wrongly generalise Muslims), especially when the woman has often not even changed her faith. Would one say that about the fiery, gun-wielding freedom fighter Aruna who married another secular freedom fighter Asaf Ali, a Muslim gentleman? Very many Muslim women have indeed married Hindu men, like Neelima Azim (Pankaj Kapoor's wife), Soha Ali Khan, Katrina Kaif, Nargis, Shama Zaidi, Mumbai cyclist Firoza and indeed many more, in some cases even converting to Hinduism after marriage, like famous sitarist Annapurna Devi (formerly Roshanara Khan), fashion model Nalini Patel (formerly Nayyara Mirza), Maharashtra politician Asha Gawli (formerly Zubeida Mujawar), South Indian actress Khushboo Sundar (formerly Nakhat Khan) and Bollywood actress Zubeida. Nor is there any rationality in suggesting that a genetically and culturally diverse people as Muslims are intrinsically cruel, slimy, backstabbing or aggressive based on the peddling of some puerile lines of reasoning, like falsely suggesting family feuds (especially royal family feuds historically), heavily non-vegetarian cuisines or practices like animal sacrifices or even bodily self-harm (the last one mentioned is limited to some, not all, people from the minority Shia sect within Muslims on one day in a year, that sect having a very low track record of terrorism) to be a Muslim monopoly, and I have rebutted each of these lines of reasoning here. The spine-chilling murder of Shraddha by her partner Aftab has been misused by elements in the BJP, like a sitting chief minister, to stoke generalised antipathy to Muslims but there have been instances of Hindu husbands murdering their legally wedded wives (not live-in partners) in an equally brutal fashion even before that, as you can see here and here. The same chief minister’s claiming he didn’t know of any Shah Rukh to acknowledging taking his call at 2 a.m. to saying that that was when he first ever learnt of him and he knew only of stars of his times when he’s four years younger than Shah Rukh is another comic tale, and that man has even otherwise had quite an irresponsible track record.
What the Modi-led BJP has succeeded in doing to a great extent is to replace economic development (the plank on which it rose to power in 2014 and on which it overall has quite a poor track record - even the much-hyped Ujjwala Yojana had proven to be a farce, as you can see here and here; the Congress-led UPA government having had a better track record at economic growth and poverty reduction) with paranoia about Muslims or even antipathy to them as the chief concern for a sizable section of our Hindu fellow citizens (fake news, exaggerations, spins etc. disseminated on WhatsApp have been a great factor in the same), though potholed roads (a problem no Indian political party, the BJP included, has thus far had an exemplary track record at having solved, and you can see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here, not even in Modi’s Gujarat, as you can see here, here and here) and air pollution (an issue the Modi sarkar had more recently adopted a creative way to evade judicial scrutiny over) take more lives than terrorist attacks, and even among terrorist attacks in India, Naxalites and separatist insurgents in Northeast India (often Hindus in Assam and Manipur) have taken more lives in our country, even of civilians, than jihadist terrorists, as you can see here and here. And while there are indeed some Muslim extremists, there are also some inhuman Hindus engaging in human sacrifices, caste-based hate crimes and so on. As for national security, the Modi sarkar has lagged in modernising the military, as you can see here and here. As for fewer jihadist terror attacks in Indian cities outside J&K (as much as terrorism still continues in J&K, even against Kashmiri Pandits, many of whom have been gunned down even after the abrogation of Article 370 on 5th August 2019***, as you can see here, here, here and here, as have Hindus in Jammu), that is indeed a heartening trend but from 2009 onwards when P. Chidambaram, as home minister, reformed the intelligence grid, leading to several terrorist attacks being averted, and the UPA also skilfully managed our diplomacy to have terrorists like Abu Jundal extradited from Saudi Arabia, for example. That said, terrorist attacks even outside the typical conflict zones have taken place even with Modi as PM. We’ve had blasts in Burdhwan, West Bengal, in October 2014, Bangalore in December 2014, Gurdaspur in Punjab in July 2015 (the BJP-Akali coalition was ruling Punjab at the time), Pathankot in Punjab in January 2016 (the BJP-Akali coalition was ruling Punjab at the time), the Bhopal-Ujjain passenger train bombing in MP (then governed by the BJP) in March 2017 and a bomb detonating near the Israeli embassy in Delhi in January 2021 (the Delhi Police is under the BJP-led central government). I did indeed support the IAF strikes in Balakot in Pakistan in and of themselves in line with Lal Bahadur Shastri and Indira Gandhi’s approach (or even Nehru’s approach vis-à-vis the Portuguese in Goa, and if someone argues that Nehru initially barred non-Goan Indians from agitating there, recall Modi on a swing with Xi, or Hindu Mahasabha leader SP Mookerjee supporting the British in suppressing the Quit India Movement), but the Modi sarkar was indeed unprepared for their fallout, with our outdated military infrastructure preventing Wing Commander Abhinandan from hearing his alert female colleague telling him to return when he accidentally crossed the LoC and he unfortunately fell to enemy hands, and in the larger diplomatic battle, Imran Khan managed to portray himself as the magnanimous one. Modi may not have personally enriched himself using his public office (though the supposed fakir did decide to buy new VVIP jets during the first wave of the pandemic when hospitals were running out of beds and migrant workers were walking miles hungry and thirsty), but nor did perhaps Manmohan Singh (PMs get a lot of perks anyway even after they are out of office). That said, that the Modi-led BJP has no commitment to fighting corruption is evident from its weakening transparency laws like the Right to Information (RTI) Act, the Whistleblowers Protection Act, the FCRA to help political parties, the Lokayukta Act in Goa again quite shamelessly after the lokayukta exposed scams (as discussed here, here, here and here) and provisions of the CrPC in Maharashtra when the BJP was in power there to favour the financially corrupt, and Modi himself campaigns for the BJP in state elections; so, he can't wash his hands off! The Modi-led BJP has also taken steps like introducing secret electoral bonds for political parties (such that big scandals of cronyism by the BJP can seldom be detected), discontinuing the anti-corruption helpline introduced by the AAP government in Delhi after the LG took over the Anti-Corruption Bureau (the helpline had been a great success and led to several corrupt officers being punished) and having zero accountability for the PM-CARES Fund without any logical explanation (as discussed here, here and here) and giving a contract to a company that has never made ventilators to make them; did that company give money to the BJP via an electoral bond?! Inducting scam-convicted Sukh Ram and Daler Mehndi, the latter convicted for human trafficking, in the BJP also does not suggest any commitment to clean politics. And yes, despite Vasundhara Raje shamelessly passing a gag ordinance against reportage of corruption and Shivraj Singh Chouhan doing little to check the Vyapam scam or protect witnesses and whistleblowers associated with the same, not only did the BJP appoint them as CM-candidates again in 2018 with Modi himself campaigning for them (rather than expelling them from the party supposedly meant to fight corruption) but they were, in fact, made national vice presidents of the so-called party with a difference after being rejected by their own people at the polls. That the Jio Institute, which existed only on paper, had to be given the 'Institute of Eminence' tag and grant, that too with documented pressure from the PMO, and with someone who left the HRD Ministry and working for Reliance laying out the roadmap days after the “institutes of eminence” policy was conceived, is as blatant a case of cronyism as can be, and while they may have fancy layouts, there are other such private universities already functioning in India too, expected to rise in the global rankings sooner, and why at the expense of well-known excellent institutes? The application files of some institutes even disappeared from the HRD Ministry office! Also, that more than 30 economic offenders managed to leave the country (have any aviation officers been sacked?) with Modi as PM does raise serious questions. Modi keeps invoking Ram - the character of Ram, as the Ramayan goes, was such that to be seen as above-board in the eyes of the people he governed, he could even wrong his own wife he dearly loved; here, we have blatant displays of brazen nepotism, and the PM failing to come clean on the PM-CARES Fund and even his university degree (in Entire Political Science, if you please!)! If anyone says that popular leaders like Modi should always be considered great, think of Hitler, Mussolini and Jinnah (Jinnah was indeed a despicable figure, as discussed here), and Modi-bhakts' supposed respect of the popular mandate doesn't reflect in their attitude towards Jawaharlal Nehru or even Manmohan Singh or Arvind Kejriwal (all of whom were/have been re-elected at some point of time). In fact, the Ramayan offers another lesson - Ravan donned the garb of a hermit to abduct Sita, implying that anyone posing as pious (and Modi literally gave picture-perfect poses in the Himalayas in the phase wherein he had supposedly renounced worldly desires, and even now, makes a public spectacle of performing Hindu prayers and meditation) should not be taken as such on face value, and there are many conmen exploiting religious faith.
Since Shah Rukh is indeed unfortunately often a victim of false propaganda on the social media (which is rebutted by fact-checkers, as you can see here, here, here and here, and any information on the social media, whether relating to religious groups, politics, technology, health or safety, should always be verified from popular mainstream media sources and fact-checking sites, which can be sued for misinformation and are hence, more credible than people anonymously forwarding anything, and it is very sad that some people think of themselves as well-informed based more on social media misinformation than actual information!), many people are not even aware that Shah Rukh has actually donated money to displaced Kashmiri Pandits (long before Modi became PM or that hateful film Kashmir Files was released) and had spoken up strongly against 26/11, the Uri attacks and Pulwama attack, and expressed solidarity with the surgical strikes against Pakistani terrorists by the Indian military. He also tried to get into the Indian Army in his youth, knowing that the job would entail firing at co-religionists from Pakistan (but regardless, a lunatic Hindu religious leader, in a baseless fashion, recently called him a terrorist and asked for his killing!). His not being bigoted towards regular Pakistani Muslims, as no one should be (as I have explained here, here, here and here, and this instance of a Pakistani who risked his own life to protect Indian students in Ukraine was undoubtedly heart-warming), should not be held against him, and in fact, I would like to draw attention to how for Pakistani socio-political commentator Haroon Khalid, an activist for the rights of Pakistan’s Hindus and other minorities, watching Bollywood prevented him for falling for the anti-India indoctrination in his school textbooks and how, in debates with his peers, he cited Shah Rukh’s example to showcase that Muslims are not perennial victims in India! That Pathaan, while, in no way, shying away from the inhumanity of many in the Pakistani military establishment and not in the least trivialising the need for a robust Indian national security apparatus, like many other films globally (think Johnny English), shows how there are not-so-intelligent people driven by jealousy, lack of foresight and other factors in the security apparatus of one’s own country, and that it also warns against jingoistic hatred that is only self-destructive, preventing resolution of disputes when it may be possible (think Bridge of Spies), is constructive and certainly not anti-national. In fact, given the sizable fan following Shah Rukh has among Germans (as you can see here, here, here and here), Africans, Indonesians, Thais, Arabs and others, something those having travelled overseas can often attest to, he has only helped boost India’s image and made people globally more welcoming of Indians, of which this is indeed a notable example.
I was, in fact, shocked to see an article in the respected mainstream Indian magazine India Today criticise Pathaan before its release on the ground of there being in Bollywood an “obsession with (P)athaans”, a “rapacious group that over centuries raped Bharatiya women, brutalized its people and robbed our land”! This is outright hate speech against an entire ethnicity (that writer clearly does not know that there are Pathan Hindus as well), which has produced a secular legend of our freedom struggle like Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (praised even by former RSS chief MS Golwalkar), freedom fighters like Mian Akbar Ali Shah and
Abad Khan who played a pivotal role in Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose’s escape
from India (Abad Khan did not reveal anything to the British colonial authorities even under brutal
torture for over four years, while there were also Hindus like Bhagat Ram Talwar who betrayed
Netaji for money), Indian cricket legends like Irfan Pathan (a namesake of his, also an Indian Pathan Muslim, is a co-founder of and is actively involved in running the Indian company PI Green Innovations, which has come up with many interesting inventions to combat air pollution), Yusuf Pathan and Salim Durrani, Hindu temple conservationist Yeasin Pathan who spent his own money for the cause without caring for the orthodoxy among his co-religionists or Hindus, and a much-loved mathematics teacher turned Bollywood scriptwriter and actor, Kader Khan, who was no extremist, and by the way, the average Afghan Muslim (whether Pathan or of any other ethnicity) has great affection for India, even after the unelected Taliban’s ascent to power by violently overthrowing the moderate, democratic Afghan state, and a provincial governor there had put his own life on the line to protect Indian diplomats in Mazar-e-Sharif! Even historically, Mumtaz, a Pathan Muslim princess, protected a Sikh Khalsa warrior from Aurangzeb's men. Another usually relatively rational Hindu rightist portal Swarajya has referred to trustworthy and good-hearted Pathans as “fictional”, citing examples of extremists among Pathan Muslims (even stating, without any basis, the extremists to be the “majority” of Pathan Muslims), denying that there could have been Pathan Muslims protecting Hindus in the partition riots (though Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and many of his Pathan Muslim followers did do so, as acknowledged by freedom fighter Trilochan Singh displaced from Peshawar, among others), but while extremists do certainly exist among them, so do many moderates (including those who are orthodox but not seeking to violently impose their worldview on others - how conveniently these people look at Pathan Muslim extremists but ignore their also Pathan Muslim victims like Malala Yousufzai and Maria Toor!) and liberals, and why can’t Bollywood films showcase the moderates and liberals if they so desire, when they have actually never denied the existence of extremists among Pathan Muslims, and some like Kabul Express (scripted and directed by Kabir Khan) have even showcased the brutality of the Taliban? For all those advancing ugly stereotypes about Af-Pak Pathan Muslims, this, this, this and this would be worth a look!
Shah Rukh, in real life, has participated in Ganapati Visarjan, notwithstanding Muslim clerics having accosted Salman Khan of the same once. Indeed, he has a right to do what he thinks is right, and yes, no orthodox Muslim would even dream of doing such a thing involving idol-worship, not even for pretence, and precisely for reasons like these, large sections of the Muslim orthodoxy have largely nothing but contempt for him, as you can see from this disgusting statement from a leader of the AIMIM, a Muslim right-wing party with indeed a very problematic track record, and we had a lunatic Muslim cleric even telling the saffron loonies protesting against Pathaan that he would have no objection even if they killed Shah Rukh! That said, partaking in the religious practices of others ought not to be treated as some necessary prerequisite to judge religious tolerance. Very many mainstream Muslims do indeed believe that Islam is the only religion that can lead to God since the advent of Prophet Muhammad, as mainstream Christians believe the same for Christianity since the advent of Jesus, but that doesn’t entail intolerance towards those of other faiths, and their tolerance is of the “live and let live” variety, barring for some extremists resorting to forced conversions. To explain this with an analogy, if a certain coaching centre (analogous to Islam or Christianity, going by the mainstream interpretation) claims it is the only one that can get students admitted into, say, IIT (analogous to heaven), and even encourages its students to get students of other coaching centres and those not taking any coaching to join that particular coaching centre, it cannot be equated with forcing others to join their institute or killing those not willing to do so, as much as those resorting to force to that end should be called out and punished. In fact, both the Bible and the Quran preach the message of peaceful coexistence with other religious groups (the relevant verses in the context of the Quran are 2:256, 5:2, 5:8, 5:32, 6:108, 6:151, 10:99, 49:13, 60:8 and 109:6, and Rom. 12:18 and 1 Tim 2:2 may be cited in the context of the Bible). There are some controversial verses talking of war with “non-believers” but they are thankfully seen as contextual by most of their adherents (let’s not forget that most combatants taking on groups like the Taliban and ISIS on the ground and protecting non-Muslims from them are themselves local moderate Muslims), and both the Bible and the Quran do talk of honesty, forgiveness, charity and compassion.
In fact, other than saffron fascists as also fanatical Muslims, some cultural leftist loonies have bitterly criticised Shah Rukh (as you can see here and here) for not having peddled their melodramatic narratives of perennial Muslim victimhood in India, and for supposedly enjoying his celebrity status without caring for economically backward Indian Muslims, overlooking that he is a living embodiment of rising up the economic ladder not having born into privilege, and as a celebrity, has engaged in charity for economically backward Indians, irrespective of religious affiliation. Also, his interacting with politicians across party lines is a necessity for him to raise concerns of the film industry, in which he is an active participant not only an actor but also a producer, and he has otherwise been vocal against Hindu extremism in India. And the protagonist in Pathaan not knowing his bloodline does not, in any way, deny his Muslim-ness, when he uses Islamic greetings in the film, and in films like Chak de India, the same idea of Indian-ness and Muslim-ness not being contradictory has been showcased evocatively without questioning the protagonist’s Muslim ancestry, and if someone accuses him of apathy towards the issue of Islamophobia, they need to watch My Name Is Khan. While I still maintain that an actor is not responsible for the screenplay, Shah Rukh has, in any case, been vocal about both his Indian-ness and Muslim-ness without any contradiction.
As for larger debates surrounding Bollywood, it wouldn’t hurt to admit that indeed, on some occasions, Hindu sensibilities have been taken for granted (though there is nothing to suggest that there was any deliberate design to the colours of clothes worn by the hero and heroine in the Besharam Rang song sequence in Pathaan) and soft anti-Hindu biases have been peddled consciously or unconsciously in some films (though I would not count Pathaan in that category at all, which also very evocatively portrayed the protagonist’s female boss as being a devout disciple of Lord Shiv), and even anti-minority biases in some others (indeed a very lengthy and subjective discussion that can make for another article altogether!), but it has made great nationalist films, films opposed to jihadist terrorism (Roja touched on the issue soon after it cropped up in India, followed by indeed many others like Sarfarosh, Mission Kashmir, 16 December, Mumbai Meri Jan, The Attacks of 26/11, Neerja, Holiday: A Soldier is Never Off Duty, Baby and Phantom) and films with beautiful bhajans. To boycott the whole of Bollywood, which has made much appealing cinema that has been appreciated from Latin America to East Europe to Africa to the Middle East to Central Asia to China to Southeast Asia, would be grossly unfair. The idea that Bollywood lacks originality is indeed also a bit of a stretch. Saying so is really doing injustice to the Neeraj Pandeys, Rajkumar Hiranis, Nagesh Kuknoors, Ashutosh Gowarikars, Imtiaz Alis, Sanjay Lila Bhansalis, Shoojit Sircars, Zoya Akhtars, Vishal Bharadwajes and even Priyadarshans, even if we were to not go back to the times of the Raj Kapoors and Guru Dutts. I'd rank Hera Pheri as superior to many Hollywood comedies, romantic movies like Jaane Tu Ya Jane Na and Salam Namaste are not about dancing around trees, and commercial movies like Akira and Badla have been successful at the box office without any songs - so much for our stereotypes! Bollywood certainly has, at times, wrongly plagiarised without attribution (for which it has even legally paid a price occasionally; some movies have been remade with due legal process, and I found the Bollywood movie Chef an improved version of its Hollywood counterpart), but it has also inspired Hollywood and other film industries elsewhere, as you can see here, here, here and here, and original Indian music has also been plagiarized by Westerners, and the likes of AR Rahman, Vishal Bharadwaj, Pritam and Monty Sharma have composed great original music, not to forget bizarre Western attempts at patents over basmati cultivation or medication from neem and haldi! Nor is nepotism based on family connections absent in South Indian film industries (as you can see here and here) or even Hollywood, and this also exists in non-film industries globally too – next, will we boycott all products and services offered by family-owned firms?! Heck, most of our kirana stores are family-owned, and Eastern societies, being more family-oriented than Western counterparts, will see a greater reflection of that in all the industries as well! And the intellectual dishonesty and idiocy of Kangana Ranaut, who started this whole debate around nepotism (admittedly not entirely irrelevant), can make for a whole article altogether. However, the way sections of the Hindu right have tried to attack Bollywood, a strong bastion of Indian religious pluralism and syncretism, as a space defined primarily by nepotism and dope to discredit it, misusing the tragedy of Sushant Singh Rajput’s demise with a lot of intellectual dishonesty, is something I have discussed at length here.
Sure, Bollywood has produced much poor content, especially in the 1990s, but this tendency of outright trashing it, often by the people who do watch it, is quite unfair. In fact, we saw a lull in the last few years, with very few excellent movies, and given how Pathaan demonstrates the sacrifices of those in our security forces and intelligence agencies, it should be promoted also to boost our economy!
Given the undoubtedly enormous success of Pathaan, even receiving much critical acclaim nationally and internationally (while it was willfully comically unrealistic at places like the Johnny English film series, the plot was coherent and gripping enough indeed), and given how it has revived local single-screen movie theatres that had shut down, my hypothesis about the failure of films like Laal Singh Chadha having been owing to their poor plot rather than some tens of thousands of boycott calls on the social media, stands validated. After all, those voting for the BJP and its allies (that too, for a variety of reasons), make up for about 40% of the electorate, of which the hardcore Hindu bigots (though indeed unfortunately more in number than ever before in the last four to five decades, owing to indoctrination by the godi media and social media) are only a tiny fraction; so, while boycott calls can adversely affect the proceeds of a film, they do not overall determine its success or failure. The great initial box office reception Ae Dil Hai Mushkil got, despite the thuggery of the MNS, is also a good case in point. Too bad, saffron fascists, you couldn’t get your countrywide NRC to harass innocent economically backward Muslim fellow citizens sleeping on pavements to, in a baseless fashion, brand all of them as illegal immigrants and have them detained****, nor will you be able to kill Bollywood or the superstardom of some Muslims in it (how spectators cheered on loudly in multiple theatres across the country in response to the last sequence of Pathaan with Shah Rukh and Salman on that cliff, subtly alluding to how they still remain the superstars with no young actors to replace that status of theirs!)! In fact, we've given the BJP such a tight slap on its face with Pathaan that even minister Anurag Thakur, who subtly spoke genocidal language against Muslim fellow citizens in 2020, has strongly opposed boycott calls for films at least before a film releases and praised Bollywood for enhancing India's soft power.
Jai Hind!
*The Kashmiri Pandits undoubtedly suffered a colossal tragedy in 1989-1990 (when we had a BJP-supported coalition government at the centre) as they were specifically targeted by jihadist terrorists and their over-ground supporters for their religious identity and driven out of their homeland (those offering conspiracy theories of denial or economic class rationalisations as regards the same are requested to see this), and indeed, many Hindu temples have also been destroyed or damaged in Kashmir over the decades [none of which should be trivialised and the perpetrators must be legally punished, though some in the BJP have grossly exaggerated figures to fuel divisiveness, while importantly, the BJP has done dispense little to actually help the Kashmiri Pandits, on which the Congress has a better track record (as you can see here and here; settling the issue would prevent the BJP from milking it endlessly for its divisive agenda), the case being similar for cleaning the Ganga, a river regarded as sacred by Hindus], but even in those dark days of 1989-1990, many Kashmiri Muslims, including some with separatist views, helped protect their Kashmiri Pandit neighbours and colleagues and helped them escape safely. Some Kashmiri Pandits never left the valley in or after 1989-1990 (I have actually even interacted with one such gentleman still residing in the valley) and some returned for their Muslim neighbours made them feel secure (which is not to deny the genuine insecurity generated by terrorists and their over-ground supporters in most parts of the valley), and in many cases, their neighbours indeed lived up to their assurances (as you can see here, here, here and here). Four Kashmiri Muslim policemen were even martyred protecting Kashmiri Pandits in Shopian in 2018 and indeed, over the decades, several tens of thousands of Kashmiri Muslim civilians have also been killed by terrorists, often brutally, for a variety of reasons, including opposing separatism (as you can see here and here), a phenomenon that was ongoing even when Kashmiri Pandits were being targeted en masse in 1989-1990. Some Kashmiri Muslims, including possibly those with separatist views, have helped protect and preserve Hindu temples (as you can see here and here). Equally, many Kashmiri Pandits, even among those displaced, to their credit, have not been lacking in humanitarian empathy for regular Kashmiri Muslims either (as you can see here, here and here). Kashmiri Muslims have helped protect (sometimes even at the cost of their lives) and assist not only Kashmiri Hindus but even non-Kashmiri Indians, including Amarnath pilgrims, as you can see here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. In fact, a lot of regular Kashmiri Muslims helped the local Kashmiri Muslim policemen in nailing down those terrorists who targeted innocent Amarnath pilgrims in 2017. Equally, many non-Kashmiri Indians helped cash-starved Kashmiri Muslim students studying outside the valley in other parts of India with money during the communication blackout in the valley, as you can see, for example, here and here, and also helped Kashmiri Muslims outside the valley with accommodation when they were feeling insecure in the wake of the ridiculous attacks on innocent Kashmiri Muslims after the tragic Pulwama attack, as you can see, for example, here and here. A Kashmiri Pandit lady won the election to become the sarpanch (village chieftain) of a Muslim-majority village in Kashmir defeating her Muslim rival in 2011, and yet another Kashmiri Pandit, Ajay Pandita, was elected sarpanch in a Muslim-majority village in Kashmir in 2020 (though he was unfortunately killed in cold blood by separatist terrorists, like many Kashmiri Muslims also are for voting and contesting under the Indian constitutional setup – see, for example, news of Wasim Ahmad Khanday, a Kashmiri Muslim sarpanch, killed after Ajay Pandita; in fact, over half a score of sarpanches in Kashmir, mostly Muslims, have been killed by terrorists since 2011), just as Muslims have also been elected sarpanch in some Hindu-majority villages in other parts of India, even in recent years, as you can see here and here. Even elsewhere in the Islamic world, in Iraq, Ammar Francis Boutros, a Christian, won a parliamentary seat representing the Muslim-majority province of Wasit (Al-Kut) southeast of Baghdad where the number of Christian families can be counted on one's fingertips, and the Iraqi judiciary has awarded the death penalty to an ISIS terrorist for having raped a woman from Iraq’s non-Muslim Yazidi minority. In Senegal, a Muslim-majority (Senegal is over 95% Muslim) constitutional secular democracy (there are also several others like Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Burkina Faso), their first ever elected president was Leopold Sedar Senghor, a Christian. Janet Michael, a Palestinian Christian lady, was elected mayor of Ramallah, Palestine, and Alees Thomas, also a Christian lady, chaired Bahrain's upper house of parliament. Non-Muslim Chinese-origin people like Henk Ngangtung and Basuki Tjahaja have been elected governors of Jakarta. These facts are also worth noting for those unduly bashing Londoners for having elected a Muslim mayor (wrongly saying that non-Muslims can never get elected from Muslim-majority constituencies), though that mayor, in fact, has demonstrated no extremist tendencies but their very opposite, though some people have quoted him out of context to wrongly impute otherwise. There are indeed many Hindus who reside with security of life and property in Muslim-majority countries like the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Oman, Bahrain, Qatar and Malaysia. In most Arab countries (though not including Saudi Arabia), Indian expatriates have legally set up Hindu and Sikh temples, as you can see, for example, here, here, here, here and here (and no, the Hindu temple inaugurated by the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi in Abu Dhabi and which is under construction is NOT the first ever Hindu temple even in the UAE, as you can see here, here and here, and the late Sultan Qaboos of Oman, an Indophile who had pursued college in India and who deepened strategic ties between Oman and India, personally took keen interest in the upkeep of Hindu temples in his country) while they have indeed rightly disallowed even their local Muslims to pray on the roadside (even in India, both Hindus and Muslims have rightly been punished from time to time for prayer congregations while obstructing public passage, and if some law-enforcers have gone soft on such people, whatever their religious identity, as has happened often for whatever reason, that is indeed wrong), and the Middle Eastern and North African governments have indeed often promptly taken action in cases of religious vandalism or bigoted speech by Muslim extremists, as you can see, for example, here, here and here. In Malaysia, the state has come down very hard on forced conversions of Hindu children to Islam, arrested Muslims engaging in anti-Hindu hate speech and barred preacher Zakir Naik from addressing public gatherings when he made bigoted utterances there. Malaysian Hindus have legally created a pilgrimage shrine at the Batu Caves primarily dedicated to Lord Murugan and the government of Malaysia has, on bearing burial costs, buried Muslims and non-Muslim Bateks still following the indigenous faith based on their respective customs. In Muslim-majority Bangladesh, whenever the Awami League, seen as a relatively secular political party in that country (it has been proactive in taking action in instances of violence or threats to liberal Muslims and religious minorities, including Hindus, as you can see, for example, here, here, here, here and here, and Awami League leaders have even been on jihadist terrorists’ hit-lists), has been in power, it has worked with India at checking jihadist terrorism as also secessionist insurgencies in Northeast India. Not to deny that Muslim-majority countries, including Bangladesh and Malaysia, do have Muslim politicians taking to ugly religion-based politics and pandering to extremists, and some Muslim-majority countries too have locals subjecting those of other religions to communal slurs and even Muslims of other ethnicities to racial slurs, but the picture is not entirely as negative as portrayed by some, and India also does unfortunately see hate crimes against Dalits, intra-gotra couples and so on, other than those from religious and racial minorities facing sporadic slurs, and even Western countries do see hate crimes on grounds of ethnicity and other factors, be it Canada (as you can see here and here), Sweden or even New Zealand or Iceland; so, it would not be appropriate to only look at Muslim-majority countries or regions from the angle of extremism or to negatively stereotype all or most Muslims (as much as much reform is certainly required in the Islamic world, in fact, overall more than elsewhere). Groups like Al Qaeda, the Taliban and the ISIS, not elected by Muslims and dictatorially seeking to impose their writ, are, no doubt, barbaric but it may be noted that they have killed more liberal and moderate Muslims than non-Muslims, as you can see here, here, here and here.
**Jinnah’s thesis has indeed failed miserably, given the creation of Bangladesh and much intra-Muslim violence in Pakistan thereafter too, on sectarian lines (as you can see with Ahmedias and Shias being brutally targeted and even Deobandi-Barelvi riots), linguistic lines or even against liberal practising and non-practising Sunni Muslims by extremists. And yes, given Pakistan’s economic situation now, where they are running short of food, cooking gas is literally a luxury (a cylinder being worth more than a lakh of rupees!) and the state not having fuel to run their trains, it is indeed, to a great extent, a failed state!
***While the constitutionality of how the abrogation was carried out is beyond the scope of this article, the Indian state, ever since the accession of the princely state of J&K to India on 27th October 1947, has maintained for decades that J&K is an integral part of India, even if with some special privileges in an asymmetrical federal system agreed upon at the time of the accession of J&K to India. Given that the abrogation of Article 370 was accompanied by such a harsh communication blackout, which caused much hardship to citizens [that led to adverse effects not only on businesses but, coupled with other means of communication being disrupted, also medical treatment (even resulting in very tragic fatalities, with ambulances not being called in time owing to no landline, mobile or internet connectivity for some months, and doctors could not access latest information about Covid-19), schooling, university applications, transferring money to students outside the valley, checking on ailing relatives, funerals etc. for law-abiding Kashmiris, while mobs continued to protest violently and militants continued to strike, the militants using satellite telephones], the longest ever internet shutdown in any democratic country globally, coupled with detentions of several mainstream, non-separatist Kashmiri political leaders subscribing to the Indian constitution for no crime committed by them but to silence their voices, the move could not end stone-pelting or militancy, in which non-Kashmiri Indian civilians, even if Muslims, have unfortunately been targeted, nor help win over Kashmiri Muslims, as much as some pro-BJP Kashmiri Muslim faces have indeed been propped up (in fact, the move has irked even pro-India and politically ambivalent Kashmiri Muslims), nor really inspire many Kashmiri Hindus to return to Kashmir (in fact, many from the very few still staying there have felt deeply insecure, even considering leaving the valley after some rather tragic and reprehensible terrorist attacks targeting them even after the abrogation) nor encourage many non-Kashmiri Indians to settle there. And the BJP still retaining special statuses (under Articles 371A to H of the constitution relating to Northeast Indian states that the BJP has explicitly promised to not amend) and domicile restrictions in states of Northeast India (even strengthening domicile restrictions on buying land in Meghalaya as well as the Bodo-majority and Karbi-majority areas of Assam, and domicile restrictions do exist on owning property even in other hilly regions with fragile ecosystems like Himachal Pradesh under Section 118 of the Himachal Pradesh Tenancy and Land Reform Act, 1972, and have been demanded by Jammuite Hindus and Ladakhi Buddhists after the abrogation of Article 370 as well) and Scheduled Tribe areas [under the Forest Rights Act, 2006, and the Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas (PESA) Act, 1996] with their own history of separatist and Maoist terrorism that have actually taken more lives than in Kashmir (as you can see here and here) and have also caused mass exoduses of civilian populations (as you can see here, here and here), these insurgencies also having been sponsored by foreign powers (as you can see here, here, here, here and here), only exposes the hypocrisy of the BJP, and while some may argue that the blanket communication blackout in Kashmir for months together would have still helped the security forces in counterterror operations, holding the entire regular personal and professional lives of very many law-abiding fellow citizens hostage for months together is still not acceptable and has not been done in other conflict zones in the country. The BJP’s divergent approaches are quite obviously because it has managed to win elections in Northeast India and tribal areas in mainland India (the BJP won 35 out of the 47 Scheduled Tribe seats in the Lok Sabha elections in 2019), unlike in Kashmir, and reforms like allowing progeny of J&Kite women married to non-J&Kite men a share in property and giving citizenship to Hindu and Sikh refugees from Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) could have been brought in by the then BJP government-appointed Governors’ administration in J&K (Governors were running the administration since 20th June 2018 and Lieutenant Governors since 5th August 2019) without wholesale abrogation too, given that Article 10 of the then J&K constitution recognised the right to equality under Article 14 of the Indian constitution. Also, the argument that Kashmiri militants can now be lodged in jails and tried outside Kashmir is irrelevant, for even before the abrogation, they were often transferred to jails in the city of Jammu, overall largely free of terrorism, and if it is argued that the city of Jammu has also seen some terrorist attacks, so have, rather unfortunately, many cities across mainland India, even by some Kashmiri Muslims, as you can see here, for example. Nor has the BJP actually had a history of being above appeasing separatists. After making much noise over the delay in hanging Afzal Guru convicted for involvement in the reprehensible attack on the Indian parliament in 2001, the BJP under PM Modi contributed to having commuted the death sentence of Khalistani terrorist Balwant Singh Rajoana, and even felicitated for their courage former Mizo separatist rebels, who had taken Chinese state support, in the presence of Chinese officials! Not only that, they have actually given blanket amnesty to Bodo separatist insurgents under PM Modi and even earlier under PM Vajpayee, including to those with a track record of killing unarmed civilians. Mentioning how the vast majority of Kashmiri Muslims felt aggrieved by and smelled hypocrisy in the months-long communication blackout they will never forget does not widen the gulf between them and mainland Indians, nor does mentioning, for that matter, how like other residents of conflict zones globally, Kashmiri Muslims have suffered gross human rights violations at the hands of rogue elements in the Indian security forces [these human rights violations by rogue elements in the Indian security forces have been acknowledged even by General VP Malik who led India to the victory in the Kargil war, other military veterans like Major Gaurav Arya, and by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and former BJP defence ministers (both now no more) Arun Jaitley and Manohar Parrikar], something the Kashmiri Muslims are indeed themselves very well aware of; in fact, acknowledgement of genuine grievances with empathy by more mainland Indians would help bridge divides (an approach more and more Kashmiri Muslims should also adopt vis-à-vis the Kashmiri Pandits). And contrary to what some may imagine, Article 370 had nothing to do with the extent of central government funds being poured into Kashmir.
****There was no clarification that the NRC would be on different lines than in Assam (where innocent, law-abiding citizens were detained as “foreigners”, as you can see here and here, treating economically backward people as guilty of being illegal migrants until proven innocent, refusing to use modern techniques like DNA testing for those who claim to be progeny of parents who can prove their Indian citizenship), the BJP leadership itself linked the idea of the proposed countrywide NRC to the CAA, and the BJP leadership was later so embarrassed that it blatantly lied, denying having talked of a countrywide NRC in the first place! Rest, I have no problem with detaining or even deporting actual illegal immigrants, as has even been done on several occasions, as you can see here and here, whom the Bangladeshi state is even willing to accept, and while I am all for beefing up border security to prevent illegal immigration, making the entire Indian citizenry prove its citizenship would have been an immensely wasteful exercise in terms of time and finances. The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) exposed a huge scam in the Assam NRC in 2019, accepted by the then finance minister of Assam from the BJP. Economically backward Muslim citizens of India without official identity documents understandably felt vulnerable about being potentially stripped of their citizenship and detained for no crime whatsoever, a rather undesirable position even if later able to prove their innocence. Thus, I believe that the protests against the NRC were legitimate, and many of them were indeed completely peaceful and upholding the secular ethos of the Indian constitution (as you can see here and here), in some cases, also demanding justice for the Kashmiri Pandits (as you can see here and here), and again, this was much before the release of that hateful film The Kashmir Files. I do, however, strongly condemn some elements in the anti-NRC protests for resorting to violence (see, for example, here, here, here and here), vandalism (see, for example, here and here; however, violence and vandalism have unfortunately been carried out by some in many protests in India, even those not particularly involving Muslims, like against the Agniveer scheme, or by followers of godman Ram Rahim Singh, or even by Jats, Gujjars and Patidars seeking reservations) and hate speech (as you can see here and here, and again, communal hate speeches in India are far from a Muslim monopoly, and you can see examples from among Christians against Hindus here and Sikhs against Hindus here and here), which was indeed notably also strongly opposed by many Muslims themselves.
(Updated on 26th September 2023.)
By:
Karmanye Thadani
Knowledge Council
