Reaching out to critics is part of our mission (Part 2)

The Burden of Countering Islamophobia Should Not Fall on Muslims - A Response to our Friendly Critic

In our continuing effort to engage with our critics, we share a recent exchange with an individual who wrote to us asserting that in order to address sweeping Islamophobia in India, Muslims “must take a clear stand” on a number of issues to counter the narratives of the RSS/BJP. 

Unfortunately, his six-point ‘prescription’ for Indian Muslims (see his email, copied below) resembles many of the same talking points advanced by Hindu nationalists, so we decided to write him a detailed response. We are sharing this response here, in hopes that it will address many of these right-wing talking points that are all too often repeated by even well-intentioned liberals. 

Feb 23, 2022

Sunita

PD has shared your mails with me (a Hindu), and we have been working via mails and personal meetings to understand the root-cause of Islamophobia sweeping India via conversation with Hindus/Muslims here.

I learned the following from the U.S. election process: A politician is asked to define themselves [sic] early in political cycle (e.g., in terms of views on Policing, Abortion, etc.) BEFORE your opponent does.

I feel that Indian Muslims are letting  RSS/BJP define them rather than stepping forward and doing it themselves. Now for that to  happen Indian Muslims have to take clear stand on following:

1.    No country/people like to be invaded/occupied - understand if Hindus feel upset about Islamic rule in India

2.    Destructions of any place of worship is condemnable - including Hindu temples/idols

3.    Women rights are a high priority - regret Muslims putting pressure on Rajiv Gandhi administration for reversing the Supreme Court judgement on Shah Bano case

4.    Recognize the nefarious role Pakistan has played since its founding -  trying to divide and destroy India.

5.    Full faith in Indian Secularism - even where Muslims are majority

6.    Conversion to Islam - recognize that ancestors of most Muslims were Hindus and they continue to special positive feelings for them.

Look forward to your comments.

Regards
AD

March 7, 2022

Dear AD,

We appreciate your taking the time to share your thoughts regarding Islamophobia and Indian Muslims. We at HfHR welcome any civil conversations about the direction of India's secular democracy, especially from the perspective of youth. 

Before we offer our responses to your thoughts, we would like to share the story of two young men living somewhere in India: 

Amjad and Anand grew up in the same middle-class neighborhood, went to the same school, played cricket together, and were very good friends. As far as they knew, both their families had lived in India for generations. They got along very well and rarely saw themselves in religious terms. Their parents too were friendly, if a bit uncomfortable in certain conversations. Anand knew that his grandma did not want to see a “Muslim boy” inside their house. And Amjad knew that the two families could never eat together as their dietary habits were drastically different. But that had not stopped the families from being friends and exchanging sweets on Diwali and Id. 

Everything changed in 2014:

Amjad’s family is aghast at the near-daily violence against Muslims reported from different parts of the country and they are scared as never before. Open calls for a boycotts and genocide of Muslims from Delhi and Haridwar have shaken them to the core, as has the complete silence of the Modi government. The family often recalls the story of how their elders had never even considered the possibility of moving to Pakistan in 1947 and had placed complete faith in the secular Indian constitution, which had guaranteed equality under the law and freedom to practice their faith. 

Amjad’s uncle in Assam has been going through a trying time, as the National Register of Citizens (NRC) has excluded his family even though they have lived in Assam for several generations -- state bureaucrats had ruled that their documents were not good enough to prove their long-term residence. The family does not know what the future holds for them: Loss of voting rights? Detention camps? “Deportation” (to where)? This has added to the fears of Amjad’s family: Will the NRC come to their state? Will their documents be accepted? Should they too be prepared for the worst?

In contrast, Anand’s family is more and more enthralled by the Modi government and the BJP. Anand’s father now frequently talks about how history has been unfair to Hindus and how it is time for Hindus to assert themselves and stop “appeasing” Muslims. He considers Modi as the best thing that has happened to India. The family fully supports the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya in place of the demolished Babri Masjid.

The two families have grown distant in recent years. Amjad’s attempts to talk to Anand about his family’s existential fear are greeted either with silence or reassurances along the lines of “Don’t worry yaar! You are not like other Muslims.” 

Today, this story is being played out for millions of Amjads and Anands throughout India. 

The reality that Muslims are facing is the Modi government’s march towards  a Hindu Rashtra, where they would either have no place or must reconcile themselves to second-class citizenship with lesser rights. 

In contrast, families like Anand’s just can’t understand what the fuss is all about. They would rather talk about how India is making great strides under Modi and how, for a change, India is being taken seriously by the world. Yes, too bad that some incidents of anti-Muslim violence do happen, but “such violence take place in the U.S. too, don’t they?”

The story of Amjad and Anand shows all the classic symptom of majoritarianism: i.e. When the majority community thinks that everything is going well, is unable to feel the fear and insecurity of minority communities—even their own friends—and may even think that reports of rising anti-minority violence and bigotry are being greatly exaggerated. And soon, they begin to believe that those who dare to challenge the government’s policies are anti-India, and anti-Hindu.

It is with their story as the background that we would like to address your proposition, which seems to place the primary burden of rising Islamophobia in India upon the shoulders of Muslims.

***

You said: “I feel that Indian Muslims are letting RSS/BJP define them rather than stepping forward and doing it themselves. Now for that to happen Indian Muslims have to take clear stand on following.”

First of all, the very notion of “Indian Muslims” as a monolith is troublesome. Indeed, Muslims have been defining themselves and “stepping forward” as citizens in many arenas, just as other citizens are. There can be no better examples than the anti-CAA protests led by Muslim women and the latest incidents of individual Muslim women asserting their rights to wear a hijab, as they boldly confront gangs of menacing Hindu students on college and school campuses. 

To us, the more disturbing reality is that the majority of Hindus and Hindu religious leaders, instead of stepping forward to say “Not in our names,” are letting RSS/BJP define them and recast Hinduism in the mold of Hindutva ideology. 

Those who refuse to see this reality and propose all kinds of litmus tests for Muslims to prove their rights to equal citizenship are fundamentally operating through an Islamophobic lens, in my view.

You said: “No country/people like to be invaded/occupied - understand if Hindus feel upset about Islamic rule in India.”

Your statement seems to imply that today’s Muslims are somehow responsible for invaders of centuries back, or that they do not appreciate the ill-feelings over centuries of foreign rule.

But Amjad and Anand were born in the 80s, and like all youth in India they are focused on getting a good education, a good job, and taking care of their families as they grow old. Are you suggesting that their lives today should be dictated by what they think about centuries-old history? 

What Amjad is conscious of today is that it is the Indian state that is behaving as a colonial and occupying power in the Kashmir valley, taking away the freedoms of eight million Muslims and trying to force demographic change in the state. Amjad too might be wondering if Hindus truly understand why Muslims in other parts of India feel upset and are wondering if they might be next?

You said: “Destructions of any place of worship is condemnable - including Hindu temples/idols.”

We  can’t agree with you more, but what has this got to do with rising Islamophobia? Certainly, it is not the Muslims who are going around destroying places of worship and prayer. On the contrary, it is the foot soldiers of Hindutva who seem intent on the destruction of mosques and dargahs in many cities, starting from the violence in Gujarat in 2002.  

The tragedy is that the Modi government looks the other way and BJP/RSS/VHP fans see the Supreme Court verdict on the Babri Masjid/Ram Mandir dispute as a green light for more such destruction across the country. Even the Taj Mahal does not seem immune from the Hindu fanatics.  

Truth be told, the destruction of Hindu temples/idols in contemporary India is not the work of Muslims or any other community, but by a government that is destroying temples in places like Varanasi in the name of tourist development.

You said: “Women rights are a high priority - regret Muslims putting pressure on Rajiv Gandhi administration for reversing the Supreme Court judgement on Shah Bano case”

Once again, we agree whole-heartedly that women’s rights must be a high priority. But the fact that your only point of reference seems to be the decades-old Shah Bano case -- about which neither Amjad or Anand have any knowledge nor do they care -- shows up the anti-Muslim bias in your statement.

Indeed, those who are truly concerned about women’s rights should be speaking about the near-daily rape of Dalit women in India; the spate of honor killings in several communities; the “Love Jihad” laws which fundamentally treat Hindu women as objects to be “safe-guarded” from Muslim men, and so many other tangible examples of women’s oppression in contemporary India.

If anyone thinks that harassing women in hijab and stopping them from going to schools or colleges advances women’s rights, they are sadly mistaken.

You said: “Recognize the nefarious role Pakistan has played since its founding -  trying to divide and destroy India.”

We all remember Modiji’s many bigoted anti-Muslim comments over the years, none of which is more insidious than his blatant attempts to connect all Gujarati Muslims to Pakistan, as he did in the elections following the 2002 carnage. 

Your comment, sadly, repeats the same specious argument that somehow the Muslims of India have a special responsibility to condemn Pakistan—a country which does not govern them and to which they owe no allegiance. Why is this their responsibility any more than the responsibility of Indian Hindus?

India wants to be a serious player in the international arena and wants to compete with the West, but its foot soldiers seem still stuck in the old game of blaming Pakistan and Bangladesh for everything wrong in India, including the escalating anti-minority crimes.

HfHR is on record condemning anti-minority violence in all of South Asia, be it against Hindus, Christians and Ahmadis in Pakistan and Bangladesh; or Muslims, Christians, Dalits and Adivasis in India. To justify what is happening in one’s own country by focusing only on what’s happening in another country is morally indefensible.

You said: “Full faith in Indian Secularism - even where Muslims are majority” 

This statement too betrays an anti-Muslim bias, I am afraid. Perhaps, you should add ”even where Hindus are majority.”

If anyone is working overtime to dismantle India’s secularism, it is the BJP and RSS. It is certainly not Amjad’s family or the vast majority of Indian Muslims, who have always had full faith in Indian secularism, but are not sure any more if the majority community believes in the Indian constitution.

BJP politicians on the other hand selectively talk about secularism when promoting the hijab ban but then wear saffron robes and tilaks in parliament and openly take part in religious ceremonies—for example, Prime Minister  Modi performing religious rites while inaugurating the ram mandir in Ayodhya.

You said: “Conversion to Islam - recognize that ancestors of most Muslims were Hindus and they continue to special positive feelings for them.”

This statement seems to echo Mr. Subramanya Swami, who has gone on record saying that any Muslim who does not acknowledge his Hindu ancestry should be stripped of voting rights!

Our question is, shall we also demand that Hindus acknowledge that many of them were Buddhists before the advent of the Bhakti movement, whose rising popularity at the end of the first millennium contributed to the decline of Buddhism in India? Shall we also demand that Anand’s family publicly acknowledge that as Brahmins, they are responsible for perpetuating the heinous caste system, which continues to this day with millions of Dalits continuing to experience an Indian version of “Jim Crow”?

***

We appreciate the fact that you and others are trying to understand the root causes of Islamophobia sweeping India. But we are afraid that beginning your analysis with the stereotypical talking points of the Hindu-right is in fact a non-starter. We cannot and must not hold the younger generation of Indians like Amjad and Anand hostage to our historical biases and the resulting ‘Whataboutisms.’ 

They, like all of us, are children of a secular India, and the only way we can support their future is to speak out against all forms of bias and bigotry—especially the kind being inflamed by the current rulers of India—and to demand that the rulers stop profaning India’s secular constitution.

Is your group willing to consider these points in your discussions?

Sincerely,

Pranay and Raju for the HfHR Team

 ***