Today in India there is a whole hoard of so-called eminent persons – writers, artiests, cinema celebrities etc – who criticize the present government led by Modi by flinging an accusation that India is on the way to become a “Hindu Pakistan”. They have become particularly more ferocious and vocal in this accusation, while they support the agitation cooked by opposition political parties against the CAA – Citizens Amendment Act, a law that grants right to the Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Christians, Jains of Pakistan who were persecuted there to obtain Indian citizenship. These “eminent” persons try to make it believed that they “do not like” what Pakistan is and what that country stands for. No body can peep into their hearts to find out what in fact is stored there about Pakistan. Their hearts – like the heart of anybody else – are their private chambers holding there their private secrets about their love or hate for that country.
But it is very strange on their part that they have never spoken a single word protesting against the persecution of these minority communities of Pakistan.
It is rightly said, acts of a person speak louder than his words. Do they hold these communities are not persecuted in Pakistan? They cannot be supposed to be that ignorant or innocent in this age of internet, when the YouTube, Twitter, Blogs etc are full of real time details of the heart wrenching facts of murders, rapes and inhuman treatment of these communities in Pakistan – simply on the ground that they are “Kafirs” in the eyes of Muslims of Pakistan. Do persons like Javed Akhtar not watch YouTube? Nobody can believe that. Does YouTube not have real stories narrated and uploaded on YouTube in Pakistan by the persecuted people of these communities? Today anybody having a smart phone can shoot and upload on internet the events of his life. Any doubt? YouTube is full of these stories and nobody – except the one who loves Pakistan and wishes to gloss over these crimes of Pakistan – can doubt their authenticity. Why Pakistan is full of such inhuman crimes against their minority communities? Pakistan was created and founded on a thinking – the Islamic pure land. What is this “Islamic pure land” like? Here we are re-producing the material bearing on this aspect. If India ever becomes a “Hindu Pakistan”, it can not become like Pakistan. “Hindu Pakistan” can never be like Pakistan. Why it is so? Here we are again re-producing an article having a bearing on this fact. There are two parts of this article. The first part deals about the mentality of Pakistan. And the second part deals with “Hindu Pakistan”, that is, India dominated by the Hindu thinking.
PART ONE:
Historically the concept of secularism is confined to those countries only where the majority of people follow Christian religion. It is conspicuously absent in the Islamic world. Islamic world – since the origin of Islam in Arab in 622 AD – did neither believe in this principle of the separation of state from the religious institutions nor follow it in any country where Islam is in power. Why is it so? The reason is that Islam did not experience the mental awakening till now, which could evoke scientific queries and produce discoveries. Islam prohibits such queries if they go against its holy book and punishes them under blasphemy law. It has no space for people to freely speak their mind. Why Islam is unable to follow secularism? It is so because, while Christianity had abolished long ago the law of blasphemy, Islam has been unable to do so till today. While the non-Muslim world is moving at breakneck speed to uncover the scientific secrets of Nature, the Muslim world is mired in blasphemy, terrorism and violent Jihad.
The inner and outer structure of Islam and Christianity, both, is such that they cannot survive without preying upon other religions, which are incompatible with them. They say they are the only true ones and the final words of God (strangely, they both claim an exclusive God and His final word in their holy books, but do not agree with each other on that God and His words). Being the exclusive claimants for (their) God, they cannot allow a rival similar claim and, as of necessity, must devour any rival claimants, and assimilate their body within their own self. To translate the words of their God into reality, Islam integrated religion with state and vested this dual authority in its Caliph. It teaches in its holy book that this world an open field for waging a war to establish its rule. It is a war to establish the world wide empire of Islam and its rule. In this imperial war Islam in its holy book commands its followers to practice a morality of telling intentional lies (Taqia) to their enemies – to deceive them – in the style of “a smile on your face and hate in the heart when you are weak and when you are in power not to relent at all until your enemy has surrendered to you in terror.” It is a religious morality of breaking your solemn promises and terrorism. The build of their thinking and their organization is solely directed at killing all those who are foreign to them in thinking. They feed on their corpse. These two religions cannot coexist with other religions. With the invasion of India by Islam under Mohammad bin Kasim in 718 AD, for the first time a very strange situation arose in India. India had not witnessed such a situation during its long past. The Islamic State, which was integrated with that religion, disallowed Indians any kind of religious dissent. Even an attempted dissent of any kind against Islam was labeled as blasphemy and this blasphemy was declared a crime. This crime was punishable with death by the Islamic State. The medieval Indian history of Islamic rule is soaked with the blood of Indian people who were following faiths different from Islam – like Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism and many more like them. These hapless Indian people were declared by Islam as living in the ‘Age of Ignorance’ (Jahilya) and forced to convert to Islam under the threat of murder. Those who refused or resisted, were put to death mercilessly and their women and children were enslaved for sex (Gilmas). Their property was looted as war booty (Mal-e-Ganimat). Those of them who somehow escaped death and still survived, were imposed an exorbitant heretic tax named Zazia. A vast collection of their books – the treasure of precious knowledge – kept in libraries were burnt. In one such unfortunate incident of burning of books kept in the library of Nalanda University, a Muslim religious zealot named Bakhtiar Khilj gave an astonishing logic in justification of his act (of burning). He said, “If these books in library say what Koran has said, they are superfluous and deserve to be burnt. If they say against Koran, they are dangerous and deserve to be burnt. They say either what Koran has said or against Koran. In both cases, they need to be destroyed.” Millions of people following Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and their other sects and sub-sects were killed by Muslims simply because they believed in something that was not Islam and they refused to convert to Islam. It is estimated by some scholars that Islam committed in India the greatest genocide in the human history. This crime was committed against the Indian people because of their religious dissent.
The first attempt to carry the victorious banner of Islam into India was made by Mohammad bin Kasim in 718 AD, who came to Sindh and assaulted there the reigning Hindu king Dahir Deshpati. In the contest after numerous conflicts king Dahir was defeated by Kasim and killed, his wife was converted to Islam and given away to some soldier of Muslim army, and his two daughters sent away as gift to Caliph Omar II (13th Caliph) in Baghdad. It was a new and unexpected experience for Hindu India. Still, it was only a probing exercise and Sindh was again attacked around 775 AD during the reign of Caliph Al Mansoor (21st Caliph) and finally conquered, and the name of the Shindh capital ‘Arore’ was changed into ‘Mansoora’. An attack was made around 833 AD on Chittore by one Mahmood, where the Chittore’s Hindu king Khomman defeated him and made prisoner. But nothing more was done by India to safeguard itself against the future Islamic incursions into this country. For twenty years or so this India did not see any serious attempt of its violation by Islam, until 975 AD when Soobektegin of Gazni accompanied by his son Mahmood Gazni made incessant military incursions into India (some say, 16 times in number) to destroy alleged ‘Kufr’ (Hinduism) convert people to Islam and was defeated in his attempts every time. But still nothing was done by India to safeguard its future. This Mahmood Gazni, the son of Soobektegin, continued the legacy of his father, attacked the Hindu king of Delhi Prithvi Raj Chauhan in 1192 AD but was defeated and made prisoner by Prithvi Raj. On his making a promise never to attack India again and praying for saving his life, he was granted clemency by Prithvi Raj and allowed to go back to Gazani. But true to his fanatic religious belief, this Mahmood Gazni broke his solemn promise, attacked Prithvi Raj in 1193 AD (called the Second War of Tarain), defeated him, carried him as prisoner to Gazani and killed him there.
Since that time of Islamic victory in 1193 AD, Hindu India has undergone untold miseries, which cannot be fathomed by those who are unaware of its history of Islamic rule. Hindu India is the only country – the single country – in the entire world that did not surrender to Islam and convert to Muslim religion. Iran, Afghanistan and many more countries in Europe, Africa and Asia completely surrendered to this religion and today are Islamic countries with misconceived pride. But this Hindu India relentlessly fought the ferocious wars against the long chain of India’s Islamic rulers. This India was never – ever – completely under the sovereignty of Islam. There were relentless pitched battles in dreaded wars by Hindu kings against the enemy of their faith. It was a routine feature of these dreaded wars that the entire Hindu population to the last of their able-bodied person had gone to the battle field – while knowing fully well that they would not return back alive from that war – to fight the enemy of their faith and that their women prepared funeral pyre and jumped into the fire to perish, so that their female chastity was not violated by the victorious Islam. No country in the world had such courage, conviction and determination in the face of a dreaded enemy like Islam. In 1533 AD in the so called “Second Saka or Jauhar” (self immolation by females) alone 13, 000 Hindu women of Chittore jumped into fire and perished. It is said that there were seven similar Hindu “Sakas” in Rajasthan alone. It is only because of such courage and dedication of Hindus of India to their faith that, while none of the countries that was invaded by the sword of Islam could retain its native faith, India is still 80% Hindu today.
This unflinching courage of Hindus amid the moments of great calamity that had befallen on their ancestors, their steadfastness in keeping to their native faith in the face of such barbarism and the fact that this India is still a Hindu country, should be a matter of pride for all those who are Hindus today and whose ancestors were once Hindus. It is most humane and justified for all those who are converted Muslims today but whose ancestors were once Hindus to feel pity for their ancestors for all that pain which they had undergone and and honor them. There are millions and millions of Muslims – in India and in Pakistan both – who still bear the Hindu surnames – like Rana, Chauhan, Bajwa, Khokhar, Tomar, Sindhu etc. – with their personal names as medals. It is a matter of pride, and it should be a matter of pride, to them. It shows their Hindu roots and it should not be a matter of shame. Hindus are as good as any other religious group of people and Hindu religion is not an ignorance. The persecution of Hindus by Islam was wrong. The medieval history of India is the dark history of religious persecution of Hindus by its Islamic rulers.
Since the times of Mohammad bin Kasim (718 AD) the pathetic conditions of the religious persecution of Hindus continued till the British took over the rule of India. The intolerance of Hindu religious ideas by the Islamic religion, which was integrated with its State and vested in its religious head called Caliph, continued till 1858 AD, when the British took over the State power from the last Indian Islamic ruler, king Bahadur Shah Jafar. With the British in command, the relation of State in India with religion(s) followed their peculiar imperialist strategy, of which legacy the free India’s secularism is still following without putting any thought into it. The British imperialist policy in dealing with Muslims and Hindus both was, “We are Christians. You are Hindus; and you are Muslims. Each one of you are free to do what your respective religion teaches you. But we are the State and as ruler have the power to arbitrate in disputes between both of you”. During the Indian freedom struggle, for the sake of Hindu-Muslim unity against the British imperialism, it was propagated by the Indian political leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Jawahar Lal Nehru that the imperialists adopted a policy to “divide Hindus and Muslims and rule over them”. This statement was factually wrong. Hindus and Muslims were already divided for centuries when the British came to India. This painful fact is testified by the occurrence of Hindu-Muslim riots on almost regular basis in united India from 1858 to 1947. What the British imperialists did was only to utilize this communal chasm between them to their advantage. They nurtured this divide further by taking sides, when and which way it suited them. By this strategy they often sided with the weak and vanquished the strong. It was only because of this strategy that they were able to rule this vast country despite having at their disposal in India a very small contingent of English military force.
This British policy continued till 1947 when India was partitioned on religious lines into two countries – one part called Pakistan for Muslims, where they were free to lead their life according to Islam; and another remaining part of the once united India for Hindus, where they were free to lead their life according to Hinduism or whatever they liked. The British rulers partitioned India and made Hindus and Muslims both free and choose their own path and future. The first part – Pakistan – chose Islam, which was well in accord with the Islamic philosophy as advocated by its founding father Mohammad Ali Jinnah and sung by famed Islamic poet Mohd. Iqbal. Both of them – the leader and the poet – had a mindset of the bygone era of Mohd. bin Kasim. In fact, Pakistan was the fulfillment of what Muslims had sought to achieve in united India since 718 AD but could not achieve. Once they got their feet on the ground of their own country – Pakistan – they immediately engaged with more vigor with their incomplete Islamic agenda of destroying Hindu-India. For Muslims of Pakistan, from the day one, India was a Hindu-India, whether it professed secularism or not. In their heart of hearts, they cared a hoot for secularism of India. This is the reason why the left-over part of this new India – or supposedly a Hindu-India – did not see from the day Pakistan was created a moment of peace. And this India is not likely to have that peace any day soon.
Now, what did the remaining part of this once united India do in choosing its path and future? The first thing it did was to declare in its Constitution that India is not a Hindu country; that it equally belongs to Muslims; that it will be a secular country; that Hindus and Muslims (and all other religions) will have equal right to carry on the objectives – aims – of their respective religions; that they all will have the constitutional right to not only practice but also propagate what their respective religion teaches them. It was not an ordinary legal right but a fundamental right, which was guaranteed to them and could not be taken away even by the Parliament of India till eternity. The great leaders of free India who drafted the Indian Constitution did not realize the serious dangers to the very existence of this remaining India, which were inherent in such a constitutional approach.
Firstly, they did not realize that if it was possible for Muslims to carry forward their religious objectives in the united India, there was no need at all for them to demand and create their own country separate from the Hindus. Secondly, they did not realize that it was wrong to think that all those Muslims who were religiously bigots and wanted to live in their own separate country according to Islamic religion had migrated to Pakistan; and that other remaining Muslims who chose to stay back in India were not so religious bigots as to once again demand second Pakistan like their their brothers going to Pakistan had done. Moreover, there was no reason for these Indian leaders to suppose that the future generations of these Indian Muslims would always find it suitable to live along with Hindus of this remaining India. Such supposition – or expectation – of these Indian leaders was unreasonable; it was like hoping that the Indian Muslims would be unlike their forefathers who had gone to Pakistan; it was hoping that that these left-over Indian Muslims would never demand their separate country once again. Such supposition, expectation or hope was against reason and without any foundation. Generations of people succeed generations and each new generation of people think as it best suits them in their times and circumstances. There is no justification to suppose that once a generation of Muslims had demanded the creation of Pakistan out of India, another succeeding generations of Indian Muslims would not so demand again. This rational conclusion is testified by the fact that since 1947 nothing drastic has changed on their religious front in India that may give this India a hope in the change of their attitude. This assumption or expectation of those Indian leaders was vain is proved beyond any shadow of doubt by the fact that in ‘India of 2019’ an Owaisi, an Azam Khan and many more like them can openly threaten Hindus in India with violence against the established Indian law. It is also proved by the fact that sectarian Muslim organizations like Indian Muslim League and similar other organizations (which openly uphold Islamic agenda and once had spearheaded the creation of Pakistan) are still popular among Indian Muslims. Such people still harbor the sentiments of their forefathers who had once demanded the creation of Pakistan. It is not a secret and anyone with open mind and eyes can see this reality of the remaining India.
PART TWO:
India had historical conditions that were totally different from conditions of England. Even in 326 BC when Alexander the great invaded India, he found that in India Hindu Yogis and Buddhist Shramans were living in austerity in meadows near a river. They were living naked but were revered by the king and the common people alike. They did not hold any political authority over the king of Taxila kingdom. Thereafter we find, a Yavan (Greek) king named Maharajadhiraj Milind (Greek name Minendra) who was ruling from Mathura (in India) to Bactria (in modern day Iran). This Bactria was conquered by Alexander and on his death was first inherited by his successor king Seleucus Nikator (who was bound in friendship with India under a treaty concluded between him and Chandragupt Maurya) and after Seleucus Nikator by king Milind. Milind’s coins have been found in India, on one side of which is written in Sanskrit ‘Maharajadhiraj Milind and on the other side in Greek ‘Maharajadhiraj Minandrau’. This king Milind came with a royal retinue of soldiers to an Indian Buddhist Yogi Nagasena to learn from him the teachings of Buddha. Here too, we find that the political power of State did not vest in the religious authorities.
It was for the first time in India that the emperor Asoka the great declared Buddhism a State religion (268 BC) and the State power vested in religion. Still, Asoka too, in accordance with the Buddhist tenets, did not outlaw the religious dissent or punish those who held a contrary views on religion or secular matter. Far from persecution of his opponents, he forbade his citizens to kill any human and even animals. Buddhist religion, even when it had the State power in its hand, did not forbid any person to believe in a religion or ideas that were contrary to Buddhism. We find that in India this harmonious relation of state with the multitude of religions passed through ages and continued till the times of King Harshvardhan, who ruled Kannauj in 628 AD. We find that in India there was never a communal clash between competing religious beliefs or between religion and new ideas. India has encouraged free thinking and competition of dissenting philosophies, be they religious or secular ones in nature. This mindset was not deviated in India throughout its long history, irrespective of the fact whether the State power was vested in the hands of religion or not.
For Indian faiths – like Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Shikhism etc. – secularism has been an alien concept. None of them had history of clash between their beliefs and new ideas, which challanged those beliefs. On the contrary, India had a history where the State power – ruling kings and monarchs – encouraged and sponsored public debates between the rival claimants of truth. Intellectual contest between Adi Shankaracharya and Mandan Mishra is well known in Indian history. The visit of king Milind (Minendra) to the Buddhist master Nagasena to learn new knowledge at his feet is also well known. Huen Tsiang – the Chinese traveler to India in 628 AD – writes that in India there is a tradition of holding of intellectual debates between renowned rival men of knowledge; that such intellectual contests were patronized by kings and society alike; and that the one who was defeated in the contest used to leave the company of society in ignominy and depart to forests, away from human presence. With such a background of amicable intellectual atmosphere, there was no scope in India for the germination of an idea of the separation of religion from the State authority. India historically had nothing to do with the concept of secularism. Thus, India had a reason why – despite having a long history of fertile imagination of its people – did not have an inkling of the idea of secularism or separation of State from religion. It did not have its utility in India.
Indic faiths are such that they can live in harmony with all other religions. Indian secularism creates an environment in polity where it is not only made possible for these two religions – Islam and Christianity – to infect the State with their poisonous virus but also its process is made smooth. In Indian secularism they are guaranteed a freedom to carry on their preying and devouring activities. In India this secularism, instead of fulfilling its historical aim of isolating the State from the short-sighted religious institutions and shielding it against their unwanted interference, infests the State with the virus of these predatory religions and, thus, serves the cause of an indirect take-over of the State by them. The secularism of India is a sick secularism.
The idea of secularism is strange in Indian conditions and an ill-fitting constitutional device for a forward-looking India. It drives a wedge into her social cohesiveness and is a poison for its social fabric. It ruffles social poise and equilibrium and disturbs its peace. It destroys its communal harmony. It is strange because it is not needed in a country where overwhelming majority of people do not believe in presecuting and killing those who do not agree with their beliefs. It is ill-fitting constitutional device because the majority population of this country do not take offence to ideas that are new or against their own; they do not seek to convert those who hold ideas contrary to their own.
India has been home to vast number of people who follow numerous Indic faiths, like Hinduism, Buddhism Jainism, Sikhism and their many branches for thousands of years. This India had followed a principle where religion tamed and mollified the arrogant authority of State. Religion showed the path of compassion to State; Asoka the great who was an emperor was called by his people ‘Prya-Darshi’ or ‘the loved one’. This India never had the need or utility of an idea of secularism – the idea of separation of religion from State. This ideas was for the first time incorporated in its constitution after its liberation from the British colonial power.
Suppose for a moment, there is no noticeable presence of the followers of Islam and Christianity in India? What would be the fate of secularism in India? It would then be redundant and irrelevant here. It is so because there would be no occasion for Hindus in India to suppress any new ideas – religious or others in nature – on the ground that they were against Hinduism. Then, there would be no need of secularism, that is, need to separate State power from the religious institutions. Because of the tolerating nature of Hinduism, there would never be its antagonism to any new ideas; because of this lack of antagonism, there would be no need to separate State from religious institutions of Hindus. But it is only a supposition because there is a substantial number of people in India who are governed by the teachings of Islam and Christianity, which teachings are extremely intolerant in their thoughts and predatory in their actions.
Secularism is a poison for Indian social fabric because it provides state protection to those activities of religions that are predatory. It prevents state from taking action against those who believe in converting and killing those who hold beliefs contrary to their own. It directs state to give protection to those whose beliefs cast a duty on them to prey upon, convert or even kill those who hold contrary beliefs. It is a reality of secular India. It is a dangerous reality. Though the context of secularism is absent in India, it has become here a virtuous political cult and a smoke screen for its defenders. It has become a fashionable political correctness for them. In the face of the preying and predatory nature of these two religions – Islam and Christianity – the adoptition of secularism as a constitutional guiding principle is suicidal one for India. No amount of lies can hide this truth. No strategy can succeed in camouflaging this truth today in this age of information revolution
Secularism in its working here has been destructive to India. It has brought about a situation where this ancient nation with a spiritually enlightened culture, which produced Buddha, Mahavira, Guru Nanak, Mira Bai, Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo and thousands like them, has been reduced to an artificial “idea of India”. This secularism in the western democracies has played a positive role by separating State from a fundamentalist religion and thus protected people from the onslaught of the brute power of a religion that was against common-sense. There it put in place this device of secularism and isolated the State from that religion and protected people against its illogical dictates. In India secularism has played a negative role. It has generated here an antagonism – that would not have been here otherwise – between people following Islam and Christianity on the one side and those following Hinduism on the other. The net effect of this secularism has been of polarizing people along communal lines. While Islam and Christianity have been left free to practice conversion and propagate eternal hellfire for Hindus, Hindus have been made a sitting duck for these hunters.
Though Islam and Christianity claim that their God – to the exclusion of each other’s God – is the only true God and that God’s words are the final truth, which two Gods and their words do not agree with each other, this secularism has made them strange bed-fellows in India. They for the time being have kept aside their differences – and deadly clash to the bitter end of one of the two – to be decided between them at some later day and have united as one force today to destroy their common enemy – Hinduism. Secularism in India has become deaf to hear their warring words against each other and blind to see their unholy union to destroy Hinduism in India.
Secularism calls upon Indian State to protect the right of the hunters against any objection of their victim and protect their right to kill their prey. In the exercise of this right, these hunters have been guaranteed the State protection, which is reinforced with the powers of judicial courts, police, military and legislation by Parliament. One can see a strange anomaly of law present in India wherein, on the one hand, the right of Islam to propagate the Koranic mandate of converting or killing the Kafirs is guaranteed under Constitution and, on the other hand, India’s Penal Code forbids the propagation of human killing, which is called murder. When dealing with a fundamental issue like the implication of secularism in India, one cannot side step this truth – preaching, inciting and committing murders – that this holy book teaches as a matter of constitutional right. This is one out of many anomalies created by secularism in India.
Indian faiths (like Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism etc.) do not propagate and practice conversion but Islam and Christianity both propagate and practice conversion. In fact, their entire effort is focused on conversion (leaving aside for the time being the issue of their employing of the unfair means like deception, luring, threat and violence for conversion). This religious conversion is the command of their holy books and their this right to convert is guaranteed by the Indian Constitution. This right is protected by the power of state. It is so because the State is mandated by the Constitution to be secular. The State in India has nothing to do with religion but it leaves these two religions free to convert and carry their mission. This is Indian version of secularism.
In such a situation, where Indian faiths are not inclined to convert others, Muslims and Christians do everything to convert. This secularism is a confirmed death warrant of the Indian faiths in India. This death warrant has been imposed in India none other but by Indian themselves. They have invited this calamity to their religions by thoughtlessly copying a clone – a sick – secularism in India where they still constitute 80% of the population and rule by the democratic majority. Certainly Hindus in India are slowly walking towards their extinction only because of this secularism. The danger to its life in India emanates from this Indian version of secularism. For its survival in the face of competition from rival religions, like Islam or Christianity, Hinduism does not need any mission for its propagation. It is a rational religion and appeals to human intellect. It may look strange but is true that Hindus in India do not need any fundamental right to propagate their religion but they need a fundamental right of their protection against the religious propagation by Islam and Christianity – and their conversion by these religions. It is their human right to be so protected. They need this constitutional protection to save their religious identity. Grant of such protection is their right in India and this is the true meaning of secularism in Indian context.