CHILDREN OF THE SAME MOTHER, BROTHERS AT WAR

CHILDREN OF THE SAME MOTHER, BROTHERS AT WAR

Hindus and Muslims have diametrically opposite cultures. They have nothing in common save their same ancestry which Muslims are averse to admitting, although DNA tests have established thi as inviolable scientific fact. So, polarisation of the polity is but natural and unavoidable so long as each community holds on to its distinctive culture -- one indigenous, the other alien. 

The Constitution provides the basis for a common criminal law but even the Constitution has not thus far been able to mandate a common civil law. The Uniform Civil Code is still awaited after 75 years of independence. 

These two communities live side by side in watertight compartments with hardly any understanding of each other beyond what surface interaction allows. There is a deep distrust of each other's motives, especially in the historical context of Hindu subjugation by Muslim rulers for over a millennium followed by the holocaust of a wicked Partition brought into being by a perverse Muslim League with British patronage overseeing the dastardly dismemberment of Mother India. 

All races that have settled in India after conquest or otherwise have been assimilated into the vast body politic of Bharatvarsha. They have themselves absorbed the best elements of our Sanatan culture and integrated to become one with Bharat. Not so the Muslims. But why? This is what I will attempt to answer and in it lies all the problems that beset modern India still.

Ours is a wounded civilisation, as V.S.Naipaul puts it. And he is eminently right in his assertion. For two thousand three hundred and forty five years we have been under invasion ever since Alexander marched into India in 323 BCE. Even today China encroaches into our territory, slowly and surreptitiously. But these invasions have been territorial, political and financial but only twice have we been under threat of cultural annihilation from outside. Colonial Christianity was one and Islamic invasion the other. Both have left deep wounds on our civilisaltion and fresh wounds are being opened up by them each day by their perfidious proselytising programme. Sri Aurobindo had pointed it out as the chief cause of Hindu-Muslim tension and had prophesied the impossibility of communal harmony between them so long as the Indian Muslims did not stop this vile practice of perverting Hindus from their dharma unto Islam.

The Portuguese colonisers brutally massacred Hindu resistance to conversion in Goa but the civilisational damage that could inflict on the Indian subcontinent was minimal because of their limited conquest of territorial India. The other European powers as well had limited influence on the Hindus for the same reason. The British, though, could have done massive damage on account of their complete political dominance over the geographical body of India. But they did not. The British were more intent on the financial depredation of India and after initial misadventures in the proselytising direction they quit court to concentrate on looting India. Hence, Christianisation of India pre-Independence was left limited. Post-independence, though, Nehru allowed Christian evangelists to run amock in India and we are in a sorry state of affairs in the North-east, in South India and in fringe Punjab where increasing Christian cultural influence is besetting local culture. The Christian missionaries are sparing no means to thwart Hindu religious activity wherever Christians are heavy in numbers. But for all this, their influence is still relatively low given the vast Hindu polity. Not so in the case of the Muslims who now officially number over 200 million in India and unofficially a deal more. Here lies the great danger. Hang on, I'll explain.

Islam is an exclusive political movement and not a religion as such. It is called the 'Deen' or the perfect way of earthly living which is considered a test by God to judge as to who will go to Heaven (Jannat) of endless sensual pleasures and who will go to Hell (Jahannum) to indefinitely burn. This then is the scripturally affirmed highest ideal of Islam and the prime motivating factor for righteous living by the Muslim, righteous not from the humanistic point of view but purely from the Qur'anic perspective. If later developments of the Deen have found great Sufi saints speaking of the highest spiritual ideal of An-al-Haqq (I am the Truth), know that they learnt it from the Hindus, this Vedantic Mahavakya (Great Statement) 'Aham Brahmaasmi' (I am the Absolute Brahman/Existence-Consciousness-Bliss indivisibly integrated). On making such a daring declaration public, though, such an illumined Sufi was tortured to death, being labelled kafir (infidel) for it.

The fundamental problem with Islam is its narrow, exclusive, tribal doctrine of submission to one God and the last and most perfect Prophet, the founder of Islam. Should one submit to it, he is a Muslim but should one refuse to do so, then he is deemed a kafir (infidel) who must be killed. However, should one be one of the People of the Book, that is, a Jew or a Christian, then his life is to be spared but he must be humiliated unto paying the protection tax which is called the Jiziya. This means that the Jew or the Christian may by paying tax stay as second-class citizens within the Dar-ul-Islam (Land of Islam). Not so the polytheist, idolatrous Hindu who must outright be killed as a merciful act done unto him for shortening his despicable, faithless earthly life. This is the doctrine that fuels anti-Hindu genocidal hatred among Muslims even to this day.

Written by Sugata Bose 

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