All this discussion reminds me of events of past and for what it's worth, I will write it down. Given that India hosts 3rd largest muslim population and largest minority Muslim population, the frictions are interesting and shapes the politics and others. when I read these ancient religious texts and political realities, my mind try to correlate it to current situation.
-When i was a kid (5-9 in 70's) I used to live in a small town where I was told "Don't cross the railway track and if you go there, they will do sunthi(means circumcision)". of course it is stereo typing. It happened that, this small town (Don't mean to generalize it across the country) has lot of Hindu- Muslim conflicts and their own territories and schools etc. When I went Muslim area for some other reason, At first, i was startled by meat shops and big knifes they display on the shop etc, but got used to it. Interestingly, after coming to US, I had procedure that i came to know later(after a decade) that is called "medical circumcision".
- When I was in college( late 80's), we all used to watch cricket matches on a common TV. India, Pakistan matches tend to be intense, Muslims tend to cheer Pakistan and irritated Hindu's tend to shout, If you like Pakistan, why don't you go there, Any way, they will treat you like second hand citizens (
Mujahirs ). I got a impression that, our muslim friends really did lot thinking and stopped cheering for Pakistan after that.
- When Ayodhya mosque was destroyed in 92, nation went into violence taking around 2000 lives. At that time, I was in Muslim dominated areas of Hyderabad(India) and lot of violence and we came under 2 or 3 weeks of 24 hrs shoot at sight curfew and food shortage. I was puzzled to see One of my 5 yr old neighbor kid shouting "Let the B***D's come, I will Kill them all". What the hell this 5 yr old kid knows except, he can't play on the street, probably he didn't had milk for a 2 or 3 weeks. This is the first time I wondered about Hindu Muslim relation beyond the tribalistic caste relations.
Identity politics of the country went through lot of changes during the last 30 years.
- Since 90's, Hindu nationalist party became big force, mainly due to the weakness in the secular Congress party which ruled most of the time. Most of the average people are secular.
- By 2014, Modi from Hindu nationalist party became PM on "economy platform" and all the Hindu fundamentalists who were protesting for so long for their "Victim hood"( under 400 years of mogul + 150 years of British rule) had their wishes fulfilled. Then What?
- "Cow Politics": They did banned Cows slaughter and so called "Cow vigilantes" splashed news with lunchings (28 dead since 2010, out of which half of the time, hindu party BJP in power), secular and muslim leftists moaned saying country became "Lynchistan", Muslim celebrities went on to TV to leave the country, Leftists like Arundhati Roy returned their Govt. awards etc. where will they go? - they can't become 2nd citizen in Pakistan or live in Islamophobic West, so only people who left the country are who looted the banks irrespective of religion.
As time passed by late 2017, opposition congress party(supposed to be secular Gandhi-Nehru dynasty) which was struggling make any footing, jumped on to Hindu appease mode and even won couple of states narrowly recently. Once in power in the state of Madhya Pradesh, first thing Congress did is to creating shelters for Cows. Why do cows needs shelter if they are so revered?. Well, Economy trumps God. As the Cows has milking season and after it is over, people are leaving them on street. Now Media is crying that "Govt's are giving shelter to cow ignoring the farmers who are committing suicide". Even Modi, who promoted this "Sacred Cow" thing at first, went silent on this and even criticized the lynching though slow due to usual internal politics.
My guess is, soon Cow Politics will run out of fuel and nobody will care about Cows in future.
- "Temple Politics": This is a long saga of stalemate after destruction of Ayodhya Mosque in 1992 and one thought this issue will be resolved after 2014. Well, nothing happened. Way back in 2010 under Secular Congress rule, Allahabad court decided to split the "destroyed Mosque area" are in to 3 parts - one for Hindu temple, another for Muslim Mosque and another part to another Hindu contestant. No party is happy with this. So, It went to Supreme court, Even Modi govt. don't want it to come out of Court after 2019 elections. Small right wing parties like Siva Sena (which has only local presence in state of "Maharastra") against Modi Govt. for not building temple, though the real reason is BJP local cadre thinks they can win without Siva Sena help. This is how it works in Politics.
- "Reservation Politics": Since Gandhian time (Before independence in 1947), oppressed classes(lower caste people) wants the reservations in higher education and they got it after independence and it was supposed to be for 25 years. But no body can dare to remove, in fact, it went to all sort of morphing during every election season mostly at according to regional political configurations of the time. some upper caste wants their caste to be marked as backward caste so that they are eligible for reservation etc. Lot of shades to it. In Late 80's, our local state govt. decided to make reservations to 80% from 50%, upper caste people all went onto streets in silent protests as we will n't have merit based low cost higher education, luckily it was reversed. so I can attribute my education to this reversal.
As the 2019 elections coming closer, "Free bee politics" are in full swing. Telangana state govt.
increased reservations to backward Muslims to exceed supreme court limit of 50%, Congress party promised 10% reservations to low-income upper caste people, if they are elected in 2019, so Modi put the bill to give
10% reservation to the same group before the elections. So the "Circus" goes on.
You must be wondering What the hell all this is, how this country even survive at all. If you feel that, you are not alone. Thanks to the so-called "Democracy" and politics that facilitates it, all sorts of things happen. Not bad when compared with other options and Democracy is the only way country is united.
Majority of Indian Muslims are not much of middle class, but no body prevented them, they decided to follow their Imam's not to get educated and become mainstream. That doesn't mean there is no Muslim contribution to the country as some fundi Hindu's loves to point out. There LOT of examples of their contribution and most of the majority Hindu's are secular. It looks majority Muslims tend to be in their world, aggressively and vehemently oppose any interference. When Western money or local politics adds to the fuel, results are bad.
So it's all good on that front. And in case you haven't noticed, most of us are right leaning and have plenty of politically incorrect opinions around here. But I'm disinclined to be fully possessed by any of the earthly ideologies that are on offer these days. Like I keep saying, everything going on right now smells like a setup, and while I'm more than happy to interact with it all, I don't trust myself enough to not question every idea that happens to come across my feed or into my mind. There's always more to learn and understand, always more details, more nuances, more complexity. At least, that's what I've come to understand.
