ALI SUKHANVER

For the Muslims, for the Christians and for other minorities living in India things could be horrible, discouraging and disappointing but for the followers of the Hindutva philosophy, the present scenario after the elections in India is very much supportive and hopeful. The sweeping success of Mr. Modi has proved two things; first that India is a purely non-secular state and second that the Muslims are gradually losing their individual identity there. The India Today has recently published a report titled, Verdict 2019: The end of the Muslim vote bank.” The report says that ‘Consolidation of the Hindu vote bank around the BJP has made the Muslim vote bank irrelevant’. The report says, The 17th Lok Sabha will see 27 Muslim MPs in parliament, a marginal increase from the 23 Muslim MPs in the 16th Lok Sabha. This is still the second lowest proportion of Muslim MPs to population in India’s parliamentary history.” According to the census of 2011, the Muslims comprise 14 per cent of India’s total population. Experts say that keeping in view this proportion of population, the ideal number of Muslim MPs in the Lok Sabha should be somewhere around 76. It was in only in 1980 when 49 Muslim MPs succeeded in getting elected. Since then, this number has been declining rapidly which shows that the Muslims in India are losing their electoral importance too. Such valueless political position of the Muslims would simply make their life more painful, more pathetic.

For the Muslims and other minorities living in India, the present situation is very much alarming because the Hindu extremists have realized that they don’t need any support from the minorities in winning any of the future elections. It is also an eye-opening fact that things are as much horrible for the Christians there as are for the Muslims. Before the elections, Dr. Paul R.T. Maran, National Bishop of the Indian National Apostolic Deices had expressed his apprehensions talking to International Christian Concern, a well known human rights group, The number one issue in the coming election for Christians is safety. This election is like a ‘do or die’ situation. If the BJP comes to power, Christians won’t be treated as equal citizens because their aim is to establish a Hindu India.”

The responsibility of Muslim Vote Bank Decline in India certainly goes on to the shoulders of the Muslims and is directly linked with their collective deterioration as a community. Internal conflicts, sectarian divides and lack of unity are the factors damaging the Muslim community all over the world. There is not even a single place where the Muslims are leading a life enriched with safety, security, peace and prosperity. Everywhere the Muslims are being exploited by the characters who claim to be staunch Muslims. We have examples of Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan; even Iran is sailing in troubled waters. The present warlike situation around Iranian borders reminds me of an interview of Henry Kissinger who had said talking to a newspaper reporter somewhere in 2011, Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people.” In the same interview he had further said, The United States is baiting China and Russia, and the final nail in the coffin will be Iran, which is, of course, the main target of Israel. We have allowed China to increase their military strength and Russia to recover from Sovietization, to give them a false sense of bravado, this will create an all together faster demise for them.” It means destruction of Iran is a very old dream of the US and certainly the US authorities would be doing all their best to materialize this dream; certainly discrimination between foul and fair would be no where under their consideration. But a very dark rather pathetic side of the picture is that in all this ‘crush-Muslims’ movement, only the Muslims are being exploited rather misused as tools. Even so-called prosperous countries like Saudi Arab are so much helpless that they cannot even think of helping out their Muslim brothers without willingness and permission of their Western Masters. In short our enemies are destroying us one by one using our own weapons; Pakistan is the next target of such hostile forces.

It was reported in papers,  a few weeks back, that some top agents of anti-Islam forces are being relocated to Afghanistan by their western handlers to harm the interests of Muslim countries through so-called terrorism. These agents move from one Muslim country to the other Muslim country in shape of an organized group, always headed by some self-proclaimed leader. It is also a very interesting fact that very often the ‘group leader’ introduces himself as the unanimous leader of the whole Muslim community all over the world. And a very horrible fact is that when the ‘leader’ feels someone is challenging his authority or is becoming a threat to his hegemony, he simply sends him to the ‘other world’. Someone on the social media raised a very intelligent question a few days back, ‘How can one person be a global leader of the Muslims residing in 57 different countries with distinct cultures and ethnicities, political, social and religious ideologies?’ The dangers looming ahead regarding expected nefarious activities of the terrorist groups stationed in Afghanistan could be disastrous if ignored. All renowned religious scholars and leaders of religious parties in Pakistan must stand shoulder to shoulder with the government of Pakistan and the Armed Forces. They must decide it unanimously that they would not let any extremist organization play its cards in Pakistan in the name of religion.