ALI SUKHANVER

India is no more a secular country; it is a country meant only for the Hindus; and the minorities there, including the Sikhs, the Buddhists, the Christians, could live a second grade life full of compulsions and restrictions if they wish to be a part of the Indian society; this is the message Mr. Modi has successfully conveyed to the minorities in India. Though apparently this message is only for the Indian Muslims but inwardly it is a message for all the minorities. Today Mr. Modi has given direction to all the Muslims they all must migrate to the Islamic countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. In the days to come, same instruction might be given to the Christians, the Sikhs and the Buddhists that they must move to Sri Lanka, Nepal or other respective countries. Mr. Modi has very clearly told to the minorities that India has no room for these ‘junk’ items.

Modi’s approach towards the all minorities particularly towards the Muslim community has ever been hostile and aggressive. Just look back to the Gujarat Massacre of 2002 which claimed the lives of more than 1000 Muslims, hundreds of women were raped, countless hoses and shops were burnt to ashes; all this was done under the ‘kind’ supervision of the Chief Minister Narendra Modi.  Many of us would never forget the painful story of Bilqees Bano whose whole family was butchered before her own eyes and she herself was mercilessly raped by a mob among the bleeding dead bodies of her family members. Talking to a media group, a few days back, Bilqees narrated with tearful eyes remembering that horrible night. We had boarded a truck in a desperate attempt to escape communal riots that had swept our village. We were hoping to escape to Ahmadabad, some 200km away. Over the next few minutes, a mob of the local Hindus attacked the truck, 12 men took turned to rape me despite my being five months pregnant. Neither did they show any mercy to my cousin, Shamim, who had given birth a day earlier. She was forced to watch as the men butchered her newborn child. The men murdered all members of my family and shamelessly raped eight of the women in the process.” 

Ten years earlier to the Gujarat massacre, on 6^th December 1992, a large group of Hindu activists of the Vishva Hindu Parishad and allied organizations demolished the historical Babri Mosque in Ayodhya. The present prime minister of India, Narendra Modi was then the general secretary of BJP’s Gujarat unit. He was among the main organizers of the Demolish Babri Mosque Movement. His joy and happiness after demolition of Babri Mosque and after Court’s verdict on the issue new no bound and he expressed this joy in different statements too. Modi’s role in Revocation of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir is also among his crime’s list against the Muslims. After this decision life remained at a halt for many months there in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. So many lost their lives and countless were deprived of their business and properties. As per tradition the deputed security forces used ‘rape’ as a tool against the local people. The fire of indignation and aggression is still blazing there. The people have been deprived of their basic human rights. They are still facing the worst shortage of food and medicine. The government has cut off all internet lines to paralyze all communication in the valley. No one is allowed to enter the valley from the outer world. Some of the international media groups tried to send their representatives for the coverage of the situation but even they were barred from approaching and listening to the helpless local Kashmiris.

Mr. Narendra Modi seems working on an agenda which would never be acceptable to the people of India; the agenda of breaking one of the world’s biggest democratic and secular democracies into debris. The recent amendment in The Citizenship Law is really a very ‘horrible’ example which supports this notion. If things keep on drifting in the same direction in India, if the flames of hatred between the Muslims and the Non-Muslims keep on rising to the sky, if the streets of Lucknow, Mumbai and Delhi keep on presenting a battlefield like scenario, probably in next few years, world would witness India scattering into small states fighting with one another. This all would do nothing but promote more terrorism and more extremism in the world. Modi’s dream of turning India into a complete non-secular state would bring a catastrophic disaster to India. In short Mr. Modi has always been deeply and whole-heartedly involved in every action which could be harmful to the Muslims.

India without Muslims is Modi’s old dream. He is doing all his best to drag this dream to reality. It is because of his stubbornness that today the ‘Shining India’ is passing through one of the darkest phases of its life. Graveness and severity of the situation could be estimated through a recent report of CNN published on the 20^th December 2019. The report said that tens of thousands of people took to the streets in at least 15 cities across the country, including New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Ahmadabad, Mangalore, and Lucknow in a show of nationwide public anger against the law considered by many to be unconstitutional and discriminatory against Muslims. At least two people died in only one day protest. Thousands of people were arrested. It is something very remarkable that in many areas, the Muslim protesters are being supported by the Christians, the Buddhists and the Sikhs because they know that they would be the next target of Modi’s extremism. Let us wait and see how does the world around respond to the hatred and prejudice of Mr. Modi against the religious minorities.