Re: Lack of freedom for Muslim of India
Pakistanis are vehemently opposed to army action in Baluchistan as well as the US drone attacks against our beautiful Pushtun people. No Pakistani supports that. So those two examples are pointless; as for Bangladesh, the majority of Pakistanis are fully regretful of the inequalities and human rights abuses heaped on the Bengalis by West Pakistan both prior to and during the 1971 war. The issue takes on a slightly different colour because innocent pro-Pakistanis were raped and killed by the *Mukti Bahini *also. Furthermore, India played a massive hand in Bangladesh and is playing a massive hand in Baluchistan so once again the issue takes a different colour. Having said this, as Muslims, we had the obligation to treat each other fairly and equally, and this is something a sincere government would enforce.
As far as Kashmir is concerned, the situation is entirely different. Here you have a Muslim population being oppressed, raped and killed by a non-Muslim army. Under these circumstances, all Muslims have a religious obligation to help their oppressed brothers. In the 90s, many Pakistani and Kashmiri mujahideen died for the Kashmir cause, but how many Indian Muslims fought for their brothers? How many Indian Muslims championed the cause of the innocent Kashmiris? None, or hardly any. So for all those Indians who say (quite falsely): “we have the second largest number of Muslims in the world” why don’t those ‘second largest number of’ Muslims follow through on their Islamic obligations and do something about their innocent sisters being raped by the Rashtriya Rifles? Even if that something is as simple as campaigning and peaceful protest? Well of course the answer is, if they did fight for their brothers, Muslims would face such a blood-bath in India as to make Partition pale in comparison.
The idea is to follow the law of the land until it conflicts with Shariah. When the law conflicts with *Shariah, *many scholars have deemed obeying that law impermissible. If by continuing to disobey, the Muslims faces imprisonment/oppression, he should leave the country. You see, fulfilling religious obligations takes precedence over fulfilling human obligations. And as I was saying before, you need to realise that Islam is not a religion indigenous to India and several of its elementary idiosyncrasies are incompatible with Hindu India’s realities. I know for a fact that the Prophet (PBUH) would order the Muslims of a particular place to cease living there if they were becoming similar to the non-Muslims surrounding them. If they were forming brotherhoods with those non-Muslims which superceded the brotherhood that must exist between Muslims.
As I said to you earlier, internet forums are not a good way of determining the socio-political realities in a country. The reason people are discussing whether or not to ban religious processions isn’t because of intolerance amongst the general Pakistani population, it is because of domestic security issues and domestic terrorism issues. Just as elections in both India and Pakistan are often marred by violence (not indicative that the general population of either country is violent) so too are religious processions a very ‘convenient’ target for intolerant extremists.
Of course you’ve fallen into the classical trap of labelling what happens in Pakistan a representation of true Islam when Pakistan isn’t Islamic (for the countless time); Ahmedis are our brothers in citizenry and it was wrong of Nawaz Sharif to be criticised for calling them that. Similarly, it was wrong for Varun Gandhi to say he would cut off the heads of Muslims, but of course, we’re not judging the whole of Hinduism by a silly comment made by a silly individual. I have went to some length in explaining the issue of Ahmedis in Pakistan. There is discrimination, it does need to be addressed, but the issue is more complex and deeper than that, and in part, results from Ahmedis calling themselves Muslims.
Indeed it would be; but who here is saying Indian Muslims are insecure (not yet anyway, who can talk of the future)? I’m talking about losing their religious identity; I’m talking about them overlooking certain key components of their religion in order to be seen as Indians by their fellow non-Muslims Indians…
No Shia’ in Pakistan has to reject elements of his faith to succeed in Pakistan. As I have comprehensively shown, and will comprehensively show, that is not the case in India. Even Maulana Madani had to set-aside one of the cornerstones of our faith, a direct violation of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUB)’s commands (regarding Islamic brotherhood) to get hoots and jeers of approval from the crowd.
The sum of my argument is not to say that there is religious strife. It is to defend the two-nation theory as a valid one. I admitted from the very onset that the issue was never a case of whether Muslims could or could not live with Hindus. It was that Muslims could never prosper living under a Hindu majority whilst remaining true to their cultural, socio-political and religious truths; that a Hindu majority would deny Muslims an independent political voice and most importantly the right to freely practise their religion. In my opinion, and in the opinions of many people, we feel this is already happening. We feel that Islam in India has effectively become a personal faith, when it is just as much a social and political order. We feel that the sizeable Muslim minority in India has to go out of its way in proving that it is Indian first and Muslim second, and that the very idea of this notion is antithetical to Islamic teaching. Ultimately, you may feel that the experiment of Partition has failed. We look at India, we look at Indian Muslims, we take into account Bangladesh and we still say, the two-nation theory is as relevant today as it was 63 years ago.
I think much of the international community is fooled by India’s reality; information on India is publicly available, you are correct, but the perception that people hold regarding India is vastly different to the reality. India is seen as a peaceful country, full of people dancing on hilltops and romantic lovers who designed the Taj Mahal. This is the reality that India presents to the world. No one knows of the human rights abuses in Kashmir (and politics aside, human rights abuses have occurred), no one knows of the many insurgencies you have raging in your country. No one knows of the social, economic and political prejudices against some of your minorities. No one knows of your caste system. No one knows of the female infanticide that is practised on an astronomical level; nor of the sheer amount of poverty in your country. India has been **hugely **successful in creating a brand which very ably covers up its domestic faults. You have only to look at the massive anti-Pakistan interference that India gets away with in Baluchistan and Afghanistan. The global community is heavily biased in India’s favour. Always has been. There’s no bitterness in what I’m saying, you realise, it’s just a truth I’m stating.