I read about this book in an Indian newspaper.
Train to Pakistan still far away: Khushwant Singh
By Paul Michaud (Special to Khaleej Times)
2 June 2003
PARIS - Khushwant Singh, author of Train to Pakistan, and more recently of The End of India, says that if there’s one thing he’s revolted against today, it’s the end of India as a secular state. Because of that situation, the country is not yet ready for any reconciliation with Pakistan, he adds.
He compares the fundamentalist Hindu parties who’ve risen to power in India - the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Shiv Sena, Vishva Hindu Parishad - to the Nazis who rose to power in similar ways in the Germany of the 1920s and 1930s: “They began their work well before independence, enrooting themselves profoundly in Indian society, and today they are the ones who dictate, who have the power. In Delhi, all the members of the government, or almost all, come from the RSS, even if among them there are a few token Muslims.”
In an interview with French daily newspaper Le Figaro, the 88-year-old author said that as a result of this situation, the 140 million Muslims who inhabit India “are nothing less than the Jews of Germany of the 1930s. And as in Germany under Hitler, if the fundamentalist Hindus have chosen to attack the Muslims, it’s because the Muslims are India’s largest minority. Certainly it wouldn’t be to the Hindus’ benefit to take as scapegoats the country’s Christians, 3 per cent of the population, or the Sikhs, 2 per cent. That leaves India’s Muslim population, which accounts for 12 per cent of the Indian people.”
“The Jehad supported by some Muslim extremists serves as an excuse for Hindu extremists looking for a scapegoat. Let’s not forget the profound sense of humiliation suffered by India’s Hindus who feel they’ve been deprived of their heritage. During eight centuries, it’s true, Muslim dynasties succeeded each other in India, and their leaders destroyed Hindu temples, forcefully converting Hindus to Islam. But the Hindu leaders, in turn, have persecuted the Buddhists, the Jains, and destroyed their places of worship too.”
“Largely as a result of all of this,” notes Khushwant Singh, “nothing will ever come out of the present lessening of tensions between India and Pakistan. It’s like a bicycle that you attempt to ride in place: you pedal, but you go nowhere. Personally, I always go out of my way to explain the Pakistani point of view, for example, in my articles. And each time I do so, I’m referred to as a Pakistani dog, an Indian who’s ‘sold out’ to their cause. We’re certainly far away from any reconciliation, indeed are as far away from reconciliation as we’ve ever been in recent years.”
