Propagandist Zainab Sikander, who is considered one of the faces of the ‘moderate’ sections of the Muslim community, wrote an article for Shekhar Gupta led The Print where she again spread insidious lies that are verily a threat to our country’s communal harmony. In the article, titled ‘Indian Muslims are silent over Tabrez Ansari because of Muhammad Ali Jinnah’, The Print argues that the Indian Muslim community has been beaten into silence by the all-encompassing Evil Hindu Fascism.
Amusingly enough, the very first sentence of the article is a lie. “Sahil was killed on Delhi streets because the mob thought he was Muslim,” it said. In reality, the Police ruled out a communal angle and the unfortunate boy was murdered by a drunk man and his juvenile son during a brawl.
One of the most insidious lies in the article is where The Print claims that rifleman Aurangzeb who was martyred in Kashmir could never be a hero for Indians. The memory of rifleman Aurangzeb is honoured by every nationalist who holds the sacrifice he made for the nation in extremely high regard.
Sikander conveniently forgets to mention the perpetrators of the heinous crime. Rifleman Aurangzeb was murdered by terrorists from the supposedly peaceful and oppressed Kashmiri Muslim community we keep hearing about. Interestingly enough, the family of the martyr has immense faith in same India that the propagandist so grievously denigrates. His brothers, since then, have joined the Indian Army to avenge the fallen.
However, the greatest lie of them all is certainly the claim that Indian Muslims were silent over Tabrez Ansari’s death. They were not and such denial in the face of obvious evidence to the contrary is harmful to the country. We need to face facts as they are, not how we wish them to be. Such denial of reality is precisely why the Muslim community continues to struggle with terrorists in their midst.
A Muslim mob, protesting the death of Ansari, attempted to set a bus ablaze, a bus full of engineering students. If they had been successful, it would have been a repeat of what happened at Godhra in 2002 when Hindu pilgrims were burnt to death in the coach of a Train.
In Surat, Gujarat, a Muslim mob went on a rampage during an apparent rally to protest the death of Ansari. Several vehicles were damaged by the mob and officials were injured in the process. 49 arrests were made by the Police and a Congress councillor was booked over the matter.
Violent protests were witnessed in Agra too. The protest, carried out by Muslim organizers, demanded that Hindu shops be shut. When Hindus refused, they started pelting stones at them. Several platoons of police forces had to be deployed to restore some semblance of normalcy in the area.
The situation in Meerut was even worse. Demanding that the alleged bike thief Tabrez be declared a martyr and his family be compensated adequately, the protesting mob started altercations with the Police. The Police had to resort to lathi-charge to disperse the unruly crowd. Internet services had to be shut down for days to prevent rumour-mongering.
Therefore, to remain in denial of all such violence and claim that Indian Muslims have been cowed into silence by intolerant Hindus is malicious. Sikander isn’t much different from the Muslim Tik Tok artists who were trying to fan communal tensions using Ansari’s unfortunate death. In fact, she is the female intellectual version of Ajaz Khan.
The fear-mongering that Sikander indulges in, without any basis, could have grave consequences for the country. The greatest threat that India faces today is Radical Islam. The denial of the fact that Radical Islam has great support from significant sections of the Indian Muslim community by even so-called ‘Moderate Muslims’ makes it even worse. Under such circumstances, portraying a dystopian present of the country where Hindus are the ones responsible for the great fissures within could very well be the final nail in the coffin.
