It’s often said that the Modi government has a ‘Hindutva’ agenda and scores of ‘secular-liberals’ and opposition politicians, like Shashi Tharoor and many others, keep claiming that India is on the path of becoming Hindu Pakistan. However, a Human Rights activist from Pakistan has revealed how such alarmist talks don’t reflect the truth of what’s actually happening in India.
Pakistani human rights activist Arif Aajakia, in a video, has explained how Pakistan’s rhetorics and claims are far removed from the ground realities. From Pakistan’s decades-old policy of production and export of terror as an industry, Aajakia explains how from Zia-ul-Haq’s invention of the Khalistan proxy to present-day atrocities in Balochistan, Pakistan’s establishment has been playing a very dangerous game that is hurting the country itself.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNnkKjJ5imM?start=8]
Speaking on the claims that the present Indian government is promoting Hindu extremism, Aajakia explains how the claim is deeply flawed. He highlights the following points.
1. Muslims have to admit that they are told right from their childhood that they are superior owing to their faith. That anyone not believing in Allah will go to hell. Aajakia explains how, despite the Quran mentioning that all humans are alike, the teachings of Islam have been telling young Muslims that they only are superior.
2. This sense of superiority makes them ill-treat non-Muslims, whether they are in minority or majority. Aajakia gives examples of how Hindus are treated in Pakistan, how they are persecuted and denied rights. He discusses how Pakistan’s textbooks mention India’s existence only after Mehmood Gaznavi’s invasion.
3. He then says that Muslims, even when they are in minority, behave aggressively. He gives examples from London as well from Mumbai and Delhi where he has seen Muslims behave like lawless goons trying to exert their superiority over a peaceful population of Hindus. He says the attitude stems from the time of old Muslim rulers in India where they preferred only Muslim governors to rule over Hindus. Aajakia states, till date, the mentality of many Muslims in India is that of ‘occupiers’.
4. Aajakia goes ahead to explain that the aggression of Muslims, coupled with the behaviour of some Hindus like Shashi Tharoor and Swara Bhaskar and many other celebrities over the decades, had made Hindus behave in an apologist way as if they indeed were inferior.
5. He adds that such inferiority complex in Hindus was there for centuries even though they don’t violently convert others. Citing the example of the rampant kidnapping and conversion of Hindu girls in Pakistan, he says that he has not seen trends where Hindus carry out mass kidnappings and forceful conversions.
6. He says that only thing the Modi government has done is to free the Hindus from such complex of living in guilt, and Hindus have started saying that are proud of their religious identity too, like others. He says that the targetting of RSS is also done with an intent to guilt trip Hindus for just existing and practising their faith. The same mindset that once made Hindus pay Jaziya, now expects them to be ashamed of their religion and identity.
7. Aajakia states it is wrong to blame Hindus for extremism and blame the current Indian government for promoting it because, by nature, Hindus do not have a mentality of forceful conversions and expansion like Islam. He even cites the cases where there are open atrocities on Hindus for just being Hindus, in present-day India too. He discusses how there are active attempts to highlight stray cases where some Muslims have been ‘forced’ to say Vande Mataram while many cases of atrocities, like the recent one in Bihar where a woman was force-fed beef and converted to Islam are sidelined.
He says that Muslims in India should not feel ashamed to say Vande Mataram because it is the salutation to the nation where they belong. Even if they think it is a ‘Hindu slogan’, Aajakia asks whether their ‘Islam’ is so weak that it cannot even endure a slogan.
Aajakia’s arguments not only shows a mirror to India’s secular-liberals, who, as he correctly explained in the video, go on trying to further the centuries-old mentality of inferiority and subservience and keep bashing Hindus just for practising their faith and celebrating their identities but also exposes the inherent hollowness of the entire ‘secularism’ smokescreen.
