On the 29th of September, an innocuous tweet about Garba made me the subject of an ocean of support, but also of sub-human vitriol, abuse and slander. As they say, if one can’t handle the heat, one should get out of the kitchen. Frankly, social media vitriol by Islamists and their ideological backbones only act as fuel. I thrive on it. I know I should be crying copious amounts of tears, much like the Left, because the non-Left always tells me that we need to play that game “smartly”. But I can’t. I don’t feel victimised. I feel vindicated. I believe for the larger Hindu cause, it is only desirable that the poison rises to the surface – the poison against Hindus, against Hindutva, against this great civilisational land for which our ancestors bled and died.
The tweet that went viral, was a rather mainstream opinion – mainstream if one actually gets out of the South Delhi, South Mumbai circuit and bothers to interact with the rest of the country – Muslims should stay away from Hindu festivals, Garba in this case, because it is a deeply religious celebration of the Navdurga – those who believe idolatry is a sin and that polytheists should be slayed wherever they are found, have no business attending Hindu festivals.
Since I seem to have triggered a lot of people, here is an alternate proposition – If Garba is a cultural event and not a religious one, maybe other non-Hindu religious places could start hosting these events? Let’s all respect and celebrate our syncretic culture 🤗
— Nupur J Sharma (@UnSubtleDesi) September 30, 2022
With over 2 million impressions and thousands of mentions (good and bad), I feel it is important I talk about my position to my readers because this position, I believe, is important for the longer civilisational battle that Hindus seem to have been sucked into, willingly or unwillingly – I stand by every single word in those tweets.
This article is not meant to be an explanation for the Islamists and Leftists who seem to have lost their sleep over this rather average opinion. It is meant to be a conversation between my readers and me through the only medium I can truly express myself – because Twitter, I believe, is a tawdry medium made for punchlines, not elaborate discussions.
I have been running OpIndia for over 5 years now, and year after year, on every single major Hindu festival, we document how devotees come under attack by Islamists, Leftists and sometimes, the state. In 2020, right before the anti-CAA violence broke out, there was a spate of attacks against Hindus. It started with the Hauz Qazi temple vandalisation in the heart of Delhi and was followed by several attacks against Durga Puja processions. In 2021, we saw the Delhi anti-Hindu riots, large-scale attacks against Hindus in Bangladesh and the Bengal post-poll violence specifically directed against Hindus and this is just a timeline off the top of my head. In between all of this, we also witnessed a global cabal trying to vilify Hindus by using euphemisms like Hindutva – from “Dismantling Global Hindutva” to Leicester – Hindus are being vilified, targeted, beaten, attacked and shunned. The propaganda crescendo, dare I say, is almost Nazi-esque in nature – stereotype and vilify an innocent, indigenous population to an extent that even their genocide seems justifiable.
The attacks against Hindus by Islamists, the world over, are not something that should surprise us. We don’t even need to go into Islamic theology to understand that their hate for Polytheists comes from their deep faith in their scripture. Frankly, I never understood why we need to start quoting scriptures to make our point. We don’t need to talk about Surah 2 (Al-Baqarah) Verse 191, Surah 3 (Ali ‘Imran) Verse 151, Surah 4 (An-Nisa) Verse 56, 89, 101, Surah 5 (Al-Ma’idah) Verse 14, 51, 57, Surah 8 (Al-Anfal) Verse 65, 69, Surah 9 (At-Tawbah) Verse 5, 14, 23, 28, 29, 37, 58, 111, 123, Surah 21 (Al-Anbya) Verse 98 so on and so forth. We just need to look at documented evidence about their collective conduct towards Hindus.
Even as this Garba controversy was brewing, OpIndia documented how Muslim men in Indore and Ahmedabad pretended to be Hindus to access Garba events just so they could film Hindu girls and how a minor was gang raped by Muslim men who said they will get Jannat because they raped a Hindu woman and that everything was “fair” in Islam. Even as the controversy brewed, Muslim youth forcibly entered a Garba event in Jaipur. Even as this controversy brewed, we reported NIA revelations about PFI planning to bomb several Hindu religious places during Dussera and Diwali. I am not even talking about centuries of persecution. I am not talking about Aurangzeb, Babar and their likes (or even the support they find among Indian Muslims today). I am not going back decades to talk about Hindus being burnt alive in Godhra or the Malabar Genocide of Hindus, the Khilafat movement and the partition. I am merely talking about the news that emerged in a span of 48 hours – 30th September and 1st October.
With thousands of temples desecrated to build mosques, the ongoing persecution of the Hindu faith does not need a theological debate to find legitimacy. One only needs to open their eyes and look around.
With news emerging on a daily basis, what is it then, that forces people to convince themselves that sectarian hate against Polytheists is a figment of the Hindu imagination? I believe the aim is guilt-tripping Hindus. To place the responsibility of syncretic culture only on the shoulders of Hindus so the community is forced to accept every aggression against themselves without any semblance of retaliation or self-defence. With all of this evidence, Hindus are expected to uphold the mythical syncretic culture where Muslims of all hues must be embraced and invited to participate in Hindu festivals, festivals that celebrate the divine feminine – deities that Islam considers demonic.
The evidence that the insistence on attending Garba is not rooted in religious respect or reverence but to ensure that the Hindu community’s spirit of self-defence is broken down completely, is aplenty. Arfa Khanum Sherwani, The Wire journalist who claims to fight for Muslim rights took to Twitter to talk about how the Hindu insistence that Muslims should stay away from Garba is breaking down the last shred of the composite culture that remains in India. She termed Hindus “Hindutva Fascists” for asking Muslims to stay away, given that certain sections of the Muslim community mock, desecrate and abuse Hindu deities.
Hindutva Fascists are mocking, discouraging, threatening and even beating up Muslims who are/want to participate in celebrations of Hindu festivals.
— Arfa Khanum Sherwani (@khanumarfa) October 1, 2022
They are destroying the last bit of whatever has remained of India and its composite culture.
Today, when Arfa is talking about the composite culture of India and calling Hindus ‘fascists’ for asking those who don’t believe in the feminine Hindu deity to stay away from Garba, it is important to remember that Arfa had earlier said that “Bharat Mata ki Jai” is communal because Muslims are being forced to submit to the concept of feminine deity when they follow the “One God” concept.
The proud Muslima is calling Hindus “fascists” because they essentially took her assertions at face value, as one of the representatives of the Muslim community, and said that since Muslims believe that submission to the feminine deity is “communal” and “fascistic”, maybe Muslims have no business attending Garba festival. And, to rub the communal Hindu’s nose in the mud, she attended a Garba festival and posted the video online as well. I will not be posting the video of her at Garba in this article because it appears that she was there with a minor, presumably her daughter according to several tweets, and no child should pay for the sins of her mother.
Now, does it make Hindus fascists if we simply take these assertions made by Muslim representatives at their face value and why should we not believe that Arfa attended the Garba festival simply because she wants to taunt the Hindu community?
Hindus, on the other hand, to counter this burden, try to push the burden onto the Muslims – they say if Hindus are supposed to accept Muslim participation in Hindu religious festivals like Navratri, non-Muslims should also be allowed to enter Mecca, offer prayers to their deities in a Mosque, so on and so forth. That is a facetious argument, used merely to point toward hypocrisy, not necessarily for implementation. Frankly, I have no problem if non-Muslims are not allowed in Mecca and Mosques don’t allow Hindus to worship their deities on their premises (the legitimate ones, not ones built over ruins of Hindu temples, of course). Religious activities are for those who believe in the Deity/God being worshipped – not for those who have no veneration for the religion or the divine power being prayed to. I don’t want to enter Mecca. As a Hindu, I have no faith in Islam and therefore, my presence there has no logical basis for it. But the fact that the very Muslims, who think violence is justified if Hindus so much as pass through “Muslim areas”, think that it is their constitutional right to enter Hindu religious festivals even though they have no faith in the Deity being celebrated, is an argument that gives rise to such facetious demands – a sign of desperation and anger.
Besides the burden of maintaining India’s mythical syncretic culture, one shabby and effective ploy used by the defenders of this shenanigan is to de-hyphenate religion from our festivals. Diwali becomes a “festival of lights”, Holi becomes a “festival of colours” and Garba becomes merely a folk dance. The deep religiosity attached to these festivals is discarded, even delegitimised, so our religious festivals can be “secularised” and used to display the disrobed mockery of Hindus by Islamists. In their ‘dismantling global Hindutva’ propaganda, where Hindutva is just a euphemism for Hinduism, this strategy fits perfectly – chip away everything Hinduism stands for to ensure that nothing is left to fight for in the end. Hindus must, in my opinion, vociferously assert the religiosity of their festivals because if they don’t, they might not have much to celebrate in the future.
Not all Muslims
I am deeply aware that my position on Hindu festivals could be unpalatable to some Hindus, who are fundamentally inclusive. Despite intimate knowledge of everything I have said and covered in this article, a nagging thought that would gnaw at them is that not all Muslims are the same. Their friend, their neighbour, their building contractor, their fruit seller and the average Muslim on the street trying to earn an honest living has nothing to do with hate for Hinduism, they would like to believe. This is partly true, of course. All Muslims are certainly not the same. In fact, in one of my articles about how Islamophobia is a Muslim brother ploy, I had said exactly this – it would make sense for the Muslim community to fight “Muslimophobia”, however, “Islamophobia” is a ploy to skirt criticism of the problematic religious tenets that dehumanise others.
Having said that, what I can’t seem to find an answer to is who are those thousands who take to the streets to chant Sar Tan Se Juda, as we saw during the Nupur Sharma fiasco? Who were those two Islamists who murdered Kanhaiya Lal? All Muslims are not the same, yes, but with thousands and lakhs of Muslims baying for Hindu blood, how do you differentiate? Are they not Muslims and do their wishes not adhere to true Islam? Why do so many factions of the Muslim community resort to unbridled violence against non-Muslims the world over?
I am no Maulana and these are questions that the Muslim community has to answer.
What makes these misgivings worse, is the fact that we hardly saw condemnation for Islamist violence against Hindus. When the Delhi anti-Hindu riots took place, despite ample evidence that it was a planned attack against the Hindu community, the entire global cabal of Leftists and Islamists employed all the resources at their disposal to prove that it was an anti-Muslim “pogrom”. When Nupur Sharma came under global threat and chants of Sar Tan Se Juda echoed on the streets, the Muslim community shunned away from condemning the bloodthirsty monsters. In fact, there were tweets even justifying the “anger” of the Muslim community by saying that Nupur Sharma crossed a line. Judges of the Supreme Court no less blamed Nupur Sharma for the beheading of Kanhaiya Lal by Islamists and the Liberals simply cheered them on. When the larger Muslim community remains mute against Islamist aggression, whitewashes cases of genocide, calls cases of rape and murder of Hindu girls fake and made up and justifies violence against Hindus for speech, Hindu misgivings are reasonable, at the very least.
If the Muslim community believes that this mistrust is misplaced and that they truly wish to participate in Hindu festivals not to insult, desecrate, mock and dismantle Hinduism, they need to give Hindus a reason to trust them and explain the parts of their faith that propagate violence. If they think the violence and mockery of the Hindu faith is a part of Islam, they need to evolve and summarily denounce the last stone pelter and hardliner on the streets. Failing this, and failing the blanket and genuine condemnation from the larger Muslim community of every act of violence perpetrated against the Hindu community, Hindus have a right to defend their faith against aggression, verbal or physical, just as any community under siege would.
Essentially, this entire guilt-tripping of Hindus during their festivals is an effective way to make the Hindu community accustomed to their own persecution. To quote Sita Ram Goel, “The point that all of you are trying to make is that Hindus should not stand up and speak in defence of their own religion and culture, that Hindus should not try to analyse and understand the factors and forces in the field around them, in short, that Hindus should remain at the receiving end for all time to come. We are sorry we have to reject your advice”.
