Yesterday’s violence in Mumbai, attacks in Pune & Andhra are as disturbing to me as they would be for many other countrymen.
These are supposed to be attacks in retaliation against the attacks on Muslims by Bodo’s in Assam and on Muslims in Myanmar.
That Myanmar is a different Country and Assam is not ‘main land’ as somebody was saying the other day, holds no water when it comes for a cause of protest. That this protest was that of hooliganism & vandalism is terrifying. That tomorrow you can have a similar show of violence against something happening in Sudan or any other country against Muslims should not surprise any more. What is a bit surprising is that nothing of this kind has happened after the French and Australian incidents.
Is it only the Indian Muslims who are reacting this way to any ‘injustice’ to any Muslims anywhere in the world? Seems so except when it is a ethnic clash between Shia’s & Sunnis or any other sects that keeps on happening in all Muslim Countries. Are there no sects in India? Looking at the way the protests get organized, apparently no. Indian Muslims seem to be one monolithic entity which does not have any sects, region or culture of it’s own. How true is this?
The reasons are not farfetched as one can see. Muslims in this country have been slowly but surely been given a doctrine of speaking in Urdu, wearing their religion on their sleeves if you may say so to combine all the skull caps, beards, hennas & burkhas and are part of the larger Muslim brotherhood.
It is becoming a rarity to see a local Muslim speaking in the local dialect which was a norm a generation back. The other day one was talking to a young Muslim, whose accent clearly told that he came from the Deccan plateau. So I asked him what language does he speak, he said Urdu. I had to explain to him that what he spoke was known as Dakkhani a few years back. This example I give to show that this kind of unification is not restricted to the north but is spreading rapidly to the south as well.
The so called promoters of Hindi have long given up the cause of Urdu which was usurped first by Pakistan. Is this the language of Muslim brotherhood that has taken root? Somebody needs to answer this.
The second most disturbing fact is that these protests & violence is happening in Maharashtra which is quite far away from the reasons of this anarchy. One could have still rationalised if it was in West Bengal, Bihar or other Eastern states. But one has heard none of such hooliganism from this area.
The third and the most disturbing one is the patronising tone being used by some of the intelligentsia in a way justifying what is happening or worse, clubbing the ongoing anarchy clearly in the name of religion with the protests against corruption etc.., which by any farfetched imagination are not the same.
This ‘Monolithization’ won’t last long is one thing, which is assured, looking into the Indian Psyche. But the damage it can cause in the mean time is something the thinkers of this Country need to ponder upon.
