Muslim India

Saturday, December 06, 2008

From bull to bakri

It is supposed to be in history books, that Mughal king Babar has advised his son, Humayun, that if you want to rule India, you should care for the sentiments of the people here and ban cow slaughter. In the aftermath of Mumbai’s terror attacks of 26/30 November, as a gesture of sympathy with the victims of the carnage, Darul Deoband Madarsa has come out with friendly advice to the Muslim community to refrain from cow slaughter.

In fact, cows are never slaughtered in Qurbani or otherwise. The common usage of ‘cow slaughter’ has been a big fraud by anti-Muslim politicians and media. Legal steps could be taken against those who are using this innuendo to sow seeds of communal division between the communities.

Quick to support Deoband’s advice is another Muslim organisation, All India Imam organisation, which, if the information is correct, is headed by Maulana Jamil Ilyasi, who went active during BJP’s coalition rule and formed his organisation of Imam, reportedly at the behest of BJP and Sangh Parivar, promising Imams to be awarded legal grade of salaries from the Government. That fraud is still persisting. No such help was ever budgeted by BJP coalition nor ever came under active consideration by the central government.

Naturally, this unrepresentative paper organisation is ever ready to promote Sangh Parivar’s agenda of demoralizing Muslims and forcing them to shed what they would consider part and parcel of their religious freedom.

It is unfortunate, that even though statistics in public domain clearly prove that an overwhelming majority of Indian citizens are non-vegetarians in practice, propaganda has especially targeted against Muslims as the chief objector of strictures to force vegetarianism on Indian people. Even in economic terms, the national economy cannot sustain a complete abstention from slaughter of animals, as the cheap source of protein for the people.  Government fully realises this stark fact, but is illegally instrumental in putting out propaganda against non-vegetarianism and encourages the trouble makers to use the controversy to put down Muslim demands.

In this connection, Muslims cannot fail to note that while authorities in Mumbai, in the aftermath of Mumbai terror attacks in which 5 Israeli Jews died, readily agreed to forgo post-mortem regulations, as per Jewish religious constraints, they would hardly come around to grant such exceptions to their own 150 million Muslim citizens, even though Sharia is strictly against any mutation or disfigurement of the dead, be that Muslims or non-Muslims, whether in war or peacetime. Why Muslims are supposed to water down their religious imperatives, from Qurbani to post-mortem, just to appease a handful of the 3% high caste minority that has monopolised power in a supposedly democratic country, where the majority is systematically disenfranchised. A call has gone out that Muslims should subdue their Eid, in the aftermath of Mumbai carnage. As if Muslims did not lose their own brothers and sisters in the wanton massacre. If terror does not have any religion, why response to terror takes the garb of religion. Why Muslims in India have to appease others and compromise on their own religious freedom. No Indian citizen, except those that are proved criminals from whatever section of Indian life, should be targeted as being responsible for the violence and terror, especially when big conspiracies that have no public hand, are the order of the day.  It would appear that Indian Muslims are being transformed from raging bull to whining sheep. They should rise up and become proud of being full citizens of India, their homeland and that of their forefathers and that of their coming generations.

Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai

ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com

www.ghulammuhammed.wordpress.com