Author: Prafull Goradia
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: May 24, 2003
Over and above the invisible fifth
column, there is a known fourth column in India. There is a Pakistan inside
the borders which needs to be defeated first. President Musharraf's country
is beyond the borders and is comparatively a lesser menace. An inimical
neighbour is more dangerous than a transborder enemy. Asghar Ali and his
several accomplices, recently apprehended in Hyderabad for the murder of
Haren Pandya, are a good example of Pakistanis who flourish in India.
The Left-liberal habit of confusing
any pro-Pakistani mischief with a minority syndrome is unfortunate. It
defames the average Muslim in the eyes of the average Hindu. Surely every
Muslim is not pro-Pakistan. In fact, the overwhelming majority is not so.
Nor are all pro-Pakistanis living in India, Muslim. They are also Sikhs
and Hindus, including journalists and MPs, who are ardent supporters of
our neighbour country's cause.
The first step that needs to be
taken against indigenous Pakistanis is to get over the Nehruvian obsession
with the classification of majority and minority. All adult citizens of
India should possess their identity cards without a focus on his or her
religion. Thereafter, a distinction must be made between law abiding citizens
and criminals, no matter their religion. It must be remembered that Indian
Muslims are not a typical minority. They ruled large tracts of India until
1857. In Mughal times, they were estimated to comprise 10 per cent of the
population and yet what they said went. Forty years after Independence
and Partition, they had the leverage to overturn a Supreme Court judgement
in the Shah Bano case and had the Muslim Women's Bill passed by Parliament.
Earlier, they had overturned a Supreme Court judgement which had declared
AMU was a Government institution. This enormous clout is not the characteristic
of a minority.
Partition was entirely a Muslim
League proposal. It was supported by an overwhelming majority of Muslim
voters in the 1946-47 elections to the Constituent Assembly, the forerunner
of the Lok Sabha. In effect, the vivisection of the country was the price
that the Hindus paid to placate the Muslims. The Muslim League demand was
not merely for territory but also for an exchange of population whereby
all Hindus would migrate to Hindustan and all Muslims to emigrate to Pakistan.
The status of Muslims, therefore, in the light of the Muslim League demand,
can be considered ambiguous. Sir Feroz Khan Noon, a leading luminary of
the League who later rose to be Pakistan's prime minister, while addressing
MLAs at Patna on 16 April 1946, (Karachi's Dawn) threatened re-enactment
of the orgies of Chengiz Khan and Halaqu Khan if Hindu leaders did not
concede the demand for a population transfer.
The League's demand was implemented
with despatch in the western wing of Pakistan. Nearly all the Hindus and
Sikhs were hounded out of the country. The process of ethnic cleansing
was slower in the eastern part whether before or after its secession as
Bangladesh. From over 30 per cent Hindus, their proportion has come down
to some 10 per cent. If there be any let up, it has been on the part of
Hindustan.
There are four probable avenues
towards resolving the fourth column's threat to India. One approach could
be to adopt the Pakistani and the Bangladeshi model - albeit systematically
and peacefully. In this regard, it must be remembered that the Islamic
countries make no bones about their being Islamic. They have no time for
any secular concept. They have minuscule minorities, like Iran and Turkey
which have three per cent. Algeria is reported to have only about one per
cent. On the other hand, Egypt has about 10 per cent Coptic Christians
whose treatment ranges from indifferent tolerance to violent rioting. On
the extreme, there are countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE which do
not permit non-Muslims to be citizens.
Yet another model would be Europe.
The Muslim and non-Christians are treated well but strictly within the
framework of their secular laws. There are no special privileges like those
in Articles 29 and 30 of the Indian Constitution. For example, the minority
educational institutions have no particular independence of operation.
No separate personal laws, like the sharia, are allowed to be practiced.
There is nothing reminiscent of wakf. Graveyards have to be cyclical according
to European practice and not be of an eternal nature as expected in Islam.
The dead have to be buried in a coffin and not merely wrapped in a kafan.
Animal sacrifices on Id-ul Zuha have to be within the confines of local
requirements. The thrust of this model is there is no state within a state.
In the name of liberalism or pluralism, the European character of society
is not diluted.
