Author: Editorial
Publication: Organiser
Date: September 3, 2006
URL: http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=147&page=6
Mullahs have a penchant for trivia. But are
they innocuous? The latest to hit their attention is the life insurance. Reports
say that Darul Uloom of Deoband has declared life insurance illegal saying
that interest earned on bank deposits as well as insurance of life are bad
as per the Shariat. Muslims should not go in for insurance or assurance of
life which has been given to them by Allah, Deoband decreed. It is to be seen
how many Muslims in India will now withdraw their money from banks and insurance
institutions to comply with the definitions of the Mullahs.
Another report from the other part of the
country said that Onam, the biggest cultural festival of Kerala, has been
banned in some Muslim-run educational institutions in Kozhikode and Malappuram,
Muslim-dominated districts in Kerala, by the local maulvis. We have been getting
reports of ban on cinema halls, video parlours, beauty and fitness clubs and
even elite restaurants in Kashmir Valley by the custodians of the religion.
By this yard-stick their fatwa against the singing of Vande Mataram should
be taken with disdain and contempt it deserves.
Vande Mataram singing on September 7 to mark
the centenary of the great song may not have become a great controversy but
for the pusillanimous response of the so-called secular political class. The
HRD Minister Arjun Singh amended his own circular post-haste in a characteristic
display of reverence to unreasonable bullying of the Muslim fanatics. Some
leaders from other parties followed the Congress lead, though the usual suspects
like Mulayam Singh and Lalu Yadav did not jump into the fray.
Majority of the Muslim leadership, and largely
the community ignored the fatwa against Vande Mataram. The Mullahs like the
rogue elephant in the herd, are trying the limits of their strength. Their
idea is to provoke, to create artificial situations to heighten the social
tension, push the community to extreme positions so that they will stand out
as a sore thumb. They are afraid of modern education-these men are largely
illiterate, blissfully unaware of the march of time-they are envious of their
brethren marching shoulder to shoulder with the rest of the country to the
new prosperous, strong India. Muslim symphysis into the national mainstream
is what frightens the Mullahs. So they insist on madrasa education, they want
to force their people into the ghettos and ghettoise the entire population,
so that they become breeding grounds and cannon fodder for the Islamic terror
industry.
So we will never hear of a fatwa against terrorism.
Against child marriage or ill-treatment of women. They will not speak against
smuggling or the thriving lethal traffic in narcotics or hawala transfers,
chief sources funding terrorist activities in the country. What do they hope
to achieve by trying to keep some 14 per cent of the population captive to
their evil designs? Do they hope to construct another communal divide?
The Mullah mindset has not changed. It is
the same that promoted a theory that in an independent India, Muslims will
be treated second-class citizens and they can never hope to implement Shariat
or live according to the dictates of their religion and so they need a separate
sovereign country. This mindset forced the creation of Pakistan. Those who
propounded this, hopefully left for Pakistan to live the life they desired.
But what about the rest who opted to live in the secular India? They perhaps
believed in the country's rich and composite culture, they lived to share
and belong to this great land and rebuild India as the dreamland of the universe.
Should these mad Mullahs be allowed to destroy this garden of a billion flowers?
Should they succeed in their evil designs once again, that will be the end
of all that we cherish as eternal.
We cannot allow the idea of India to be challenged.
We have to set the bottom line. The defining institutions, ethos and symbols
of our nationhood cannot be allowed to be trampled upon. The country has to
once and for all set the ground rule. This far and no further. National flag,
national anthem, national icons, national song, national sentiments, sensitivities
and national boundaries have to be defined and made finally inviolable. Let's
take this vow on September 7, to revive the spirit and emotive dynamics of
Vande Mataram.
