Author: Ratan Sharda
Publication: Firstpost.com
Date: June 11, 2022
URL:      https://www.firstpost.com/opinion/friday-fury-it-is-not-nupur-sharma-issue-it-is-the-mindset-10783841.html

It is clear that the huge boisterous protests across the country on Friday were orchestrated. Accommodating such elements is not going to bring peace.

Most Indians must have been dismayed and disturbed, looking at the huge boisterous protests after Friday prayers all over Bharat. Protestors demanded Nupur Sharma’s arrest and in many places, her death. Her hanging effigy demonstrated this intent. Clearly, the crowds, egged on by the maulanas’ speeches, want ‘justice’ in line with Shariah, not Constitution.

Without going into the debate of what Nupur said or whether it was backed by Hadis, we need to ask this question: Suppose Nupur Sharma is put behind bars, would the protests stop? Would the demand for ‘Sar tan se juda’ stop? I don’t think so. Kamlesh Tiwari and Kishan Bharwad incidents are too recent to be forgotten. Kishan had, in fact, apologised for his post. But he was not spared. Had the instigators and perpetrators been given exemplary punishment for taking law into their own hands, we might have avoided such violent incidents.

Living in a democratic secular polity where the community has all the freedom to practise its religion, where a provision has especially been made to punish ‘blasphemy’, if certain sections want Shariah to rule the society then our democracy and our freedom is in great danger.

These Friday furies don’t happen just in India but across the world. Such protests have not spared any non-Muslim society. We have seen many European countries under attack by extremists. Countries with a pronounced Shia-Sunni divide have witnessed horrible killings. Pakistan is a living example.

To understand this mindset, one has to just look deeper and observe recent history. There is no need to go back too far.

In 1963, the holy relic of the Prophet went missing from the Hazrat Bal shrine in Kashmir valley. Though, no Indian of Bharat was involved; massive protests and riots took place. Hindu temples were burnt and damaged in East Pakistan and Pakistan.

Interestingly, terrorists took control of the same shrine in 1993 and stayed there for days. But there were no protests in Kashmir or other parts of India or Bangladesh for defiling the holy shrine. Finally, the terrorists were given safe passage and they escaped to Pakistan.

There was a fire in the Al Aqsa mosque in Israel in1969. There were widespread protests in India, not just in the Arab world. It had no connection with India, but Indian Muslims took part in massive protests.

In Jammu and Kashmir, a large number of temples were damaged, destroyed or arson committed from 1986 to 1990, before the Babri destruction. There was no provocation, but the objective was to put fear in the hearts of Kashmiri Hindus. Their crime was that they hadn’t converted like the other 90 per cent of the population. A report published in the Nav Bharat Times gives some idea of the scale of destruction of temples in the Valley.

As per Home Ministry data, 36 temples bore the brunt of communal violence in 1986, 8 in 1988, 12 in 1989, 8 in 1990, totalling 64 temples. Five temples were attacked in 1991, and 24 in 1992. Hindus didn’t run riot. Kashmiri Hindus filed cases in police stations. Naturally, nothing came of it, only exodus.

The riots in support of Rohingya Muslims were engineered all across India in 2012. People from the North East were targeted in the belief that they were not allowing Rohingyas into Bharat. It was found later that these were the first engineered riots with misleading pictures emanating mostly from Pakistan, broadcast by Indian miscreants and Muslims were instigated to seek ‘justice’.

Let us not forget that when middle Eastern Muslim refugees escaped Syria, they were not given a place in any Islamic country, including the richest Islamic kingdoms leading the Wahhabi ideology. No Indian Muslim leader demanded their settlement in neighbouring Islamic countries. Ummah was forgotten. They went all the way to Europe. It is an irony that they are now demanding Shariah there.

CAA was another agitation that was created on a fake narrative where illiterate Muslims were fed false information by the Left-Islamic combine, ably supported by the secular class. CAA was a law meant for persecuted minorities in declared Islamic countries. It had nothing to do with Indian Muslims. But agitations were instigated and Shaheen Bagh became an international spectacle, finally resulting in the Delhi riots. Court proceedings tell us that the Left-Islamists combined engineered this mayhem.

The people who called this bill communal, as it left out Muslims, tried to make us forget that one-third of Bharat was vivisected to accommodate Muslims who did not wish to live with Hindus and wished to have their own Dar-ul-Islam. It didn’t occur to them why India would offer them quick asylum and the normal doors of asylum were still open.

The unnecessary meddling of Muslim women from Shaheen Bagh, who must have been ‘guided’ by their mentors, in the farmers’ agitation was another sign that the community leaders were itching for disturbances.

I am not even getting into sporadic incidents like attacking the youth carrying out a Tiranga yatra during Independence Day celebrations, or the infamous Malda riots of 2016 that challenged state power.

The sustained creation of a victimhood complex is an exercise carried out by opportunist leaders who wish to control the minds of the Muslim masses. There are different victimhood cards for different countries. Sometimes the pushback from the other members of the society becomes the victimhood card.

Creating riots, organising protests for real or imaginary wrongs within the Muslim society anywhere in the world come from the mindset of the Ummah, which is a mythical phenomenon. After all, if there were an Ummah, there won’t be blood-letting between different Islamic countries, and different Muslim sects.

Therefore, the political class, the government and the opinion leaders should be clear that Nupur Sharma is just an excuse to show muscle power and challenge state force. It is a struggle to impose Shariah rules on democratic societies, the majority of whom don’t follow Islam.

All this is done in the name of human rights and constitutions of respective democratic societies. Democratic norms are being exploited to impose the will of a turbulent minority. In India, this term is a misnomer due to its sheer size. They are the second-largest majority. Giving concessions only emboldens these leaders and their supporters — the secular-Left combine.

Ultimately, the Left agenda is the creation of anarchy to help take over by Maoists and other similar cults. But what is the excuse for secular, supposedly liberal groups? Have they not seen the condition of liberals in Europe or Islamic countries? They need to ponder deeply.