Nupur Sharma
The reluctant conclusions that fall from this event.
The past few days have been difficult. By now, you already know Nupur Sharma, BJP spokeswoman, has been accused of blasphemy and Muslims across India and the world are demanding her head in response. I found it difficult to process this issue. So here goes.
Disclaimer: What you are about to read is my opinion and my exercising the right of free speech. I have had great difficulty processing my thoughts and even more difficulty putting them into these words. If you are afraid that the statements may trigger you, stop reading now.
What did she say?
First, it was difficult to determine what she actually said. After finally getting access to the clip (which keeps disappearing and reappearing), I found the actual statement.
Nupur Sharma, apparently agitated, says thus (paraphrased translation), “Should I make fun of your flying horses and flat earth as mentioned in Koran. Should I start mentioning that after marrying a girl at 6, Mohammad had sex with her at 9?” The Koran and Hadith (which details the life of Mohammad as told by others) mention these facts. Nupur made a logical point that if you claim the freedom to mock Hindu deities, then be ready to be ridiculed on things mentioned in the Koran and Hadith.
The reaction was two-fold.
The first part of the reaction was along expected lines. The radical elements were quickly dog-whistled into a frenzy by AltNews’ Mohammad Zubair, Arfa Sherwani, Rana Ayub and others. Within a week, there were calls to behead Nupur. It was followed by applying pressure on the law and order machinery by effigy burning, stone-pelting etc. The events have since amplified.
The second part of the reaction was not anticipated. In a concerted effort, the members of OIC (Organization of Islamic Cooperation), including Saudi Arabia, Iran, Al Qaeda, etc., responded to the event dramatically, creating a foreign policy challenge. As I write this Muslim Brotherhood and Taliban have vowed to attack India. Iran has quietly withdrawn its statement. Qatar has since backed down.
This reaction was a wake-up call.
I became sensitized to the India v Indian Muslim issue since my initial exposure to Muslim riots in my home town, which was in 1984. Since then, I have actively noted these events. Despite that, I did not notice the change in tenor and circumstance even after what happened to Kamlesh Tiwari, what happened at CAA and what happened at Farm law protests. The second reaction to the Nupur Sharma incident did shake me awake. The second reaction isolates Hindus more than it supports Muslims in India. Its implications are starker in my Hindu mind than the first reaction.
Stark realities facing India
It is clear to me that India is facing not just social challenges, but it is at the frontier of the global civilizational conflict. The rise of Islam sowed the seeds of that conflict.
India is at the frontier of Islam’s war for world domination.
India was the frontier in 700AC when Mohammad was born. Europe cleansed itself of the Islamic threat after centuries of crusades. India never fell completely, but it bore the brunt of attacks later. India emerged from Islamic invasions just as the colonial arsenal of Europeans was landing on its shores. While we believed the Islamic threat receded, it was never eliminated.
The second war for Islamic domination is underway. And again, India is at the frontier of this new attack. Islam has special contempt against India because, despite Mohammad desiring the Islamisation of India, India never fell. Europe is being Islamised in a peculiar way - through refugee influx. The US is being held hostage using the Islamophobia card.
Islamic frontier acts in various ways.
The Islamic domination strategy is deployed through various means. These means are explained in the Koran, Hadith or books of clerics that guide the Muslim masses. They are also backed by funds from rich countries.
Love Jihad means marrying non-muslim (girls usually) to convert them. The Madrassas and Islamic organizations give financial incentives to Muslim men to marry non-muslim girls. The incentive is provided if she converts and has a child with the Muslim man. He can later divorce her quickly. In most cases, the man is already married with kids. Swati Goel Sharma is documenting such cases extensively.
Land Jihad is Muslims claiming public places by force by establishing Mazars on railway platforms, masjids on roads, performing namaz on busy streets, etc. They also claim private places by crowding in. So if in a complex with 50 units, you randomly have 10 Muslim households, the common areas will be used for overtly Islamic activities, thus driving out the others. The holdout Hindu or Christian families are given the option to sell their houses at a low price and go to other locations. This land jihad in private colonies is happening in poor neighbourhoods as Muslims shun the regular education limiting their earning capacities and access to loans.
Institutional Jihad is where educated Muslim members of government institutes promote and push only other Muslim juniors. It is happening in hospitals and government offices.
Demographic Jihad or Population Jihad is where Muslims are encouraged to have more children per adult female so as to amplify the numbers. This line of action is being deployed in India but also in the US. The second line of action in this type of jihad is taking in Muslim refugees and settling them in such a manner so as to alter the religious mix of the region. The second version of this is being played out in Europe. It is also being used to settle illegal Bangladeshi migrants and Rohingyas within India.
The Nupur Sharma incident has clearly forced the Hindus to take a stand against what has been evident and in plain sight. Islam has been radicalised and weaponised. There is a reason.
Islam itself faces existential challenges.
The hyperactivity and radical efforts are more last-ditch attempts at survival. This war for Islamic domination is also the last attempt to hold on to a culture that is in decline.
Islam is unable to reconcile itself to basic modern values. In fact, the space for Islamic reform has narrowed to such a degree that true reformists like Imam of Peace, are going to find it difficult to reform.
Ex-Muslims, particularly those in the West, are claiming growing space in the dialogues about Islam. They are enquiring and introspecting about the true, literal, and metaphorical meaning of the Koran, Hadiths and Islam itself. Their goal is to create a space where the adjusted set of Islamic teachings can be acceptable to their modern values. The basic reform, if it ever happens, will be a subset of this space they create. However, their conclusions are clear. Islam does not stand to the scrutiny of those who are on its team itself.
Caught between faith and modernity
Faith is a little complicated. By definition, faith is irrational. Therefore faith does clash with logic. We need to think of faith as an instrument to aid and amplify human psychological wellbeing. These elements cannot be denied because they are not rational.
However, faith cannot be shoehorned into law and governance. It freezes the society preventing any development and evolution. Every innovation, every development, and every aspect of modernity in the Arab world is against some hard-core Islamic principle. The principles had to be either relaxed, reinterpreted or simply ignored to accommodate them.
By mixing the personal faith, the legal code for society and politics, Islam has set itself up for failure. The believers may attribute it to the mistake of those who edited the Koran after the death of Mohammad. The Saudi crown prince Mohammad Bin Salman (MBS) is trying this route. By taking such a stand, there is scope for reconciliation between faith and modernity.
But will Muslims agree?
In effect, there are four kinds of Muslims.
First, who are absolutely blind followers and do not think or apply their minds. Most poor Muslims fall into this category. They are the cannon-fodder. Primed by the faith-law-politics cocktail of Islam, radicalised by clerics, they believe in 72 Hoors of the afterlife. They are ready to sacrifice their own life, take life of others and act whenever the trigger word is announced.
Second, who live by modern values and ignore the doctrine except for some simple practices. The rich and educated Muslims form part of this group. They indulge in almost all things anathema to Islam. But on certain occasions, they display a token allegiance to the faith. Ex-Muslims believe that the second category, moderate Muslims are closet ex-Muslims as they are educated and rich. This group desires modernity but is not ready to critically evaluate its faith to claim modernity.
Third, who have, want to maintain or desire to acquire political power. Any person from this group can invoke the magic word and blind followers will create mayhem on the streets creating ideal conditions for a coup or power grab. They rather have the blind followers remain blind and remain followers. They finance much of the effort to keep them that way. MBS, I think, is dealing with this.
And finally, there are those who think about it deeply and then abandon it totally.
But what about moderate Muslims?
Some ex-Muslims say that there is nothing like a moderate Muslim. They claim “a radical Muslim is one who wants to kill non-Muslims whereas a moderate Muslim is one who wants the radical Muslim to kill the non-Muslim”. I do not agree with this.
Within moderate Muslims, there are two types. The first type is moderate only for convenience. They provide cover to the Islamic radicals. The test of this type of Muslim is whether his religion comes before the country.
The reality is that TRUE moderate Muslims are trapped in the worst situation. They cannot reform Islam for the fear of blasphemy and resulting death. The moderates always end up between a rock and hard place. They are already misfits amongst the radical elements congregating in their religious spaces. They are also misfits amongst non-Muslims.
Unfortunately, the TRUE moderates are not going to be part of the solution of peaceful coexistence. The radicals will force them to take sides. If these TRUE moderates really try to reason with radicals, they are subject to community pressure and they go through another bout of re-radicalisation using a carrot and stick approach.
But it is not their fault. The Islamic code, the Koran, Hadith and clerical literature together, ties up all its followers into non-negotiable positions. The only stable point of this system is a 7th-century Arabian socio-political reality. If you try to make any change, some or other Muslim groups will revolt. This is a Gordian knot.
We can untie this Gordian Knot
Islamic radicalism has been a challenge since the dawn of Islam. It will need to be resolved sooner than later.
No compromises on Rule of Law
The first reform is to disallow groups from violent protest. We need to look at how violent protests are crushed by Europeans and Canadians in their own countries. This violent coercion cannot be allowed.
The reality is these dog whistles will increase. The calls to violence will increase. There will be more riots as radical Muslims try to coerce the state machinery. We need to equip our police better for riot control and to ensure the violent protests are nipped in the bud.
Even the US needs to watch out for woke trends such as de-fund the police, liberal laws on theft.
Hindus need a reset of religion-state and religion-religion relations.
The first part is more about removing the Constitutional handicaps imposed on Hindus by the state. The interference of the State in the religious affairs of Hindus should be prohibited, and Hindu temples should be freed from government control. Hindus should enjoy the same religious freedoms as other religions do. This will enable a resource-backed pushback by Hindus on radical Islam.
Muslims need to be told that no matter what their numbers this country will not be divided along religious lines again. There will be no partition and what partitions have happened we will undo them in the future. Whoever does not agree with this should be declared an enemy of the state.
Create space for Islamic reform
If Islam has to continue, it cannot continue in the old form. Islamic clerics are against any reform stating that the Koran is the word of God. These narratives do not stand up to scrutiny and that rabbit hole runs deep.
I, as a Hindu, expect Muslims to deconstruct Islam and reduce it to personal faith. The rest of the political parts of the doctrine will have to go. Muslims will have to put country before their religion.
To achieve this, we need to give space to ex-Muslims and Islamic reformers to talk about various aspects of Islam and their application in modern value systems. A deep and threadbare discussion of Islam needs to be allowed in the open. This means there will be no space for blasphemy laws.
Convertion and Apostacy
If people want to convert away from Islam they should be able to do so without fear of communal reprimand. An apostacy toolkit can be created for those wanting to leave Islam. The women who want to marry outside Islam and renounce Islam need special attention. This is probably a good area for NGOs to work on. The State should stay away from these issues.
Indians should control of non-Indic Religions in India
The Indian state must follow the French model where the local religion must be governed by local followers and not from seats across the world. We should not accept Arabian view of Islam, nor should be accept Roman view of Christianity. Indian Muslims and Christians should govern their religions in India.
IF everything fails Islam will perish!
Ultimately, IF none of this works, Islam will perish. The doctrine has many hooks and radicalisation avenues built in. Many argue that even if we moderate Islam, reform it, that will only pause this clash of civilisations. A few decades later you will have some random idiot coming to power in remote desert area claiming himself to be Caliph and all dog-whistling will start again.
At some point the world will realise that it does not want Crusades 2.0 or for Jazwa-e-Hind 1.0. I think the Europeans will realise it first. It may seem the Europeans have tied themselves up over Islamophobia and tolerance type of things but that is temporary. Europe is having a dialogue within itself sorting itself out. Once they do, their response will be swift and cruel.
India and Hindus too must have this dialogue. Hindus are alone on the world stage. We have already lost a lot. We should not accept any more losses. It is time we reversed those blots on our history.
Ultimately, what happens to Muslims and Islam will be determined by them. We will tolerate a minimalist Islam and all radical elements will have to be eliminated. IF the Gordian Knot cannot be untied, it must be cut.
Je Suis Nupur!