The new awakened Bharat

Lalit Shastri

All should be taught our glorious history and also every bit of how the history of the last millennium, of the vast Indian sub-continent, has been fudged to bury the holocaust, massacre of millions of Hindus and how they were subjected to barbaric torture for religious conversion. This is not just a matter of history, it has remained a continuous process. It is not long ago that the world witnessed the biggest displacement of population in human history and the slaughter of more than a million by those who swear by the two nation theory when India was divided in 1947. As recently as 1990-91, the Kashmir valley was turned into hell by the same radicalised mind set that drove out the Kashmiri Hindus from their homes and made them refugees in their own country- they did this by terror, rape, loot and murder. We have to be cautious of those who define their religion by "us and them" and have preferred to organise themselves politically and nation-state wise under a common religion. They choose to coexist with the followers of "other religions" for the sake of their own existence either on their (religious) terms when they are in majority or else they flow with the current when in minority. Even today the Muslims keep migrating and pushing into non-Muslim areas and slowly but surely changing the demographics leading to clashes with existing cultures in order to convert them. We have the burning example of Europe and closer home in India where the illegal Bangladeshi and the Rohingya migrants pose a serious threat to national security.

Hindus, who have suffered immensely over the last 1000 years at the hands of the barbaric invaders, would be too naive to shut their eyes and black out history that's been underscored by invasions for the purpose of subjugation of a vast population - rich both in terms of culture and wealth - and for religious dominance. Can one afford to overlook the fact that Jihad being integral to Islam, led to every invader piling up mounds of Hindu skulls and the destruction of learning centres like Taxila and Nalanda. 

For a nation and ancient civilisation like India, in order to remain great, what's imperative is that its vast majority of people should be well versed with its history, ancient culture, Sanatan dharma, ethos and knowledge covering all aspects of life and philosophy that's enshrined in our Vedas, Brahmanas, Upanishads and the great epics like the Ramayana and Mahabharat, the trailblazing Sanskrit literature immortalised by the great poet Kalidasa and also the treasure house of the classic Tamil Sangam literature dating back between 2 and 3 millennium.

At the time of Independence, when the communal leaders and radicalised among the Muslims were trying to divide the people, there was a miniscule section among the Muslims that felt that the economic prosperity of the people did not depend on their religion.

Mohamed Ali Jinnah, after building himself as a liberal leader during the Freedom Struggle, took the rabidly rigid stand that because of their religion Muslims formed a separate nation and was the kingpin behind India's partition and the creation of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, which is now known globally as a terrorist State. We all know how it has patronised the jihadi terrorists for carrying violence in  Kashmir.

When Jinnah was going full steam ahead with his two nation theory knowing that pan Islamism of the pre-British India was a thing of the past, in Hyderabad, there was Bahadur Yar Jung, the Nizam, in his capacity as the president of the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, who the Muslims treated as their true representative when a few years before India's partition, he ensured that  a short statement of faith (Kalima) be recited at all the meetings of the Ittehad. The Kalima was intended to convey that Hyderabad was the only state with Islamic dominance in India. 

At the time of Independence, besides, Junagadh and Jodhpur, we also have the case of Nawab Hamidullah Khan  of Bhopal, who was an active member of the All-India Muslim League and a close ally of Jinnah. When India was being divided in1947, he advocated the cause of Muslim autonomy within India and wanted to retain Bhopal as a separate independent State. After a mass agitation for merger and due to Sardar Patel's iron fisted handling of the situation, Hamidullah Khan was left with no option but to sign the merger agreement. 

After Independence, the Congress party chose to blatantly play the communal card by appeasing the Muslims and treating them as a vote bank assuming it would perpetually keep the party riveted to power. Shahbano is a case in point that exposed Rajiv Gandhi and his communal politics. The lid was off when Indira Gandhi, during the draconian Emergency days, got the word "Secular" inserted in the Indian Constitution. 

After Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister, he has taken sweeping steps like abrogation of special status to Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370. The Modi government on 11 March 2024 also notified the Citizenship (Amendment) Rules, 2024. This law was, passed in December 2019.  The Citizenship (Amendment) Rules, 2024 will enable minorities persecuted on religious grounds in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan to acquire citizenship in India.

With this notification Prime Minister Narendra Modi has delivered on another commitment and realised the promise of the makers of our constitution to the Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians living in those countries.

Meanwhile, there is also over-riding political will to implement the National Register of Citizens. NRC is meant to identify and deport illegal immigrants, especially from Bangladesh. After the Bharatiya Janata Party led ruling NDA called the bluff, vis-a-vis the Muslim vote bank inherent in Congress politics, the Congress party started losing ground and popular base at a rapid pace. Consequently the Muslims have started deserting the sinking ship. But, instead of joining the mainstream and going for issue based politics,  they are still voting enbloc on religious lines - something so amply demonstrated recently in Bihar, where AIMIM’s strong showing  had catapulted Asaduddin Owaisi as a pan-Indian Muslim leader in the making. 

On 22 January, Prime Minister Narendra Modi participated in the Pran Pratishtha (consecration) ceremony of Shri Ramlalla in the newly built Shri Ram Janmbhoomi Mandir in Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh, India. The Ram temple has been built after the monumental verdict of the Supreme Court in November 2019, which granted the site at Ayodhya for the construction of the Ram temple, ending a long legal dispute over the land where the Babri Masjid once stood.  The Ram temple at Ayodhya symbolises a new awakening and assertion by the followers of Sanatan Dharma who have suffered infinite brutality, genocide and displacement at the hands of waves and waves of Islamist invaders over many centuries. Rightly, the Prime Minister defined the glorious moment in history by stating that Ram Katha is infinite and Ramayan too is endless and the Ram temple at Ayodhya, which is a temple of national consciousness will be witness to the rise of a magnificent India.

India boasts of a plural society, people talk without end about composite culture, unity in diversity and secularism and at the same time we also have the Muslim vote bank that puts a huge question mark on all this. Then there is also the Popular Front of India (PFI), an extremist Islamic organisation, now under Government of India's scanner for alleged links with global terror outfits. There also has been the banned Students' Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). The stated goal of this proscribed organisation was "liberation of India" and its conversion to an Islamic land.