Insightful newsletter of Drishtikone: Issue #269 - Demonizing CAA and NRC Laws in India!
CAA and the NRC laws in India have been demonized by the Western liberals, while Indian Government, intellectuals have failed to frame their counters. Even when, they conform to UN HR laws!
Photo by Dinker Gulati on Unsplash \ Hauz Khas Village, India
“Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.” ― Mark Twain, Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World
Today, in this section, we will share the discussion that Vivek Agnihotri and I had on “What is Destiny?”
I think it was quite an interesting discussion with so many insightful moments that Vivek and I got to share during a free-flowing chat. Please do watch, comment on and share with your friends.
IN our last newsletter we had discussed how we had this debate with a BBC “North India Correspondent” journalist named Altaf Hussain. Issue #268 - Activist Journalists and Mr. Dooley The discussion started off on the note that Aarti Tikoo Singh’s interview in Assam with a Muslim did not clearly show the insecurities of the whole community and went through the entire journey of insecurities, of “all the Muslims”, to CAA, NRC etc. Since this has been such a consistent line of attack on the Hindus (yes under the garb of “Hindutva” obviously) and the Modi government in particular and one has not seen a consistent and logical set of counters from either the intellectuals or the ministers, maybe it is time to go over the details step by step.
Insecurities, Walmartization, and spokespersons
Muslims are presented in India (and elsewhere) as if they are a homogenous community. That is where our friend started off. He had a narrative that he wanted to force-fit into the responder’s mouth. That did not happen, so he was not “good enough”.
Despite there being numerous denominations and sub-denominations with major differences between the theological and indeed, based on the origin of Islam itself; the Muslims around the world, and specifically in India have been “herded” into one group by these overzealous “Muslim intellectuals”.
In Iran, for example, the Sunnis (as well as other non-Muslim minorities) have a very tough time.
In addition to Sunnis, there are several smaller non-Muslims groups, notably Bahais, Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians. Compared to them, Sunnis have greater legal protections. Sunni schools of Islamic jurisprudence are officially recognized in the constitution as sources of family law and religious education. Sunnis can serve in the parliament, though they’re not afforded the few reserved seats given to other religious minorities. (Source: Iran’s Beleaguered Sunnis)
Despite a population of 1 million Sunnis in Tehran, there are no Sunni mosques there.
On the other side, the Sunnis have unleashed a genocide of Shias throughout Islamic history.
Throughout history, the persecution of Shias by their Sunni co-religionists has often been characterized by brutal and genocidal acts; the most recent case of religious persecution by Sunni Muslims involved the genocidal massacre, ethnic cleansing and forced conversion of Shias by ISIL in Syria and Iraq (2014-2017). Comprising around 10% of the entire world's Muslim population, to this day, the Shia remain a marginalized community in many Sunni dominated countries and in those countries, they do not have the right to freely practice their religion or establish themselves as an organized denomination. (Source)
The Bahá'ís on the other hand, are also persecuted in countries like Iran and Yemen.
That is how different Sunnis and Shias are between themselves and with other denominations.
Different ‘Muslim’, different concerns
This dichotomy between the denominational Muslims is also seen in India. For example, on the Ram Janmabhoomi issue, most “Muslim” leaders and intellectuals (aren’t they always presented as if they represent a homogenous community?) portrayed the Supreme Court decision as being “divisive.”
For whom?
No one seems to ask that question. And, it is a very important question to ask. “Which Muslim” is saying this?
For, the Shia Wakf Board not only welcomes the decision, they actually contributed a large amount of money towards its re-construction.
Uttar Pradesh Shia Central Waqf Board chairman Wasim Rizmi on Thursday announced he is donating Rs 51,000 for the construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya. Rizvi said the Board favoured the construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya and the Supreme Court judgment on the decades-old issue is the “best verdict” that could have been possible. (Source)
There is a forced, bull-dozering of the entire Muslim community into one big lump of “inarticulate, vote bank population” by the intellectuals. Are they really all “one”?
Then why are we allowing random people with their own agenda - that they throw around as correspondents of BBC or CNN (Fareed Zakaria is another such guy) - as if it is representative of the entire Muslim community.
Breaking news - there is NO “Muslim community!”
There are different people who follow their own set of beliefs and have their own way to handle life.
When this BBC correspondent played the same “Super-Muslim” card of announcing that “all Muslims have anxiety,” I questioned his credentials to speak for all the Muslims, and how I have on a study in Uttar Pradesh where I visited Darul Uloom, mosques, madrasas, and Waqf board met many kids and youth who wanted to get out of the strait-jacket of madrasa education that is forced upon them.
Persecution and genocide of minorities in India’s neighborhood
To this, he went on the NRC (which he repeatedly kept call “NCR” - symptomatic!) and CAA laws and the oft-repeated lie of “Muslims being disenfranchised and stateless.”
This is important to understand.
The three Islamic theocratic states of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan have a majority of Sunni Muslims. The illegal Bangladeshi Muslims coming to India are from that community. Other than the Sunni Muslims, India gets Hindu minority from Bangladesh and has been getting them since the partition, although most came before and during the 1971 Indo-Pakistan war. Pakistanis - specifically their Generals - had the same bigotry and “solution” to their hatred of Hindus as the Nazis had.
As a political scientist, R.J. Rummel said about what Pakistanis thought of Hindus – “as Jews to the Nazis, scum, and vermin that best be exterminated”.
The genocide and gendercidal atrocities were also perpetrated by lower-ranking officers and ordinary soldiers. These "willing executioners" were fueled by an abiding anti-Bengali racism, especially against the Hindu minority. "Bengalis were often compared with monkeys and chickens. Said General Niazi, 'It was a low lying land of low lying people.' The Hindus among the Bengalis were as Jews to the Nazis: scum and vermin that [should] best be exterminated. As to the Moslem Bengalis, they were to live only on the sufferance of the soldiers: any infraction, any suspicion cast on them, any need for reprisal, could mean their death. And the soldiers were free to kill at will. The journalist Dan Coggin quoted one Pakistani captain as telling him, "We can kill anyone for anything. We are accountable to no one." This is the arrogance of Power. (Source: Death by Government, By R.J. Rummel New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1994 )
Approximately 3 million Hindus were massacred in the run-up to the war. Operation Searchlight launched on 25 March 1971 by Pakistan.
3 million people died, 10 million crossed over to India, and 30 million were displaced and made homeless within Bangladesh itself.
During an interview with the BBC, the then Indian PM Indira Gandhi had clearly stated how there was a sea of millions of refugees coming over to India and the West, specifically the UK and USA (with that racist Nixon) had turned a blind eye.
The newly declassified tapes of a conversation between President Richard M. Nixon and Henry Kissinger, his national security adviser are very instructive.
It seems pretty obvious that both were aligned with the war crimes and genocide by the Pakistani army.
Mr. Nixon and Mr. Kissinger staunchly supported the military regime in Pakistan as it killed hundreds of thousands of Bengalis, with 10 million refugees fleeing into neighboring India. (Source)
In June 1971 Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, and H.R. Haldeman, the White House chief of staff, were discussing in the Oval Office, where Nixon was sharing his thoughts on Indians. Specifically Indian women.
“Undoubtedly the most unattractive women in the world are the Indian women,” said Mr. Nixon. “Undoubtedly,” he repeated, with a venomous tone. He continued, “The most sexless, nothing, these people. I mean, people say, what about the Black Africans? Well, you can see something, the vitality there, I mean they have a little animallike charm, but God, those Indians, ack, pathetic. Uch.” (Source)
Those refugees, the Hindu refugees, whom General Niazi called “scums and vermins” - and their genocide in which Nixon and Kissinger obviously collaborated in, are the main beneficiaries of the Citizenship Amendment Act.
When the state takes away your lands - Vested Property Act
But the misfortunes of the Hindus in Bangladesh did not end with the genocide that was committed with the complete collaboration of Nixon and Kissinger and the then-British leadership, including that of the UN.
Bangladesh - or erstwhile East Pakistan - had an “Enemy Property Act,” which could be used to take over Hindu lands whenever the government wanted to. This morphed into the “Vested Property Act.” or years, the Bangladeshi government used the Vested Property Law, where property owned by the Hindus was declared as “enemy property” and seized.
According to Shipan Kumer Basu, the President of the World Hindu Struggle Committee, in recent times, the Bangladeshi government has been utilizing the Vested Property Law in order to seize Hindu property and to claim it as their own, thus turning Bangladeshi Hindus into homeless underprivileged paupers. He noted that while on paper under the Vested Properties Law, some Hindu properties that were lost supposedly can be reclaimed, in reality, the law works in order to push Hindus off of their ancestral lands. Source: Rachel Avraham, political analyst working at the Safadi Center for International Diplomacy, Research, Public Relations and Human Rights.
The result?
A Dhaka Tribune article puts the level of crime in a proper perspective.
5 million Hindus lost 2.6 million acres of land since independence. 10 million Hindus, 632 Hindus on average have left Bangladesh per day since then! Due to discrimination induced by State law!
In his keynote paper, Advocate Rana Dasgupta, the general secretary of Bangladesh Hindu-Buddhist-Christian Oikya Parishad, said the Vested Property Act as the root of the land confiscation epidemic. Rana Dasgupta said that through the Enemy (Vested) Property Act, five million Hindus – almost 40% of Hindu households in Bangladesh – lost 2.6 million acres of land since independence. “Around 10 million Hindus have already left Bangladesh since 1964, meaning some 632 Hindu people on average have been forced to leave the country every day due to law-induced discrimination,” Rana said. “If this trend continues then there will be no more Hindus in Bangladesh in 20 years.” Noted Economist, Prof Abul Barakat, said people are more apathetic to communal violence these days. “With this level of attack on minorities, it seems like Bangladesh is turning into Banglastan,” he said. (Source)
Note: Even though the Vested Property Return Act was brought out in 2001 in Bangladesh, it had no impact because it was fundamentally flawed and was just an eye-wash (Source).
Oh, and the Ahmadis?
The situation relative to the persecution of Hindus and other minorities in Pakistan and Afghanistan is too well-documented to even repeat them. The only one factor that is thrown around from Pakistan is the Ahmadi community. Specifically the question - “What about the Ahmadis? They are persecuted in Pakistan!” Which this BBC correspondent did not however ask.
Yes, it is true that Ahmadis are persecuted based on state laws and the Pakistani Constitution. A Constitution, which was created and written by an Ahmadi! Muhammad Zafarullah Khan. Khan, not only wrote the existing Pakistani Constitution (amended many times of course) but made Islam central to its very being. He had 8 central principles of the Pakistani Constitution. Three brought about the primacy of Islam in the running of the country!
Sovereignty belongs to Allah alone but He has delegated it to the State of Pakistan through its people for being exercised within the limits prescribed by Him as a sacred trust.
The principles of democracy, freedom, equality, tolerance and social justice, as enunciated by Islam, shall be fully observed.
Muslims shall be enabled to order their lives in the individual and collective spheres in accordance with the teachings of Islam as set out in the Quran and Sunnah
Why was this?
Because the Ahmadi Prophet, Mirza Ghulam Ahmed was a bigot who hated Hindus with unbridled venom. He was extremely abusive when it came to the Hindus. Here are a few instances (Source)
"The STUPID and ILLITERATE and EVIL (KAMEENA) NATURED certain Aryans of Qadian...." (Nuzool-e-Maseeh p.6)
"For these people (Aryans) to lie is mother's milk. They are Satans not humans..." (Nuzool-e-Maseeh p.11)
"Thus O Aryans!...O Impious and stone-hearted Nation!...He is a first-class wicked natured and impious natured .." (Tatamma Haqeeqatul Wahi p.156)
"O Stupid Aryas! Go and jump into some well and kill yourself." (ibid. p.62)
"Lekhram's nature had a lot of element of Fabrications and lies.." (Istafta p.7)
"This USELESS (NaaLaaiq) Hindu was the same person who boasted to be a Pundit and remembered Bawa Saheb with words like stupid and backward.... and how evil this nature is that for pious people bad words are blurted out immediately.... thus no good person considered him a good man." (Sat Bachan p.6)
That is why it was an Ahmadi, Abdur Rahim Dard who met Jinnah in London to convince him to take up the cause of the Muslims in India and ask for a separate state.
The very basis of Pakistan was laid on the hatred that the Ahmadis had for the Hindus. Which they transferred to Jinnah.
Please read Issue #160 - Mangoes on Manchineels? for a complete picture of who Ahmadis are and their contribution to the killings and massacres of Hindus.
It’s not just an egregious display of chutzpah but downright cruel and cunning to even compare this group, which is now paying for the very creation that has the stamp of their hatred for Hindus - to the Hindus who the Pakistani establishment has always considered “scums and vermins” and unleashed genocide.
Our Twitter friend forgot the Ahmadis, but he did bring in another community.
What about the Rohingyas?
Indeed, what about them? Before the Rohingyas became the main flavor of the Western liberals, they have had a history of committing mass executions and terror activities.
In India, for example, they have been collaborating on terrorism with Al Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Taibba, a banned Pakistani terror organization.
In 2017, an Al Qaeda operative had been arrested in Delhi near Vikas Marg on the tip-off from the Special Cell of the Delhi Police. Shauman Haq was in India to set up a base in this country for the Rohingya Jihad.
“He came to India to set up base in Mizoram, Manipur and send people to Myanmar, basically espousing the cause of Rohingyas,” claimed P Kushwaha, DCP Special Cell. Earlier on Monday, the Supreme Court said that Rohingya Muslims were “illegal” immigrants in the country and posed “serious national security ramifications”. The affidavit submitted by the Union government in the Supreme Court said that the fundamental right to reside and settle in any part of the country was available to citizens only and illegal refugees cannot invoke the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court to enforce the right. (Source)
In 2014, Khalid Mohammad was arrested from Hyderabad who had a connection to the Burdwan blast. He was working with LeT to train Rohingyas in Myanmar for terror attacks.
But it is the actions of Rohingyas and their extreme hatred of Hindus in their own home that has largely been unreported and not discussed. Let us look at what Amnesty International, hardly sympathetic to any Hindu cause, says about the genocides of Hindus by the Rohingyas in Rakhine.
To criticize India, where the majority is Hindus, for not inviting the Rohingyas is like demonizing the Israeli Jews for not laying out the red carpet for the Nazis after World War II.
Do you see how incredible is the gaslighting that the Western liberals unleash on the Hindus. Demonizing Hindus for not rolling over and allowing the evil bigots to well.. massacre them en-masse!
This twitter friend, cornered as he was, started accusing me of “intransigence,” an attempt at gas-lighting that was not taken too politely to (Source)
The CAA - and the Muslim-Hindu illegals
Now, he came to the arguments that most of the Modi-haters come up with. So these are important.
“Muslims are disenfranchised and have no recourse.” Have being the operative word. As if it is for the present and the future.
This is a lie and its counter is not the rabbit hole that everyone goes into. But the simple look at the Gazette to see what is the cut-off date.
This is important. On or before December 31st, 2014. Remember who these minorities are - from the earlier discussion on the 1971 War and the exodus.
Once this piece is nailed, then these guys bring up the NRC and the “fear of Muslims.” Except that the only state where NRC was applied is Assam. Not by Modi government’s orders but the Supreme Court, as per the specific rules given by it. The rules for the NRC for the rest of India have still not been announced!
Please read Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and NRC – The Complete Unvarnished Truth to be better educated than this guy.
Principle of non-refoulement: basis of CAA
Now comes the argument that when both Muslims and Hindus from Bangladesh are in India illegally, why should only Hindus get covered under the CAA and not the Muslims.
For this, the reasoning comes from the International Human Rights Law.
Muslims from Bangladesh that are illegal in India are economic migrants.
They are not in India because they are religiously or otherwise persecuted in their homes in Bangladesh.
The Hindus are.
The Hindus that came from 1964 onwards came to India because the Bangladesh state by law discriminated against them, usurped their lands, and made them vulnerable to the killings by bigots. Of course, an entire genocide was committed by the then government of Pakistan, when Bangladesh was Pakistan!
So, returning illegal Hindus from Bangladesh is to push them to certain persecution and death.
This - returning of Hindus to the land where they are persecuted or victims of genocide - is against the International Human Rights Law. It is called the Principle of Non-refoulement.
Interestingly, the Citizenship Amendment Act talks about “persecuted minorities” who came on or before December 31st, 2014. The fact is that the United Nation’s International Human Rights Laws prohibit India from returning ANY minorities from these Islamic theocratic states who came at ANY TIME, not just the CAA period! So, CAA falls short of the UN human rights laws!
But what astonishes one is that NO ONE - no BJP Leader, no Indian representative, commentator, Human rights lawyer or even the Prime Minister has ever argued the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) from the stand-point of the most fundamental Human Rights law.
The Principle of Non-Refoulement.
And, it is even more mind-boggling that a law that is a true manifestation of this UN International Human right law is being touted by the likes of Fareed Zakaria and Western Liberals as a violation of Human rights!
Btw, Fareed Zakaria’s father was the deputy of Indira Gandhi, who so eloquently made the case for the refugees in 1971. Refugees, who have been illegal since then in India - and for whom the CAA was brought in!
Talk about dishonesty and fake narratives!
market corner: 10 quick bytes
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Saudi Aramco 2020 net profit slumps 44.4% as COVID-19 bites - more
ECLGS for MSMEs: HDFC Bank disbursed Rs 23,000 crore to small businesses under emergency credit scheme - more
TCS rolls out second salary hike in six months for over 4.7 lakh staff - more
Digital payments to skyrocket 3X to over Rs 7,000 lakh cr by FY25; mobile payments to see highest growth - more
Potato prices crash 50% to Rs 5-6/kg in both producing and consuming areas - more
India has world's fourth strongest military; China trumps US in Military Direct’s list of strongest armies in the world - more
Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) alleges violation of Drugs & Cosmetics Act by e-pharmacies - more
Gen-Z outpaces millennials in sales growth for fashion retailers post Covid - more
nota bene
Gateway to North-East: Regional trade is below its potential in South Asia, but leaders of India and Bangladesh are building upon strong bilateral ties for economic growth and prosperity. Maitri Setu, or Friendship Bridge, built over the Feni River is a crucial corridor that will facilitate this. On March 9, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bangladesh counterpart Sheikh Hasina virtually inaugurated the 1.9-km bridge, which connects the Indian state of Tripura with Bangladesh. The bridge, built over the Feni River that flows between Tripura and Bangladesh, connects Sabroom in India with Ramgarh in Bangladesh. (Source)
UK Nuke Plan Illegal: Russia's ambassador to Britain has accused the UK government of breaking its international treaty commitments with a plan to increase the country's nuclear arsenal and said the political relationship between Moscow and London is 'nearly dead'. In a foreign and defense policy review published on Tuesday and endorsed by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Britain said it needed to increase its nuclear arsenal in the face of evolving global security threats. (Source)
Maha-Cat Fight: After the 'letter bomb' dropped by former Mumbai Commissioner of Police Param Bir Singh alleging that Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh wanted his team member, arrested cop Sachin Vaze, to 'collect' Rs 100 crore per month from bars and hookah parlors, Deshmukh charged Singh with 'conspiracy and threatened to file a defamation case'. n a detailed rejoinder, Deshmukh accused Singh of "lying", making the false accusations as part of a "conspiracy" hatched to discredit him (Deshmukh) and the Maha Vikas Aghadi government to save himself from any action in the SUV case and the case related to the death of Mansukh Hiran, who was in possession of the Scorpio and was found dead under mysterious circumstances on March 5. (Source)
Non-Hindu administrators of Jwalamukhi Temple: In a recent development, the Himachal Pradesh government has appointed two non-Hindus to the administration of Maa Jwalamukhi Temple, one of the Shaktipeethas. The development came to light when Girish Bharadwaj, a VHP leader, tweeted furthering the call for freeing Hindu temples. In an order released by the Office of the Commissioner (Temple)-cum DC Kangra, two employees from the non-Hindu community have been appointed as langar sevadars in the Shaktipeeth temple. The order further specifies that the salaries would be taken care of by the temple administration. The two individuals appointed are named Jashan Deen and Shakeen Mohamad. (Source)
video corner: Dara Singh Vs King Kong
Growing up, Dara Singh and his fight against King Kong was the stuff of legends. We all grew up wishing we had seen it. Now, someone has uploaded it on the net. Not a great fan of WWF and the gory fights it represents, but this is a showcase of a tradition in wrestling that Indian sportsmen were masters at.
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