Hindus And The Modernisation Of India's Muslims

Recent events (first the anti-CAA riots and now the Covid-19 outbreak) have glaringly shown how deeply our lower-class Muslims are immersed in fundamentalism. What is the solution for this? There is only one: modernisation. And who must do this? Ideally - anybody/everybody who can. But there is an important limitation here: Hindus cannot do this - because of the nature of the problem (fundamentalism). Any effort by Hindus in this regard will be a non-starter. So it has to be done by middle-class Muslims only.

Therefore Hindus have been doing nothing in this regard since 1947. And the results of this approach are there in front of us today. So this approach is clearly unsustainable. Either middle-class Muslims are not modernising their lower-class counterparts. Or their efforts are not being enough. So Hindus must either kick-start the process (if it is the former) - or accelerate the process (if it is the latter). And how to do this?

The starting point for every change-process is a discussion/conversation. The biggest problem in this matter is that there is no discussion/conversation happening at all. Why? The answer is obvious: Hindus feel that if they criticise Islamic fundamentalism (or Christian fundamentalism - but that is another story) it looks like they are criticising Islam - which is 'hatred' and therefore wrong. So we have chosen a comfortable silence since 1947. And today the results of this silence are there in front of us. Therefore this comfortable silence is no longer an option.

Hinduism says 'Sarva Mata Sama Bhaava'. So we respect all religions - including Islam. But we will not tolerate Islamic fundamentalism - which is an evil ideology. We must be very clear about this difference. That will give us the confidence to criticise Islamic fundamentalism freely and openly - based on facts/logic. At the same time, we must (equally freely and openly) support the middle-class Muslims who are trying to modernise their lower-class counterparts. There is no contradiction between respecting Islam on the one hand and criticising Islamic fundamentalism on the other hand. In fact - the two approaches are two sides of the same coin. Each strengthens the other. And each is incomplete without the other.

We are all one country - India. We will all either prosper together - or we will all go down together. These are our only two options - there is no third option. So let us all work together to make our country better. Bharat Mata ki jai.