Why it’s cool to foresee doomsday scenario for Hinduism while being charitable towards Islamists

Born in Somalia, raised as a Muslim and now based in the West, Ayaan Hirsi Ali often examines Islamist terrorism, one of the most intriguing challenges facing modern world, with child-like innocence and in-depth profoundness. She begins her 2015 book, Heretic: Why Islam Needs A Reformation Now, with a simple, interactive to-do manual for the readers:

On ______ a group of ______ heavily armed, black-clad men burst into a ______ in ______，opening fire and killing a total of ______ people. The attackers were filmed shouting “Allahu Akbar!”

Speaking at a press conference, President ______ said: “We condemn this criminal act by extremists. Their attempt to justify their violent acts in the name of a religion of peace will not, however, succeed. We also condemn with equal force those who would use this atrocity as a pretext for Islamophobic hate crimes.”

Ayaan then tells her readers to fill in the blanks: Interestingly, just by changing the dates and locations, everything falls in place each time terrorists strike a new place. For instance: On 7 January 2015, two heavily armed, black-clad attackers burst into the offices of ‘Charlie Hebdo’ in Paris, opening fire and killing a total of ten people. The attackers were filmed shouting “Allahu Akbar!” Or, on 16 December 2014, a group of nine heavily armed, black-clad men burst into a school in Peshawar, opening fire and killing a total of 145 people.

Now let’s look at how the governments react: Ayaan reminds the readers how after American journalist Steven Sotloff was beheaded by ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) in 2014, the then US Vice President, Joe Biden, pledged to pursue his killers to the “gates of hell”. The incident so outraged president Barack Obama that he reversed his policy of ending American military intervention in Iraq and ordered to “degrade and ultimately destroy” ISIL. Yet, Ayaan emphasises, President Obama, even in those moments of outrage, didn’t forget to make two things abundantly clear: That ISIL is not “Islamic”; that no religion condones the killing of innocents.

More interesting was the US administration’s response after the 2015 Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris. The White House press secretary took great care to distinguish between “the violent extremist messaging that ISIL and other extremist organisations are using to try to radicalise individuals around the globe” and a “peaceful religion”; we were also informed that the phrase “radical Islam” would no longer to be used officially!

Sincere attempts have thus far been made to differentiate between Islam and Islamism, between the few perpetrators of terror and the Muslim community at large. And it’s a reasonable, logical and wise move. British author Ed Husain, for instance, estimates that only 3 per cent of the world’s Muslims understand Islam in militant terms. The others, he says, believe in the core creed of Islam without being inclined to the practice of violence. It’s always a good move tactically as well, to isolate the 3 per cent and fight them hard.

So far so good! But when one looks at other religions, especially Hinduism, the same courtesy hardly seems to apply to them. For instance, when a few militant Hindus at a Dharma Sansad in Haridwar made some outrageous comments about the minorities, there was not one statement that tried differentiating between “the extremist messaging” of these few people, and Hinduism. Not one commentator, who would otherwise be seen jumping queues to certify the “non-Islamic” character of ISIS and the Taliban whenever they indulged in any acts of terror, made that distinction, even distantly.

To the contrary, the prominent Opposition leader invoked the Nazi ghost, saying: “India is Germany 1933!” Prodded by a veteran “hard-talk” journalist whose father disastrously led the Indian Army in the 1962 war, a former Navy chief found the situation quite “ominous”, predicting a civil war-like situation! Even a tennis legend, Martina Navratilova, who might be as clueless about Indian politics as Leander Paes would be of America’s, got Twitter-active with a query: “What is going on?!?”

Soon, the usual suspects like Naseeruddin Shah jumped in with their two cents. “If it comes to the crunch, we will fight back… If it comes to that, we will. We are defending our homes, our family, our children,” he warned. What he didn’t realise in his hurry to paint things black, was that if there ever was genocide in independent India it was in Kashmir with its Hindu minorities. When confronted about keeping quiet then, he came up with a lame excuse: “I was nobody then. Who would listen to an unemployed actor mouthing off?” Interestingly, the 1990s were the most active and productive years for Shah, the actor. But then he waited for 2014, to get his conscience and voice back!

This brings us to the question: What explains the total obeisance for one religion and absolute animosity for another? And it’s not just an Indian phenomenon, though the problem gets dangerously magnified in the subcontinent. It baffled English author Neil Gaiman, who saw six prominent writers pulling out of the 2015 PEN Awards gala because among those awarded were the surviving staff of Charlie Hebdo.

The six dissenting authors included Francine Prose, a prominent American novelist who found the narrative of white Europeans killed in their offices by Islamists, feeding neatly into the “cultural prejudices”. Like many of her ilk, she sheds tears for the deaths, and then takes refuge in what American stand-up comedian Louis CK would call the “of course... but maybe” phenomenon. Of course it was a heinous act to kill the French cartoonists, but maybe they should have been less provocative… Of course their death was a setback to liberal forces, but maybe they should not have crossed the Lakshman Rekha… In her hurry to defend Islamists in the name of “cultural prejudices”, Prose didn’t realise that one of the victims of jihadi terror was one Mustapha Ourrad, Hebdo’s copy editor.

There’s something about godless communism and god-fearing Islam that the two often find themselves together at momentous junctures of history. Thus, when Mohammed Ali Jinnah’s Islamist gangs were killing, raping and ravaging Hindus in the name of Pakistan, some of the most prominent communists of that era were busy providing intellectual legitimacy to their murderous acts. It’s another matter that once Pakistan was created, these godless men found themselves first in the line of fire along with the remaining few kafirs who stayed back hoping communal frenzy would settle with the passage of time.

In pre-revolution Iran too, the two strange bedfellows collaborated to see the end of the Shah regime. But once the common enemy was shown the door, the communists became the instant targets. In Beyond Belief, VS Naipaul recalls the mood of Behzad, his communist interpreter in Iran, when they heard the news of closing down by the government of the liberal non-religious paper, Ayandegan. “The news caused Behzad’s mood to grow dark. Whatever was said by the communists at the top, however much for the next year or so they continued to claim the religious revolution as their own, Behzad knew that evening that the game was up.”

In India, there is an additional challenge: The country lacks the evolution of true liberal culture post-Independence. Ironically, when India was under colonial rule, it had a flourishing tribe of liberals, but as things turned out they were selectively targeted and purposefully emasculated during the heydays of Nehruism. Such was the stranglehold of the Left that there remained no real liberal culture among the official liberals of India. One just needs to read All These Years, by Raj Thapar (who, with her husband Romesh, was an integral part of Indira Gandhi’s ‘kitchen cabinet’), to realise the vice-like grip the Leftists had on India. Such was their hold that most of the certified, celebrated liberals were actually Leftists, in some cases card-holding communists as well. (This explains why the term “Left-liberal” is so loosely used in India, despite the two being inherently antithetical and contradictory in nature.) And those who took the mantle of being seculars were the promoters of minorityism.

The fear of the sword, too, plays its part. Charlie Hebdo, for instance, had the history of lampooning Christianity, way more than it had done to Islam. The Left never crossed swords with Charlie Hebdo then. Reasons can be found in Gaiman’s 2016 book, The View from the Cheap Seats. In one of the chapters from the book, Gaiman looks back at the time when he stuck to his decision to attend the PEN Awards gala after six prominent writers pulled out from the event on the Charlie Hebdo issue. “I was asked if I would host a table. I said of course…. I tell my wife. ‘You are doing the right thing,’ she says. Then, ‘Will you wear a bulletproof vest?’… ‘Remember, I’m pregnant,’ she points out, in case I have forgotten. ‘And our child will need a father more than a martyr.’”

Ideology is all good, but very few would want to be a martyr for that. Gaiman took a chance. Others thought it wasn’t worth it. And why even do this in a world, true to its Orwellian nature, where one can manufacture victimhood, while the real victims are left to lick their own wounds. That way, the official liberals often maintain their liberalism while pursuing the rules of Islamist blasphemy. Now that’s called having the cake and eating it too!

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