Muslims in India have had to put up and shut up.
LONDON: This is with reference to Khaled Ahmed’s article of January 16 titled “Muslim future in India”.
The population of India is one billion strong and citing the name of one notable Muslim in a position of authority is hardly evidence of equality in India. For a country that boasts of being the largest democracy in the world and packages itself as a secular state, where is the secularism in the politics of India where Hindutva runs along its spine? The BJP hasn’t changed, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is growing at an alarming rate, the Samjhota Express incident is a good example of how Muslims are treated in India and even Rahul Gandhi has been quoted as saying that Hindu extremism is India’s greatest threat.
Yes, Muslims in India have integrated better than most minority communities, but that isn’t because the Hindu majority or the Indian government has made concessions to them or assimilated them. It is because the Muslims there have had to put up and shut up.
Farah Qayum
Published in The Express Tribune, January 19th, 2011.
