In the past few years, Muslims in India have been subjected to a tidal wave of hate, anger, unjust imprisonment, and even death for simply being a member of the Islamic faith. How has this happened? How did a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-religious secular democratic country rapidly turn into a right-wing fascist country?
The national media instilled fear in the other. The national media told lies to increase ratings. Who did they choose as the other? They chose the largest religious minority in the country, Muslims. Muslims are easy to identify, their men wear beards, their women wear conservative clothes, their names identify their religion, and they tend to congregate in specific cities, villages and neighborhoods.
The Indian media spread propaganda and did so with a wink and a nod from the BJP government. But a few stood up and fought against this vicious campaign. One such individual was Mohammed Zubair — a software engineer by profession, who along with Pratik Sinha, set up an alternative news forum, aptly called Alt News.
Alt News exposed the lies being fermented by the Indian national media. For exposing the truth, Zubair the software engineer became Zubair the Islamist, the Jihadist, and the enemy of the state. He was arrested, without bail, and sits in a jail knowing what he did was right, legal, just, and most of all, patriotic.
It was his patriotic duty as an Indian citizen to defend the truth. For that, he should be honoured as a national hero. Mahatma Gandhi said: “An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it. Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self-sustained.”
The Muslims of New Delhi, Mumbai, Lucknow, Hyderabad, and all of India now face the same harsh reality as the Muslims of occupied Kashmir who have had their right of freedom of speech and self-expression quashed by the Indian army’s persecution and occupation.
For years, Kashmiri journalists like Aasif Sultan, Fahad Shah, Sajad Gul, and even foreign journalists such as Paul Comiti have been arrested in occupied Kashmir for exposing the truth.
The Indian government’s interests in controlling Indian journalists like Zubair are very different from their interests in occupied Kashmir. In occupied Kashmir, the Indian government’s interest in suppressing journalists is about power politics, state authority and control.
The Indian’s government interest in stopping people like Zubair is to maintain a national story line. In a nation of a billion plus people with disparate interests, controlling the media is critical to manufacturing consent. The state’s interests and the media’s interests are aligned. Zubair, and people like him, get in the way. But the government’s methods are the same whether you are a Muslim in occupied Kashmir, or a Muslim in India.
India is a powerful nation. It will have the world’s largest population by 2030. A marketplace like no other in the world. It has one of the world’s fastest and largest growing economies, and a strong diaspora in the West. But all this power is a scary thing for truth tellers.
I have written a novel, entitled Occupied Heaven: The Story of Kashmir. I wrote it under the pen name of Alexandre Mallorie for a variety of reasons. My novel, based on actual events, attempts to tell the story of Kashmir and its people. The world has chosen to ignore, forget, and to absolve themselves of the atrocities in Kashmir. But we cannot let that happen. We must continue to consistently and vehemently campaign for freedom.
I am no Mohammed Zubair or Aasif Sultan, for their courage and valour is without parallel. It’s not just about the Muslims of India, though. Eventually, the other religious minorities; Sikhs, Jains, Christians, and the lower castes, may face the same hardships and tribulations as the Muslims of India. Now is the time to stand up for freedom of speech and defend journalism and journalists like Mohammed Zubair. We cannot let the world forget about Mohammad Zubair. We cannot let the world forget about Kashmir.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 21st, 2022.
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