As stories of death and destruction trickle down into main stream media and the smoke rising out of arson and looting of Muslim communities starts to die down, Indian Muslims are confronted by existential dilemma.

Mira Kamdar while writing in the Atlantic Magazine labelled the happenings in Delhi as a Pogrom; she feels that the violence unleashed against Muslims in Delhi by armed Hindu mobs during President Donald Trump’s visit to India is a portent and a lesson. As Trump sat down to dine with India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, Hindus in the same city were beating and shooting Muslims.

Mira Kamdar feels that Delhi police, who report directly to Home Minister Amit Shah, either stood idly by or escorted the mobs. Videos of police breaking CCTV cameras and taunting prone and bleeding Muslim men while filming them with their smartphones circulated on social media. The violence echoed that of 2002, when Modi was chief minister of Gujarat and authorities there did nothing to stem carnage that killed some 1,000 people, the majority of them Muslims. It also brought back memories of the revenge killings of thousands of Sikhs in Delhi after the assassination of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by two of her Sikh bodyguards in 1984.

The moment Kamdar’s article appeared in the Atlantic, RSS trolls from India started targeting her. GNV Sridhar took to twitter stating that Indian origin authors settled in foreign lands have totally lost their connection to the home land realities and try to get international accolades or game by playing into the hands of media houses with larger interests in defaming India.

Similarly, Arundhati Roy while delivering the Clark Lecture at Trinity College, Cambridge on 12 Feb, forewarned the international community and India that RSS was moving closer to genocide of Muslims. It is for the RSS—the wellspring of Hindu nationalism, and the parent of Modi’s BJP—what Germany’s 1935 Nuremberg Laws were for the Third Reich, conferring upon it the power to decide who was a rightful citizen and who wasn’t, based on specific documents that people were expected to produce to prove their heredity.

Arundhati Roy explained in detail about specter of rising Nazism in India; “As India embraces majoritarian Hindu nationalism, which is a polite term for fascism, many liberals and even Communists continue to be squeamish about using that term. The division in opinions on the use of the term comes down to whether you believe that fascism became fascism only after a continent was destroyed and millions of people were exterminated in gas chambers. Or whether you believe that fascism is an ideology that led to those high crimes—that can lead to those crimes—and that those who subscribe to it are fascists”.

Our syndicate analysis about why RSS and BJP have been emboldened to target Muslim community with impunity was published in the Nation in Dec 2019,which stated:

Since Modi got away with Gujarat massacre and rose to become the Prime Minister, the RSS controlled BJP had drawn some conclusions:

As far as Muslims were oppressed and ostracized in India, there will be no challenge from within Indian political parties or international community.

As Indian economic and diplomatic clout grew in international community, India could get away with anything related to human rights violations, something similar to Israel being left out.

Targeting of Muslims in India actually increases the vote bank of RSS and BJP.

Indian Muslims are too divided and their sold out politico-religious leadership aka Sarkari Musalmans will keep the Muslims divided and bewildered.

While Muslims in India have suffered due to factors mentioned above, there is a need to dissect the stand of Sarkari Muslamans and so called liberal and secular India as well as plight of law enforcement and judiciary to develop a concept on choices left for Muslims of India.:

Sarkari Muslamans of India is a brand of apologetic leaders like Abdullahs and Muftis of Occupied Kashmir, Owaissies of Hyderabad and some religious figures belonging to JUH(Jamiat Ulama e Hind).They have always supported the idea of secular India and would go at length to bash Pakistan and make people believe that Muslims in India should bear all the oppression and hardships to appease the majority. These leaders have made fortunes and their second and 3rd generation is in line to keep parroting this absurd logic of appeasement.

Arundhati Roy highlights the pitfall of this logic; “Many liberals, including some Muslims themselves, have described Muslims as Indians “by choice”. Many did, many didn’t, and for many the choice simply did not exist. But to frame Indian Muslims as a people who are in India “by choice” draws a dangerous ring, a false bloodline, around a whole population, suggesting it has a less elemental relationship with the land—and could just as well live elsewhere. This plays straight into the binary of the Good Muslim-Bad Muslim, and could inadvertently trap a whole population into having to redeem itself with a lifetime of regular flag-waving and Constitution-reading.

Similarly, the so called secular leaders like Shashi Tharoor and Kejrival, who actually have become exponents of Soft Hindutva, have also played on the need for Muslims of India to keep quiet. Shashi Tharoor while participating in the debate on the CAA in Lok Sabha tried to drag in Pakistan by stating that the passage of the bill will mark the definitive victory of Jinnah’s thinking over that of Gandhi’s, the exercise of granting citizenship on the basis of religion will reduce India to a “Hindutva version of Pakistan”.

What Shashi Tharoor, did not realise is the fact that Gandhi has already been beaten by Nathu Ram Godse, not on 1948, but in 2014 when Modi ‘the Butcher of Gujarat’ was elected to lead the so called secular India.

Coming to breakdown of Law enforcement and judiciary and why police and Judiciary became accomplice to the pogrom of Muslims. This has roots in what happened in Gujarat. A BBC report of 2011 had mentioned that senior police officers like Sanjiv Bhatt had openly stated in the Supreme Court that Modi had nodded to start of Gujarat Massacre in 2002. Sanjiv Bhatt attended a meeting at which Mr Modi is alleged to have said that the Hindus should be allowed to vent their anger. He also alleged that, in a meeting in the night before the riots, Mr Modi told officials that the Muslim community needed to be taught a lesson following an attack on a train carrying Hindu pilgrims.

During recent Delhi massacre, police not only became a bystander but also participated in pogrom. The only judge of the Delhi High Court Mr Murlidhar, who displayed some spine to provide relief to Muslim community, was transferred to Haryana the very next day.

Coming to last part of the paper, What is the option left with Muslims of India?

Muslims in India should realize that neither Sarkari Muslamans or secular Indians nor the Law enforcement and judiciary can give them any relief. International and domestic law allows then to defend their home, life, property and honour and they should not be apologetic about it. They need unity and resolve to establish a united front and live without fear. This aspect has been highlighted by the Popular Front of India(PFI) in recent past and there is a greater need to mobilize the Muslim youth without fear and blackmail. While you need to form community defence, Mohalla defence and City defence,as numbers do count, Muslims in India will have to get under one flag and one platform.

They should reject the Sarkari Muslamans in political and religious hierarchy as it’s because of lack of vision and greed of these Sarkari Muslamans that common Indian Muslim is suffering today.

The slow motion death of 250 million Muslim community in India cannot go on, follow the ideology of tiger of Maysore, Tipu Sultan, as it may be the last option to save your life, property, dignity and honour.