Seminar held at PIIA: Future of Indian Muslims bleak, far from satisfactory: speakers

KARACHI: “The future of Indian Muslims seems to be bleak and far from the right course as the Hindu extremists are fighting against them under the ideology of Hindutva”.

These views were expressed by the Senator Javed Jabbar and Dr Muhammad Waseem, Professor of Political Science in Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) at a seminar on “The Status of Minorities in India” held at Pakistan Institute of International Affairs here on Saturday.

Senator Javed Jabbar said that the countries in subcontinent had adopted the Westminster system, which did not represent the true majority. Therefore, the BJP, which got only 37 percent of the votes out of the total 65 percent turnout, formed the government in 2019.

“However, 63 percent of voters cast their votes against the BJP but what a bizarre electoral system in the world’s largest democracy; the votes of the largest majority were ignored.

On the other hand, congress, which got 27 percent of the votes of the total turnout, remained ineligible to lead the opposition because they could not get 10 percent of the seats”.

He said that Hindus, Hinduism, and Hindutva were three different concepts because none of their sacred scriptures had defined the Hindus and they lived and were recognised in casts for hundreds of years. However, Hinduism is nothing but a philosophy hence the majority of them are unclear politically, culturally, and historically. The Hindutva is a political ideology not religious, he said.

He said that the right-wing Hindu organisation “RSS” was created in 1925 and termed RSS as fascist before Hitler and Mussolini.

Senator Javed said that Hindutva was not a product of the BJP, which adopted this ideology in 1989, and added that the state policy to support the right wing was not more an internal matter of India but this Hindutva ideology had distorted the foreign policy of Bangladesh that was now not reflecting in diplomatic relations with Pakistan.

“We cannot change our neighbors but 63 percent of progressive force, who voted against BJP in 2019 elections could bring change if they united in India”, he maintained.

Meanwhile, Dr Waseem said that Indian Muslims were considered outsiders hence the right-wingers were highly mobilised against them and added that Indian Muslims, who were the most urbanised community, were badly being pushed through cultural policing in India. Furthermore, he said that Indian extremists were not only fighting against the history but rewriting it hence the future of the Indian Muslims seems to be bleak and far from the right.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022