Can a Muslim be an Indian?

[SQ8]

there was no issue of crackers made out of Quran it was all hoax ... love jihad came out of Kerala and it was raised by Christians. One doesn't have to do much to demonize Islam than what people been doing in ME under the guise of Islam.

Muslims are patriotic as they can be but one can not deny of certain elements who are working against the state just as they are doing it in Pakistan.

It may have been a hoax, but the issue was used. "Love Jihad" is no longer being championed by Christians.. ..and regardless of what happens in the middle east.. Indian Muslims are Indian and their welfare is the obligation of the Indian state and their identity is to be upheld by them as much as by their fellow Indians.

And believe me, 80% of the people working for Pakistan in India are not Muslims.. money is a lot sweeter than religion for most humans.

Good point, which also means that the national identity of Pakistan is based on religion, while that of India is secular, and therefore nullifies the question being asked, religion having no place in defining who is Indian and who is not.

But herein lies the quagmire, that apparently while it has little effect on the Indian state.. on an Indian national level there is a rising effect of religion.

 

[Levina]

You never specified you were a minority either. So the majority then means little without specification on who is the minority.

What the Quran appeals has little to do with the sentiments being played out. Take the rather pointless issue raised over verses found in the paper used for crackers on Diwali. A political element used that ploy to create communal tensions and then "snap" .. the "love Jihad" issue is propped up again. Previous communal tensions aside(UP being the major focus), this time it seems like a broader focus on demonizing Islam within India.
Terrorism has provided that fuel to this pre-existent fire. Indian muslims as patriotic as they are are bound to feel the heat from this newfound angst.

Ignoratio elenchi!!
If you thought the media targets only the muslims then you're wrong.You've missed the news where members from hindu groups got to moral policing and where Churches asked their ppl to produce more kids so that they could be a majority in the country.
Every religion comes under scrutiny.

 

[Kaniska]

Gist of this article is that partition should've never happened.
what did it fetch us?? Confusion...just confusion.
How many confused souls were we left with???
A confused Jinnah who first gave the 2 nation theory and later on during his speech said "you may belong to any state,caste or creed but that has nothing to do with the business of the state".... which is exactly what Nehru said in India. So how different was Pakistan from India when we started??
And then we had a confused Raja of mahmudabad, right hand man of Jinnah who resigned from Muslim league party and lived in India because he felt his party had done "hara kiri".
Next was Ustad bade Ghulam khan who went to Pakistan during partition and came back.
Josh Malihabadi who famously said "we can not partition urdu" kept going to and fro from India to Pakistan only to realise that he had no nation and no home left after partition.
The 2 nation theory divided people , muslims who favored for a separate state and stayed back in India after partition were looked upon with suspicion and because of 'em other muslims too faced the same plight.
By favoring a separate nation muslims had shot themselves in the foot.

But my answer to author's question can a muslim be an Indian ...is Yes!
If a sikh, buddhist,anglo-Indian or a hindu can be an Indian then a muslim can be an Indian too.

But "we have no place for those who sow the seeds of separation" (as Vallabh bhai Patel put it).


hehehe
thats an eleven pages long article...do you think our internet warriors have that kinda time??

I am not sure....but whenever i ask to my close Muslim friends as well as to them to whom i do not like, for them Islam comes first before any nation...It is our so called pseudo seculairst who pretends to close the eye and say that Muslims who are Indian choose India first...For Muslims who are Indian, as long as India as a nation sere the intrest of radical Islam and their rulesm they are fine..but if someone tries to create Pan Indian Islamic identity based on Indian culture which might be different than Arab culture, then these people becomes pure Islamist rather than Indian itself....

 

[scorpionx]

the fact that you can't blame one for the rise of other ... makes you sickular. No offence bro. I am ready to take a step back if you can convince me that vote bank politics didn't make the majority feel marginalized.

No offence taken. May be some other time we can discuss it some where else.

 

[SQ8]

Ignoratio elenchi!!
If you thought the media targets only the muslims then you're wrong.You've missed the news where members from hindu groups got to moral policing and where Churches asked their ppl to reproduce so that they could be a majority in the country.
Every religion comes under scrutiny.

nimium faciles ad concludendum!!

I have stated nowhere that the media only targets Muslims.. rather have only referred to the issues related to Muslims being played out for ratings purposes. But these issues are then very relevant to right wingers who as mentioned before are rising in power and boldness in their actions and rabid ideals.

 

[Kaniska]

The requirement for a separate economic platform where Muslims would be able to leverage their collective to uplift themselves on an economic level was there and just. Same as the requirement for them to be governed by laws they saw fit. But could this not all be accomplished within a single "Union" of states?

A greater study of Jinnah, cleansed from the state propaganda from both sides is needed to realize that this was his initial ideal all along. Even after Pakistan came into being, he wished for both nations to be very close.. yet the elements within the Indian side which had their ill feelings and those within Pakistan later ensured that such was to never end up happening.

There will always be Indian Muslims, but whether they will ever be free from being demonized from the majority due to the existence of Pakistan is the actual question.

I really liked your answer and response...Your ambiguity about the Indian Muslims being demonized by Majority is true, but the next question comes up why other minority like Sikh,Budhist, Christian are not demonized to the extent Muslims are perceived to be demonized?...Is it not the time of reality check for Muslims to understand and the concern of the people of the land where they belong to rather than some far away land?

 

[ranjeet]

It may have been a hoax, but the issue was used. "Love Jihad" is no longer being championed by Christians.. ..and regardless of what happens in the middle east.. Indian Muslims are Indian and their welfare is the obligation of the Indian state and their identity is to be upheld by them as much as by their fellow Indians.

And believe me, 80% of the people working for Pakistan in India are not Muslims.. money is a lot sweeter than religion for most humans.

But herein lies the quagmire, that apparently while it has little effect on the Indian state.. on an Indian national level there is a rising effect of religion.

whatever the issue it was milked during the local issued and people who used it got what was worth the squeeze. IM as our responsibility but to assume that everyone is out of reach the brain washing zombies is a bit naive. It is our duty and it will be ours only to make sure our youth doesn't fall for that propaganda to join the religious fight.

About your point regarding to the moles .. I agree. betting on muslims there would be bad. there are far more Jai chands than mir jafars.

 

[SQ8]

I am not sure....but whenever i ask to my close Muslim friends as well as to them to whom i do not like, for them Islam comes first before any nation...It is our so called pseudo seculairst who pretends to close the eye and say that Muslims who are Indian choose India first...For Muslims who are Indian, as long as India as a nation sere the intrest of radical Islam and their rulesm they are fine..but if someone tries to create Pan Indian Islamic identity based on Indian culture which might be different than Arab culture, then these people becomes pure Islamist rather than Indian itself....

This sadly can be taken on a rather misconstrued concept of Pan-Arab identity and a stretch of what was a very humane ideal of "ikhwan"(brothers) in Muslims. Basically, the loose concept of "every muslim should feel the pain of any other muslim across the globe" is taken to mean that the laws of the land and its sovereignty be damned over Muslim issues abroad. One only has to look at Deoband to see where things went wrong from there across India(and then sadly to Pakistan after partition). This debate also has its links with the long standing association with the Caliphate of every Indian Muslim ruler before the British.

 

[VCheng]

But herein lies the quagmire, that apparently while it has little effect on the Indian state.. on an Indian national level there is a rising effect of religion.

As long as India as a State is secular, it will have the legal mechanisms to keep social change on a path that is fair to all its citizens, regardless of their religious beliefs. If they modify their Constitution to include something similar to a Hindu equivalent of the Objective Resolution, they will be in deep, and likely terminal, trouble.

 

[Levina]

I am not sure....but whenever i ask to my close Muslim friends as well as to them to whom i do not like, for them Islam comes first before any nation...It is our so called pseudo seculairst who pretends to close the eye and say that Muslims who are Indian choose India first...For Muslims who are Indian, as long as India as a nation sere the intrest of radical Islam and their rulesm they are fine..but if someone tries to create Pan Indian Islamic identity based on Indian culture which might be different than Arab culture, then these people becomes pure Islamist rather than Indian itself....

My experience was otherwise. Most of the muslims I know of respect other religions and call themselves Indians first.
But I cant say the same about those who 're not educated and ergo get influenced by their religious leaders.

My post was in reference to your post that People hide behind internet names and spew what they can. However, if the same people you met in real life, you will learn a lot more.

I concur!

 

[SQ8]

I really liked your answer and response...Your ambiguity about the Indian Muslims being demonized by Majority is true, but the next question comes up why other minority like Sikh,Budhist, Christian are not demonized to the extent Muslims are perceived to be demonized?...Is it not the time of reality check for Muslims to understand and the concern of the people of the land where they belong to rather than some far away land?

I will only take the Sikhs as contrast as they are the only community in enough population force to be comparable to Muslims as a minority segment. Christians are essentially the product of missionaries and pre-Brits had much less of an impact on the shaping of India. Buddhists have simply ceased to exist in the number which would make them as relevant as the others.

The Sikhs too are(and I mean no offence here) a by-product of Muslim presence in India. Would sikhism(and the associated Punjabi nationalism) still have arisen had say Muslims never been there? too much hypothesis there. However, the Sikh movement was a very Indian creation; the perspective I choose for that is that the phenomenon has its identity based in the lands of the Punjab and so for them the land itself is sacred to them.
Come to muslims, the only sacred lands for them lie some thousands of km's west as does its origin. Islam(like Christianity) arrived in India and hence was adapted to the land and people by its preachers. To ensure that the essence of Islam remained separate from the aspects of culture taken up by the Indian Muslim there was an identity forged over centuries. That identity thrived more so because of the presence of Muslim rulers. Once they left, there was a subconscious sense of deprivation that somehow Muslims are constantly vulnerable(because no King or ruler was present) to the rest of the subcontinent. A lot of it had to do with the rise and fall of the clergy within the Muslim(urban) body who saw their once powerful role diminishing. This is where the ideals of isolation were taken up by certain centres of religious thought which fostered the whole first Arab than Indian ideal instead of forging around the Hindu-Muslim identity(which in my view was a grave mistake by these scholars/clergy/leadership). This never happened with the Sikhs as the religion was of the land and of the people of the land and the idea that they are converts was never preached to them nor were they ridiculed of it.

As long as India as a State is secular, it will have the legal mechanisms to keep social change on a path that is fair to all its citizens, regardless of their religious beliefs. If they modify their Constitution to include something similar to a Hindu equivalent of the Objective Resolution, they will be in deep, and likely terminal, trouble.

And that state ethos is what is effected by national ethos. Germany is a good reference to how a small smouldering right wing idea can grow on the basis of economic uplift to transform a nation into an intolerant one.

 

[Levina]

nimium faciles ad concludendum!!

I have stated nowhere that the media only targets Muslims.. rather have only referred to the issues related to Muslims being played out for ratings purposes. But these issues are then very relevant to right wingers who as mentioned before are rising in power and boldness in their actions and rabid ideals.

Science taught me to be logical.And I strongly believe every action has equal and opposite reaction.
Here it applies to the rise of right wingers. If the right wingers are rising then so are seculars in the country.
You've a skewed view about how muslims 're treated in India. Hand picking a few cases against muslims can not prove that muslims are victimised in India.

 

[SQ8]

whatever the issue it was milked during the local issued and people who used it got what was worth the squeeze. IM as our responsibility but to assume that everyone is out of reach the brain washing zombies is a bit naive. It is our duty and it will be ours only to make sure our youth doesn't fall for that propaganda to join the religious fight.

About your point regarding to the moles .. I agree. betting on muslims there would be bad. there are far more Jai chands than mir jafars.

Hence it also befalls the rest of the Indian people to be more than active to help and persuade Indian Muslims to avoid the narratives of organizations such as IS. To take an ostrich head view of the situation is as bad as the fear of interfering in the religious matters of Indian Muslims. In the end, Only Indian Muslims can save themselves from radicalization and attacks from right wingers..but they will need all the help they can get from those that truly consider them as fellow countrymen.

Science taught me to be logical.And I strongly believe every action has equal and opposite reaction.
Here it applies to the rise of right wingers. If the right wingers are rising then so are seculars in the country.
You've a skewed about how muslims 're treated in India. Hand picking a few cases against muslims can not prove that muslims are victimised in India.

I am not skewed at all, there are various success stories of Muslims in India but if one was to focus on success stories than Pakistan's own Justice Bhagwandas would befool me into thinking all is well with the Hindu minority here.

 

[Levina]

I am not skewed at all, there are various success stories of Muslims in India but if one was to focus on success stories than Pakistan's own Justice Bhagwandas would befool me into thinking all is well with the Hindu minority here.

Since the minorities in your country dont get treated well and ergo you've some pre conceived notion that minority in every country would be treated the same way is a maladroit conclusion.

 

[Dem!god]

Science taught me to be logical.And I strongly believe every action has equal and opposite reaction.
Here it applies to the rise of right wingers. If the right wingers are rising then so are seculars in the country.
You've a skewed view about how muslims 're treated in India. Hand picking a few cases against muslims can not prove that muslims are victimised in India.

u are banging ur head against a wall...
he hv.made up his mind .... and with this prejudice he will find fault with every thing..... nothing new for a person from across the border...
so stop wasting ur energy...