There is an ongoing discussion on violent acts perpetrated by radical Islam. This has been going on since ages: first as murmurs in drawing-rooms in order not to appear offensive. Over the years, the world witnessed to its horror cases of jihad-inspired violence piling up. Voices that matter fell strangely quiet. There was an attempt by Islamic scholars, liberals and intelligentsia to hush up the matter by terming the incidents as law and order issues. They also floated the bogey of injustices suffered by Muslims as the cause of many of them picking up arms. Arguments were also proffered to the effect that terror has no religion.

The world has come to see through their ruse. People are no longer impressed by wishy-washy statements, when every corner of the world is going up in flames. Like elsewhere, India too has been beset with radicalism since eons. We have a horde of frauds, who are otherwise called intellectuals, liberals and seculars, who come to the forefront to rationalise religion- inspired acts of violence. They point fingers at right-wing dispensation and its so called agenda of establishing Hindu Rashtra. They point fingers at mob-lynching in the name of cow slaughter, Babri demolition, CAA etc. Mullahs are vociferous in cheering the rationale being put forward by so called seculars.

There is a trend seen in the media suppressing the identity of the criminals if they belong to minority community. On the other hand, if the crime is found to have been committed by Hindus, they go ballistic in highlighting their antecedents, somehow or the other, establishing a connection with ruling BJP or RSS.

The rush on the part of Congress, Communists and the so called intellectuals to stiffle any debate on radical islamic violence, goes only to embolden radical preachers and mullahs. They stubbornly refuse to bring in reforms in their religion. The only reform they are willing to go with is to paint the majority Hindus in the same brush. Yes, there is violence in the name of Islam, but same with Hindus too. See what they are doing in the name of cow protection. Religious lynching, isn’t it? They argue.

It’s this search for moral equivalence that probably led Congress to come up with a coinage called Hindu terror. Some senior members of the party even went to the extent of declaring Mumbai 26×11 attack as the handiwork of RSS.

The burden of secularism is for majority Hindus to carry. If so many beheadings are being done in the name of blasphemy, riots and arson being organised, people shouldn’t offer a whimper of protest.

It’s nobody’s case in a free and democratic country as ours to suggest that the majority community must bear the burden of sins of the minorities to maintain harmony in the society.

Asymmetric burden of secularism

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