I was having a conversation with a senior TV journalist on What’s App. Zee News had just done a show on the various kind of jihads, such as Physical jihad (further sub-divided into population jihad, love jihad, education jihad, land jihad, and direct violence), and Ideological jihad (sub-divided into economic, history-writing, film and music, and secular disarming). This gentleman commented that ‘The unspeakable communal HATE that is being spread by this channel on daily basis is shocking, shameful, dangerous’, and also sent it to me.

This is, of course, the standard staple of the secular-liberal class of India, brought up as they are on a severely doctored history and diluted reality of the Muslim world-view. The entire conversation around the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, which subsequently became an Act is based on a version of secular-liberal dogma that completely ignores the realities of Islamic ideology, particularly the variant of ideology that did prevail, and prevails till date, in India.

To this WA message, I replied back, ‘Have you ever cared to read the Hidayah of Deoband, and Fataawa-i- Razvia of Bareilly? Your statement doesn’t stand scrutiny in the face of these Islamic authorities.’

His response was along expected lines: ‘For which You demonise an entire community? Wake up and stop dividing India. Have a good day’.

I responded: ‘Entire community is bound by Taqlid. Learn some basics about Indian Hanafi Islam.’

He quit the conversation after this.

Want to guess who he was? Just revisit Madison Square Garden!

What I have reproduced here, especially the last sentence is the crux of the matter. It lies at the heart of the most fraudulent agitation in the history of modern India, viz. the anti-CAA agitation. You may try and appeal to the reason and to the rational instinct of an entire community, but it does not matter. The community is forbidden to use ‘aql’ or reason under the principle of Taqlid. Reason is supposed to be exercised in 5/6 sects of Sunni Islam, and in all 5/5 sects of Shi’a Islam by only the authorised clerics, called ‘mushtahid’, or ‘mujaddid, or ‘muhaddis’, and usually designated as Muftis or high clerics authorised to issue fatwas. These are the worthies of Hanafi Islam that operates among the Indian Sunni Muslims, who constitute about 80% population among Muslims, and who are the bulwark of the anti-CAA agitation. Even the anti-CAA agitation is the culmination of what is a reaction riding on a felt emotion among the Islamic high priests of a loss of Islamic veto on national issues, such as nullification of Art. 370, and abolition of triple talaq, along with a failure to influence the judiciary into delaying a verdict on the Ram Mandir issue (realising that their legal position was completely untenable).

The territorial partition of India happened because of political correctness. A complete protection from critical scrutiny was given to the nature of Muslim politics in India in the name of Hindu-Muslim unity. So much so, that the ‘Father of Nation’ simply played into the hands of the wily Mohammad Ali Jinnah’ by not examining the essentials of Islam and the communal politics it was bound to engender. This critical analysis was given a complete pass.

If we analyse the Muslim politics and national politics from this standpoint of deep understanding of the Muslim theology and general behaviour, this behaviour would be found as no different from the behaviour of the Muslim and National politics that prevailed for the best part of pre-independence India, and post-independence India. It is, therefore, my attempt to explore the historical events and ideologies that form the foundation of today’s agitational politics by Muslim groups, supported by the Left and the pseudo-secular class that goes by the fashionable term ‘liberals’. I have found Dr. BR Ambedkar to be a particularly perspicacious scholar in analysing the idea of Pakistan, and the inability of mainstream Indian leadership to counter it because of what may at best be termed as ‘political correctness’. In the post-independence, one more shade of socialist narrative of history, economics and sociology has been further added to that narrative.

Pakistan is not a territory. Pakistan is an idea that fundamentally dictates that Muslims cannot live together with non-believers in general, and murti worshippers (mushrikeen) in particular. This idea did not take root in the Muslim majority areas of undivided India, but in the areas where Muslims were in minority. United Provinces was the fulcrum, on which the ideologies fostered in Deoband, Bareilly and Aligarh rode high. The fundamental idea of Islam that the sovereignty of the universe belongs to Allah alone (also enshrined in the Constitution of Pakistan) manifests in its various sub-branches.  One of the ideas that flows from it is that no Muslim should be ruled by a non-believer, and certainly not by a mushrik (murti-worshipper). Shirk, Irtidad, Nafaq, and Gustakhi (idol-worship, apostasy, hypocrisy, and blasphemy) attract capital punishment in Islam, and it is the duty of every Muslim to constantly strive for Dar-ul-Islam (House of Islam), even when he is living in a land of non-believer, called Dar-ul-Harb (House of War), by mentally being at war with such a rule. This is the idea that is taught by the two principal teaching centres in India, by Deoband (Deobandis), and by Ala-Hazrat, Bareily (Ahl-e-Sunnat, or Barelvis). That Barelvis are actually a federation of the 4 principal Sufi Tariqas – Qadris, Chishtis, Suhrawardys, and the Ullaia faction of Naqshbandis, along with many smaller Tariqas and Sanads. The Hidayah of Deoband, and the Fataawa-i-Razvia of Barelilly lay emphasis on this exclusivist, separatist, and supremacist idea of Islam, and give sanction to armed jihad. The Hidayah defines jihad as ‘shariat mein jihad deen-i-haq ki or bulane aur use qubool na karne wale se jang karne ko kahte hain’. This translates as ‘Jihad in Shari’a means inviting people to accept Islam and to fight those who do not accept it’. The Fataawa-e-Razvia has a full set of fatwas grouped under a generic heading ‘nafrat ke ahkaam’ (Ordinances/Commandments of hatred), giving elaborate prescriptions on whom to hate and in what manner. Ahmad Raza Barelvi, the founder of the Barelvi sect opposed the Khilafat Movement on the plea that there could be no friendship with the Kafir. (Qur’an 3:28).

The issue is not whether their interpretation is according to Qur’an or not. The issue is that the lay Muslim is not even authorised to do any interpretation different from that done by the ‘Ulāma’, or the High Clerics. That is the essence of Taqlid. Once we understand this, and also understand the vast funds controlled by the Ulama donated under the holy tithe of Zakat, and increasingly earned by the deceitful practice of ‘Halal Certification’, we can easily understand why the Ulāma wield such power over the masses even with totally irrational ideas such as Pakistan, or ‘CAA is against Muslims’. Political correctness only feeds into the power of this ‘mushtahid’ class. The book also discusses ways to deal with this class. The sane voices among Muslims have no chance in front of the muqallid (Taqlid following) class of Muslims as their voice simply does not count. They may be appreciated by the nationalist class, and by other communities, but within their community, they carry no weight. I had once asked this question to Arif Mohd. Khan in an interview, and he instantly acknowledged that Taqlid is ‘THE’ problem that insulates the Muslim masses from any rational discourse.

The Article 370 quagmire was also the result of this inability among the national leadership to read the Muslim mind. To have first denied the principle of 2-nations and then to have accepted a separate identity for the only Muslim-majority State of India was a betrayal of principles and acceptance of expediency, but the Ulama class welcomed it, for ‘any’ separate identity is a victory for the Ummat. Though the leadership has finally nullified the article, but if they are not careful, they may trip up again on the quicksand of ‘political correctness’, and appeasement of the religious leadership.

         The mental partition continues to this day. Add to this the colonial mind-set of the top leadership   of the country. Our first PM was an unabashed anglophile, and regarded Sanātana dharma as obscurantist, full of superstition, and marked by casteism – all western tropes consciously engrafted into the Indian psyche by the Grand Priest of colonial education – Macaulay. Yet, the ‘secular’ leadership of independent India outdid even the British in self-loathing and whitewashing the crimes of the Islamic invaders in particular, and the British Raj to a large extent. The ultimate tribute was paid to the British Raj by retaining English as the link language, in spite of Dr. BR Ambedkar pitching for Sanskrit as the link language. We are witness to the large scale destruction of the Indian ethos and a conscious cultivation of self-loathing by large masses in the mindless race to learn English. The most fundamental principle of teaching the child in his mother tongue, a principle that has been successfully adopted in countries like Japan, China, Russia, and even Israel – some of the scientifically most advanced countries – has been given the go-bye in India. Instead, higher education and text book making Institutions were handed over to the Communists and Islamists right from the days of the first Government of the independent Dominion of India in 1947. The Aligarh School of History led by Mohammad Habib, and bequeathed to his disciples and his son, Irfan Habib, completely whitewashed the history syllabi, another set of Communists perpetuated the racist theories of the Western Indologists, and a third set of Anglophiles merely ensured that Indians continued to believe that the ancient India had no history except that of mantras and caste.

Political Correctness is the paint that hides the ugly scars of this unholy edifice of lies, deception, and pure vandalism. While the first partition may have been territorial, the 2nd partition has been mental – a partition from our history, languages, culture, sciences, and way of living. Territorial boundaries are difficult to erase, but the mental boundaries can be erased through an Indic renaissance that questions, counters and demolishes the fake narratives. The renaissance started somewhere in the 2010-2015 period. Now is the time to consolidate it through sheer irreverence towards the establishment narrative of what India is. The ‘Idea of India’ as told by the socialists has to be helped to its demise. The tool to achieve this emancipation is called being ‘Politically Incorrect’.

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