As Ramachandra Guha calls India a ‘Hindu Pakistan’ to peddle another Muslim victimhood propaganda, here’s why he is wrong, again

Equating India with Pakistan, be it in terms of economy, military, governance or religious freedom, is essentially an insult to India and an utter contempt of basic facts. However, in its pursuit of adding melodramatic, dishonest and alarmist chapters to the Muslim victimhood, or rather, atrocity literature, the Indian left-liberal cabal keeps doing it, again and again. In this vein, leftist ‘historian’ Ramachandra Guha wrote an opinion piece in The Telegraph India on 7^th February, wherein he contended that a supposed ‘Hindu majoritarianism’ is turning India into a ‘Hindu Pakistan’.

Secular India mirroring Islamic Pakistan? Ramchandra Guha recycles the ‘Not the India I grew up in’ trope

At the very onset of the propaganda piece titled “A Hindu Pakistan?”, Guha invokes India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, to contend that contrary to the initial envisioning of India as an inclusive nation, unlike Pakistan, India under the Modi government is “coming ever closer to Pakistan with regard to the merging of faith and State.”

Ramchandra Guha wrote that while Nehru worked “assiduously to marginalise the forces of Hindutva”, despite a significant section of the Congress party’s leadership not agreeing with him, it is drifting away from inclusivity to majoritarianism.

“Nehru’s commitment to secularism and equal rights for minorities was not universally shared even within his Congress Party, which had its fair share of conservative Hindus. However, as prime minister, he himself worked assiduously to marginalise the forces of Hindutva as represented in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Jana Sangh. It was only in the decades after his death that the RSS and the Jana Sangh’s successor, the Bharatiya Janata Party, grew rapidly in influence. As a result, our nation, which after August 1947 hoped to chart a different, more inclusive, path from its neighbour, is now coming ever closer to Pakistan with regard to the merging of faith and State,” Guha wrote.

The leftist propagandist cited Nehru’s letter, written two months after India’s partition, to the chief ministers. In this letter, Nehru wrote, “Whatever the provocation from Pakistan and whatever the indignities and horrors inflicted on non-Muslims there, we have got to deal with this minority in a civilized manner. We must give them security and the rights of citizens in a democratic State.”

It is not a secret that Jawaharlal Nehru was an idealist. However, idealism is suicidal when the adversary is immoral, violent, intransigent, and bigoted. PM Nehru’s idealism has done irreversible damage to India. What Nehru overlooked, Sardar Patel saw clearly.

The Muslim ‘minority’ Nehru committed to give security and equal rights, but did not even choose India. Of all, 87% of seats in the 1946 provincial elections were won by the Muslim League in undivided India. The Mohammed Ali Jinnah-led Muslim League’s core agenda and demand was the carving out of a separate nation for Muslims, Pakistan. This essentially means that 87% of Muslims in undivided India in 1946 wanted, supported, and voted for Pakistan. In fact, it was the Nehru-Liaquat Pact of 1950 that scuttled the de facto population exchange.

The point of discussing this chapter of history was important because to this day, Islamo-leftists attempt to guilt-trip the Hindu majority for hailing the loyalty of Indian Muslims whose ancestors chose’ a secular India over an Islamic Pakistan. In fact, a subtle objective of Ramchandra Guha’s op-ed is also to instil guilt within the Hindu majority that by voting and supporting ‘Hindutva’ nationalist parties like the BJP, they are essentially victimising Muslim ‘minorities’ and turning India into a ‘Hindu Pakistan’.

Basically, Ramchandra Guha wants Nehru’s ‘secular India’ where reconstruction of Somnath Mandir was deemed ‘Hindu revivalism’, and decries Modi’s ‘Hindu majoritarian’ India where Muslims are ‘victimised’ despite enjoying the rights and freedom, Pakistani Hindus can only dream of.

Guha’s contention that India under Modi is becoming a ‘Hindu Pakistan’ triggers a question: if the Bhartiya Janata Party is such a Hindu extremist and anti-Muslim party, why, despite being in power for over has it not amended the constitution to declare India a Hindu Rashtra?

In the last three general elections, not one of the 800 BJP MPs elected is Muslim: Does BJP not giving tickets to Muslims amount to the latter’s political erasure?

Ramchandra Guha lamented that the ‘majoritarian’ cast on today’s India is evident in the fact that of more than 800 MPs elected on a BJP ticket in the last three general elections, not one is a Muslim. Guha insinuated that by not giving tickets to Muslims, the BJP is essentially attempting an erasure of the ‘minority’ community from the Indian political landscape.

This is not a unique contention. Islamo-leftists have long been decrying the BJP for the supposed deliberate avoidance of Muslims as its electoral candidates. This claim of exclusion has been pushed over the years to set a narrative that Muslim ‘minorities’ are marginalised despite making up the largest population of the country after Hindus.

Guha ignores the basic fact that there is no law in India that stops Muslims from contesting, winning an elections and holding constitutional positions. His desire is that the BJP, since it has won elections, should ideally ensure that some of its MLAs and MPs are Muslims. But that is not how an electoral democracy works at all.

However, they never discuss the fact that Muslims, despite getting a large portion of the central government’s benefits, Muslims do not vote for the BJP government. In fact, the Muslim voting pattern is generally rooted in the agenda of voting for any party or candidate that can defeat the BJP. If the likes of Guha actually cared about secularism and inclusivity, they would have questioned the Muslim community about why their voting pattern revolves around their religion.

“Under Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, the BJP has sought to create a Hindu vote bank, fighting and often winning elections on the basis of the support of Hindus alone. Once a Hindu-first politics propelled them to power, the Sangh Parivar has consolidated its dominance socially, through harassing and demonising Indian Muslims (and on occasion Indian Christians too),” Guha wrote.

It is amusing that when so-called secular political parties like Congress appease the Muslim community, often by crushing the rights and interests of Hindus, why no one from the liberal ‘intelligentsia’ raise alarm that Muslim ‘minorities’ have become a religious votebank. There are political parties like the Samajwadi Party and All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) that have been fighting elections on the basis of the support of Muslims largely, if not alone.

However, when political parties manage to rally the Muslim votebank, they are deemed secular and inclusive but if the BJP garners support of a significant section of the otherwise fragmented Hindu voters, then liberals cry that India is becoming a Hindu majoritarian state, Muslims are being excluded, marginalised, erased, and whatnot.

The political erasure of Muslims argument would have had some merit if Muslims were disenfranchised by law. This, however, is not the case; voter turnouts have consistently been high, indicating that they are partaking in elections and exercising their rights. While many Muslim caste groups have made their way into OBC reservations, Pakistani Hindus getting to breathe without being forcibly converted to Islam, discriminated against, humiliated, raped, and killed, is still a luxury.

Guha further attempted to villainise the Hindu ‘majority’ and portray the Muslim ‘minority’ as victims, by arguing that once Muslims “held important cabinet posts, ran major government departments (including the diplomatic corps and the Intelligence Bureau), headed the Supreme Court and the Indian air force”, but are missing from posts of prominence in public life.

This is such a juvenile argument. What is Guha even trying to suggest? Has the Modi government expelled Muslim diplomats or Muslim officials in intelligence agencies? Has the Modi government impeached any Muslim Supreme Court judge? Or has the BJP-led government barred Muslims from joining the Indian Air Force? That is not the case. Being a Muslim alone does not make one entitled to running government departments, heading the Supreme Court or the Indian Air Force.

Guha also claims that Muslims are subjected to discrimination in housing and to routinised taunting and humiliation, which quite often takes the form of targeted violence (as in lynchings and house demolitions).

This was supposed to evoke sympathy for Muslims, but rather, Guha’s claim raises several questions. There is no evidence of any widespread discrimination or acts of taunting or humiliation against Muslims in housing or at the workplace. Guha selectively highlighted lynchings and house demolitions to suggest that Muslims are randomly cornered by Hindus and beaten to death for being Muslims, and that the BJP governments first mark houses of Muslims and then get them bulldozed. The leftist author chose not to make any mention of the incidents of Muslims attacking Hindus, or the fact that the demolition of Muslim houses in several-ruled states is not due to their religion but has been a part of anti-encroachment drives or action against illegal properties of rioters.

Guha also chose not to discuss why Hindus and other non-Muslim communities must be growing fearful of renting their house or rooms to Muslims. When even educated doctors like Umar Un Nabi can be as hateful and intolerant of non-Muslims that they resort to carrying out Fidayeen attacks and even make videos to justify the killing of innocent people, is it not natural for non-Muslims grow fearful or even intolerant?

Moving further, what is even an Indian leftist meltdown without the mention of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir? Ramchandra Guha suggested that the CAA and the removal of Article 370 were anti-Muslim decisions of the Modi government.

“Hindu majoritarianism is also manifest on the legal front. The Citizenship (Amendment) Act clearly discriminated against Muslims, and the abolition of Article 370 was not unrelated to the fact that Jammu and Kashmir was India’s only Muslim-majority state,” Guha wrote in The Telegraph India.

Notably, the CAA only accelerated citizenship for persecuted non-Muslim minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, who fled persecution at the hands of Muslims in these Muslim-majority countries. The CAA expedited Indian citizenship for Hindu, Sikh, Christian, and other non-Muslim minorities, and did not strip Indian Muslims of their citizenship.

Contrary to the narrative pushed by Islamo-leftists, the exclusion of Muslims from CAA was not driven by any anti-Muslim bias or hatred, but rather by common sense. How can Muslims be persecuted for being Muslims in Muslim-majority or Islamic countries? Shias and Ahmadiyyas are indeed subjected to violence and discrimination in Pakistan; however, these sects continue to identify as Muslims, making their case sectarian and not religious persecution.

On Article 370, Guha writes that Article 370’s abrogation was somehow related to Jammu and Kashmir being India’s only Muslim-majority state. It is amusing that liberals loathe Hindu ‘majoritarianism’ but want decisions of Muslim-majority regions or states to be contingent on the will and whims of the majority community. Basically, Hindu majoritarianism is bad, but Muslim majoritarianism is good.

Only if Indian liberals tried to understand and call out the relation between terror attacks by Jihadis and the Islamic motivations behind it, instead of finding a link between Article 370, a temporary provision, and the religious demographics of Jammu and Kashmir, they would have comprehended why Pakistan exists, and why a Hindu-majority India can never become a ‘Hindu Pakistan’.

It is criminal to even think that there is any equivalence in the situation of Indian Muslims and Pakistani Hindus. In Pakistan, Hindu, Sikh and other non-Muslim minor girls are abducted, forcibly converted to Islam, and married off to their Muslim abductors twice or thrice their age, almost on a daily basis. Even their police and courts side with the Muslim criminals in most cases. In Pakistan, non-Muslims are barred from the presidency and prime ministership by a constitutional fiat, and in India, on the contrary, Muslim politicians give open threats of eliminating Hindus if the police are removed for 15 minutes.

In Pakistan, most of the Hindu population lives in poverty, while in India, Muslims have legal or illegal control over land and properties via Waqf Boards. While Pakistani Hindus struggle to have their dignity intact, Indian Muslims are active in all fields, be it sports, movies, government jobs, politics, or even crime. Indian Muslims make up to 14% of India’s population as per the last census, and since 1947, their number has risen and risen exponentially. In Pakistan, the population of Hindu and Sikh minorities has reduced to just 2%.

Ramchandra Guha also targeted the West Bengal BJP leadership and Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa, who has been vocal about the attempt by illegal Muslim immigrants to alter the local demographics. Though Guha did not make any specific mention, the hint was clearly towards CM Sarma’s ‘Miya Muslims’ remark, even as the Assam Chief Minister used that term for Bangladeshi Muslim infiltrators and not Indian Muslims.

Guha also argued that while Nehru strove to keep state and religion separate, Prime Minister Narendra Modi presided over the consecration of the Ayodhya Ram Mandir. Firstly, this European concept of separation of state and religion did not originally suggest that the state had to be religion-less. But let’s not get too deep into that detail for now. Even if we go by the popular understanding of this concept, it can never fully be applied in a country like Bharat, which has the Hindu civilisation and consciousness in its soul. PM Modi’s presence at the Ram Mandir consecration ceremony did not amount to disrespect of other religious communities, or his abandonment of duties towards all citizens of India, irrespective of socio-religious, regional or linguistic backgrounds.

To appear balanced, Ramchandra Guha criticised former PM Rajiv Gandhi for betraying the Shah Bano Case and for appeasing Muslims and opening the Babri structure, for what he calls ‘Hindu appeasement’.

Leftists don’t hate Pakistan, they just hate Hindus

Equating India with Pakistan, Guha presented a role reversal in India, to suggest that while in Pakistan, the Muslim majority rules over Hindus, in India, it is Hindus ruling over Muslims. “In politics and in law, in symbol and in substance, in word and in deed, India is therefore becoming ever more like Pakistan, except that here it is Hindus, and not Muslims, who rule over fellow citizens who are of other faiths,” Guha writes.

It is essential to mention that an Indian liberal fearmongering that a secular India is somehow becoming a Hindu Pakistan, should not be misread as their condemnation of the Islamic Pakistan. In fact, leftists love Pakistan, Muslims, and everything Islamic or Islamised. It is Hindus, Hindu civilisation, and Hindu assertiveness that is called ‘Hindutva’, which the leftists hate.

The whole excuse of ‘don’t become Pakistan’ is hollow; the leftists never question totalitarian Islamic laws and mandates to render non-Muslims as second-class citizens, but their only problem is that “majority” Hindus who are winning through a secular democratic process are not “leaving” their share of seats/power for Muslims.

Despite suggesting that India should not become Pakistan, leftists cling to the wretched ‘Aman ki Asha’. The Indian leftists have time and again targeted the Modi government for shutting the doors of dialogue and diplomacy with Pakistan for the latter’s refusal to stop cross-border Islamic terrorism against India. All this despite ‘believing’ that Pakistan is governed by Islamic majoritarianism that crushes the rights and dignity of religious minorities.

Indian leftists do not want India to become like Pakistan, but when movies like Dhurandhar show the true face of Pakistan, this same lot outrages the most and cries ‘anti-Pakistan propaganda’ and ‘Islamophobia’ peddled by a ‘Sanghi’ director. No wonder Ramchandra Guha wrote in his article in The Telegraph India that Hindutva has also penetrated popular culture, with Bollywood, once a bastion of secularism, now increasingly prone to showcasing films that portray non-Hindus in poor light.

Apparently, all was well when Bollywood romanticised Islamic terrorists, villainised Hindus, mocked Hindu beliefs, promoted stereotypes against Brahmins, but when some filmmakers decided to show Muslim characters with a spectrum of nuances, such as Mughal tyrant Aurangzeb in Chhaava, Pakistani terrorists in Dhurandhar, or Jihadis in the Kashmir Files and the Islamist conspiracy of religious proselytisation in The Kerala Story, things suddenly turned bad.

India can never become a Hindu Pakistan because Hinduism lacks the genocidal feature that Islamists have

Guha concludes his article with the argument that “Making the religion of the majority central to the public identity of a nation, designing laws, policies and institutions according to the wishes of mullahs, priests, monks or rabbis, has had disastrous results in countries that are variously Sunni, Shia, Buddhist, or even Jewish. There is no reason to suppose that Hindus are somehow exempt from this rule.”

Hindus are essentially exempt from the ‘rule’ that making the majority community’s religion central to national identity, policies, laws, and institutions yields disastrous results. One would wonder why. How can it be said that India can never become a Hindu Pakistan? The answer lies in the core difference between Islamism and Hindu Dharma.

Leftists and other propagandists look at Hindus through an Islamic prism. Muslims in the majority act as Islam mandates them to. Can quote Quran verses about killing non-believers. Islamists commit genocide of Hindus and other non-Muslims because that’s a core tenet of their faith. The anti-Hindu pogrom in Bangladesh by the Muslim majority serves as an example of how Islamists can exploit any opportunity to attack Kafirs.

The only thing standing between Muslims and the realisation of that religious mandate is numbers. In Bangladesh, burning Hindus alive has become a new normal. Pakistan is witnessing a systemic erasure of Hindus. Hindus in these countries are not powerful, not Sanghi, not even in numbers strong enough to even pose a resistance and yet Islamists cannot tolerate them. The higher the Muslim population, the stricter the practice of Islam, which essentially means no tolerance of ‘Kufr’ and ‘Kafirs’. This is why Pakistan is what it is. Bharat will not become “Hindu Pakistan” till Hindus are in the majority because that behaviour isn’t a feature of Hinduism, like it is of Islam.

India, under Modi’s ‘Hindutva’ or ‘Hindu-majoritarian’ leadership, has achieved significant economic growth, enhanced national security, bolstered its position as a key leader of the global south, and its democracy is flourishing even as the opposition continues to peddle lies about it. India owes its secular character to the Hindu majority. As long as Hindus are inthe majority, India will remain a secular country rooted in Hindu consciousness. If ever Hindus are outnumbered by Muslims, forget Hindu Pakistan or Muslim India, the entire Indian subcontinent will be Islamised.