Opinion: Why do Indian Muslims have to prove their patriotism
I found this great answer to this question....
Nobody needs to prove anything to anybody. But we are free to draw our own conclusions.
India would not have any secular ethos if not for Hinduism's inherent secular outlook. No God concept in India's Constitution, and perfectly all right to be an atheist Hindu. It doesn't have much to do with God, just self realization as a spiritual exercise, which is also optional.
Which Hindu is mandated by rules and regulations? If you believe you're Hindu, you're Hindu. That's it. You're not even told what to eat and what not to eat. Similarly Hinduism doesn't dismiss gods of other religions, and many Hindus have indeed put Jesus Christ next to Krishna in places of worship and so on. Everything is already part of Hinduism.
Islam and Christianity are a bit strange to Hindus, and especially Islam because there is no idol or image of God, just a wall, and some Allah somewhere, who is to those Hindus who believe there is only one God with various names, or various gods with various names, the same as any other name for God, just as sacred, just as venerated. But Islam considers worshippers of idols and other gods as infidels. This is the biggest difference between an inclusive outlook and an exclusive outlook.
The country that broke away from India is about the only country in the world that is formed on the basis of a religion. Which religion? Islam. By who? Muslims. India is a nation that is friendly with every country in the world except one. Which one? Pakistan. Which religion there? Islam. Who lives there? Muslims, mostly.
The world knows a new menace called terrorism. Which religion, group, ideology etc. pushes this as both a matter of state policy and religious activity? Islam. Who are the people taking to this in these times? Muslims. Of course this doesn't mean other religions are not guilty of inimical activity towards others based on religion. Christianity has plenty of blood on its hands. So does Hinduism to some extent, but only on home turf, playing defence. Big difference is that Hinduism has never gone out of its way to enforce itself upon others. Both Islam and Christianity have.
In this context, in modern times, Muslims are looked upon with suspicion because of much bad behaviour by quite a few spectacular retards in their ranks. This doesn't have to always be terrorism either. Syrian refugees molesting women in a country that gave them refuge, when their own country was unfit for life, is not exactly decent, for instance. Doesn't do much for the image of Islam or Muslims. That's why in a lot of places in the non Islamic world, there is an increasing view that Muslims are scum.
The USA also, a very Christian nation, goes around terrorizing unconnected people, bombing civilians and not giving a shit. It even goes after the wrong countries, while totally sparing those that sponsored terrorism against it, to eventually find one of their stalwarts where? In a country formed on the basis of religion. Which religion? Islam. By who? Muslims. Where was the first World Trade Centre bomber from? Same country! What a surprise.
As far as India is concerned, an non uniform civil code has been around for a long time. It's all crap for there is a uniform criminal code, which is all hunky dory for those who don't have to face barbaric justice Saudi Arabia style after a crime. Is that why Muslims are disproportionately occupying Indian jails? Share of Muslims in jail bigger than in the population, show NCRB data
Just about every business with a lot of illegality like slaughterhouses, prostitution, the betting mafia, the hawala trade, smuggling, counterfeiting, all have a disproportionately high representation of Muslims in India. At the same time, only 2.5% of India's bureaucracy consists of Muslims, and 3% of the Army, despite being 14.2% of India's population. India’s Muslim Soldiers , Other groups are also underrepresented, but they don't have such spectacular examples of rampant anti national behaviour amongst them. Do we expect these people to be great patriots? I certainly don't, from whatever religious background scum may be.
Still, nobody needs to prove anything to anybody. We're not asking. We are free to draw our own conclusions.
All this uncomfortable mollycoddling of Indian Muslims is unnecessary. Nobody should threaten them or anything that stupid. The vast majority of them aren't involved in any illegality. We know that. They should be confident enough in making their lives better, given the facts of reality. So, pretty please, let's trust our Muslims to make sense of data and know if and where prejudices exist, why they exist. Why such perceptions exist, and what exactly they are. They can handle it. Let's trust them with that much intelligence and integrity. They should be by this time, be mature enough to take stock of themselves as a collective.
Hindus today are faced with a peculiar predicament. Suddenly, there's a political climate that tells us it's okay to be a Hindu. For a long time in India, it was only possible and politically correct to be a Christian, Muslim, Sikh, Jain or Secular! Hindus were by and large, always secular, certainly in their outlook if not their rituals, so now it's hard to choose, with the addition of Hindu to an 'okay' identity! Of course the word secular can be debated till the cows come home, but India is not a secular country. It's just a secular nation by Constitution. The country is a highly religious but of course tolerant one.
The moment Hindus react to something inimical to Hinduism or whose ever idea of Hinduism, suddenly, there's a hue and cry that India is becoming intolerant. Not Hindus, but INDIA! Nobody says India is becoming a terrorist country even when Indian Muslim terrorists bomb our own people. That's just "India battling against terrorism". So, we know how much respect Muslims get when it comes to representing India even in terrorism, but it is never painted as if India is against Muslims, because we aren't.
But, pretty please, forgive the world at large for increasing resentment against all things Muslim, most things fundamentally Islamic, particularly Islamic fundamentalism.
Hindus don't really care as long as nobody is being trampled upon. There's definitely some trampling upon Hinduism going on, particularly state sponsored looting of Hinduism's places of worship, while other religions are exempt. Does anybody feel like an apology or stopping this horrible habit? The Threat Against Hindu Temples and Vedic Temples in India . Whose permission was sought to treat Hindu temples' collections as the government's piggy bank? Do we give a shit about being called secular? I hope not. Let's be religious and righteous. It's a whole lot better than being secular and politically bipolar at the drop of a hat.
I'd say India doesn't really have major problems, one way or the other. There is no danger in stating what one feels, and there's plenty of respect, but pretending we see someone different from how we actually see them is disrespectful, because it's dishonest. Can we please rise above this dishonesty and learn some respect? It's a whole lot higher than tolerance.
As for Quora, nobody's heart should break, because this is a comfortable, pompous little, politically sensitive collective with more than its fair share of pretense, with many of us imagining the world's intellect is somehow trickling down to this forty nine dollar hard disk full of data somewhere.
Nobody needs to prove anything. But we're sure free to draw our own conclusions.
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