My comments on Hindutvadi claims on 'Dying' Hindus
Soon after the publication of my article on the sensitive issue around the minorities in Bangladesh and India in the Shodalap, a Bengali discussion group, a West Bengali Hindu by the name of Kumar Mondol wrote a response, which appeared rehashing of Bimal Pramanik and Tapan Kumar Ghosh's Hindutvadi claims. I sent the following response to his diatribe.
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The problem with many communalists is when truth bares their
hideous selves, they get caught off-guard with their hands in the cookie jar
and resort to name calling. No, I am not delusional in my treatment of this
very sensitive issue. As I said in the beginning of a series of articles on
this topic, discussion on minority issue is always a dicey matter and even
one's objectivity would be questioned. As Mondol’s tirade proves I was not
mistaken.
In today's India, historical revisionism
to further polarize majority Hindus against Muslims has official sanction. The
text books are altered to make Hindus hate Muslims. They may like to educate
themselves by reading books by Romilla Thapar and other credible historians,
rather than Bimal Pramanik's Hindutvadi make-belief stories about 'dying
Hindus'. They can also read my articles on this sensitive issue since at least
2000.
As I have noted in this series of
articles, Hindus had a lower per annum growth rate compared to Muslims in the
last 110 years. It is not difficult to understand the reasons. They often marry
late. They prefer son to daughter as a child, and thus often abort fetuses if
found to be female. They are better educated, esp. their women, which delays
marriage. And then they want to have children late in their career, which also
reduces their fertility rate considerably. All these activities alone are
sufficient to show why Hindu growth rate is lower than those of Muslims. Many
Muslims even when they are educated are seriously discriminated in job hunting
in India, which also discourages others from pursuing costly education. It won’t
take an Einstein to show that if these issues are not tackled objectively,
surely Hindu proportion will shrink further.
If Hindu communalists like Mukherji
(perceived an avatar by Hindutvadis today) and Pramanik instead had put their
energy into improving the status of Muslims in India in matters of education,
job and other socio-economic indicators, they would have seen that the Muslim
growth rate, which is perceived as problematic and threatening Hindu majority, was
at par with those of the Hindus. Are these communalists aware of conversion of
Hindus to Christianity, esp. in north-east part of India? What do such
conversions do to Hindu numbers? It is not difficult to comprehend. Why not
address those issues which are at the heart of so-called ‘dying’ Hindu
demography?
Instead, these hateful communalists,
Hindutvadis raise all sorts of false flags to hide their inane failure to
comprehend what is so obvious and scientific. The mere presence of any Muslim living
in the neighboring Indian states to Bangladesh is automatically perceived to
have been a result of Bangladeshi infiltration. Forgotten in such treatment is
the mere fact that Hindus and Muslims have been living on either side of the current
border for centuries. And they have migrated when borders were porous and
allowed such movement unhindered. These Hindu communalists and fascists don’t
tell their ilk that some half a million illegal Indians are living inside
Bangladesh who have been remitting billions of dollars to India every year.
By the way, is not India a secular
country? Why should religion matter as to what proportion a particular
religious community becomes in such a state, which is not supposed to
discriminate in matters of one's religious affiliation? Instead, what we see is
Hindu nationalism, which is nothing but fascism and not truly different than
what was practiced by the Nazis in Hitler's Germany that has become the symbol
of new India.
By the way, Mondol may like to revisit
history to ascertain what caused Hindus outside the Bose Brothers to reject the
Cabinet Mission proposal which had proposed Joint Bengal. The so-called
Bhadro-lok Hindus of Kolkata simply did not like to be a minority in any
formula that would put them a minority and challenge their privileged status,
mostly earned through early collaboration with the British after the fall of
the Nawabi rule in Bengal, and not just in 1905, but throughout the last
hundred plus years. It was all too natural for even Rabi Thakur to object to
the establishment of Dhaka University. As Jaswant Singh once again showed it
was die-hard Hindu communalists who were real reasons behind Partition of
India. Even Jinnah could not make a dent on Hindu attitude of eating the entire
pie when he had to ultimately leave the Congress Party. Whom are we kidding,
Mondol?
One has to do some objective study
before resorting to unfounded claims and name-calling. And that reading cannot
be limited to hateful propaganda, all fascist and anti-Muslim in intent and
purpose, fed by guys like Bimal Pramanik and Tapan Kumar Ghosh. Kapish?
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