Muslim Socio-Religious Movements in India

 Muslim Socio-Religious Movements in India

In the early 19th century, the first signs of Muslim awakening appeared under the leadership of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan of Bareilly in U.P. and Shariatullah of Bengal. This was happening due to the Christian Missionaries, influence of western ideas and modern education.

jagran josh

SHAKEEL ANWAR

UPDATED: OCT 12, 2015 10:13 IST

jagran josh

In the early 19th century, the first signs of Muslim awakening appeared under the leadership of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan of Bareilly in U.P. and Shariatullah of Bengal. This was happening due to the Christian Missionaries, influence of western ideas and modern education. Hence, they set themselves to the task of purifying and strengthening Islam and promoting Islamic learning.

Jagranjosh

Shariatullah started the ‘Faraizi Movement of Bengal’ which took up initiative to the cause of the peasants. He also expresses strong disapproval to the caste system among Muslims. During the first half of the 19th century only a handful of Muslims of Delhi and Calcutta had taken to English education. Most of them kept themselves away from it because of the attitude of the Ulema or Muslim priest, and the unwillingness of the upper class Muslims to reconcile themselves to the British rule. The Revolt of 1857 created discontentment among British about Muslim due to their active participation.

Hence, being part of the few enlightened, educated Muslims, Shariatullah felt the need for adopting a cooperative policy towards the rulers and improving their social condition with the help of the British.

A few movements were also launched aiming at the spread of modern education and removing social abuses like Purdah and Polygamy. The Mohammedan Literacy Society of Calcutta, founded in 1863 by Nawab Abdul Latif (1828-1893) was one of the earliest organizations to take steps in this direction. It played an important role in the spread of education, particularly among the Muslims of Bengal as well as promoting Hindu-Muslim unity.

Wahabi Movement

It was also known as ‘Walliullah Movement’ which started in response to the western influences and was inspired by the teachings of Shah Walliullah who was regarded as the first Indian Muslim leader. The entire movement was moving around the legacy of Islam- ‘Quran and Hadis’.

Ahmadiya Movement

This movement was started by Mirza Gulam Ahmed in 1889 in order to spread western education among Indian Muslims. The movement was based on liberal principles, just like Brahma Samaj.

The Deoband School

This movement was started against the liberal movement by the orthodox Muslim Ulema to teach the real essence of Islam on the basis of Quran and Hadis, and also to preach the concept of Jihad against the foreign rule.

Conclusion

19th century was the period of awakening not only for the Hindu-Muslim but the entire masses. A number of reformers came forward to eradicate mal-practices performed in the name of religion and preached about the greatness of India’s culture and philosophy. The ideas of self-reliance, self-respect and national pride were propagated.

Khilafat movement was biggest Gandhian folly

 Khilafat movement was biggest Gandhian folly

J Nandakumar

Updated : August 8, 2020, 10:51 PM

 

The movement ignited the spirit of Dar-ul-Islam among Muslims.

Mahatma Gandhi, who started his political career in India with the short-lived campaign against the Rowlatt Act, had, according to Dr Ambedkar, “startled the people of India by his promise to win Swaraj within six months”. And “Hindu-Muslim” unity was one of the “condition precedents” laid down by him. Dr Ambedkar further says: “The (Khilafat) movement was started by the Mohammedans. It was taken up by Mr Gandhi with tenacity and faith, which might have surprised many Mohammedans themselves. There were many people who doubted the ethical basis of the Khilafat movement and tried to dissuade Mr Gandhi taking any part in the Movement the ethical basis of which was so questionable.” (Pakistan or Partition of India, pages 146,147). 

One among those who doubted the logic of Gandhiji’s experiment was Dr Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, the founder of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Once he even met Gandhiji and asked him: “As a matter of fact, we have in Bharat people belonging to different faiths like Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Zoroastrianism and Judaism. So, instead of talking about the unity of all these people, what is the rationale behind speaking only of Hindu-Muslim unity?” Gandhiji retorted: “Through this, my idea is to create a love for this nation in the minds of Muslims here, and don’t you see the spectacle of their fighting shoulder to shoulder with others for India’s freedom?” Doctorji, who was not satisfied with this answer, again said: “Even before this slogan was coined, many Muslims like Barrister Jinnah, Ansari, Hakim Ajmal Khan, etc. were active under the leadership of Lokmanya Tilak in the freedom movement. And I fear this slogan will create divisive tendencies in the minds of Muslims.” Gandhiji abruptly wound up the meeting saying “I don’t have such fear.” (Dr. Hedgewar by Nana Palkar: page 99). 

What was the appreciation of Pandit Nehru of the Khilafat Movement? “Owing to the prominence given to the Khilafat movement in 1921, a large number of Moulvies and Muslim religious leaders took a prominent part in the political struggle. They gave a definite religious tinge to the Movement, and Muslims generally were greatly influenced by it. Many a Westernised Muslim, who was not of a particularly religious turn of mind, began to grow a beard and otherwise conform to the tenets of Orthodoxy. The influence and prestige of the Moulvies, which had been gradually declining owing to new ideas and a progressive Westernisation, began to grow again and dominate the Muslim community. The Ali brothers, themselves of a religious turn of mind, helped in this process, and so did Gandhiji, who paid the greatest regard to the Moulvies and Moulanas.” (Jawaharlal Nehru: An Autobiography, Page 71-72). 

Dr M.G.S. Narayanan, former Chairman, ICHR, New Delhi, shed light on why and how the calculations of Gandhiji went wrong and the disastrous turn the movement took: “Gandhiji was politically innocent at that time to assume in the context of British India that the poor and illiterate Muslim community in India could be drawn into an active political struggle against the British power easily. To please the Muslims, he supported the case of the moribund Khilafat that the British had done away within Turkey at the close of the First World War. Later Mahatma Gandhi regretted this folly in sponsoring the Khilafat, but it was too late by that time—the damage was done. Instead of coaxing Muslims into social reform and modern education, the Khilafat had legitimised their conservative religious instincts and roused their fears and suspicions about the outside world. It strengthened their communalism, which thrived on hatred against the Hindu Kafirs, lying dormant from the days of Alauddin Khilji and Aurangazeb.” (In his Foreword to the book Gandhi and Anarchy by Chettur Sankaran Nair, page II). 

According to Pandit Nehru, “Thus Indian Muslims sought to derive some psychological satisfaction from the contemplation of Islam’s great past, chiefly in other countries…especially Turkey, practically the only power left.” (Discovery of India, page 346). These observations clearly indicate where and why Gandhi’s expectations were belied.

Why was the agitation called off abruptly? Had Gandhiji consulted anyone in the Congress party before doing so? Writes Pandit Nehru: “Suddenly, early in February 1922, the whole scene shifted, and we in prison learnt, to our amazement and consternation, that Gandhi had stopped the aggressive aspects of our struggle, that he had suspended civil resistance. We read that this was because what had happened near the village of Chauri Chaura where a mob of villagers had retaliated on some policemen by setting fire to the police-station and burning half a dozen or so policemen in it. …We were angry when we learnt of this stoppage of our struggle at a time when we seemed to be consolidating our position and advancing on all fronts. But the disappointment and anger in prison do little good to anyone, and civil resistance stopped, and non-cooperation wilted away.” (Jawaharlal Nehru: An Autobiography, page 81). 

Gandhiji, who was shocked enough by the news of “setting fire to the police station and burning of half a dozen or so policemen in it” to withdraw the agitation, had failed to show even a fraction of that sympathy to the Hindus of Malabar. And although Hakim Ajmal Khan condemned in unequivocal terms the Moppla Muslims to assuage the hurt of the Hindus, Gandhiji “underplayed the occurrence”, says Rafiq Zakaria (Gandhi and the Break-up of India, page 64). Hence, Annie Besant said, “It would be well if Gandhi could be taken into Malabar to see with his own eyes the ghastly horrors which have been created by the preaching of himself and his ‘loved brothers’ Muhammed Ali and Shaukat Ali…. Mr Gandhi was shocked when Parsi ladies had their saries torn off, and very properly, yet the God-fearing hooligans had been taught that it was sinful to wear foreign cloth, and doubtless felt they were doing a religious act; can he not feel a little sympathy for thousands of women left with only rags, driven from home, for little children born of the flying mothers on roads in refugee camps? The misery is beyond description. Girl wives pretty and sweet, with eyes, half-blind with weeping, distraught with terror; women who have seen their husbands hacked to pieces before their eyes, in the way ‘Moplas consider as religious;’ old women tottering, whose faces become written with anguish and who cry at a gentle touch and a kind look waking out of a stupor of misery only to weep; men who have lost all, hopeless, crushed, desperate… Mr Gandhi would have hostilities ‘suspended’ so that the Moplas may sweep down on the refugee camps, and finish their work?” (New India, November 29, 1921). 

All of this leads us to one conclusion: Gandhiji, who sought to club the Khilafat Movement with India’s freedom struggle, was never under the illusion that the Movement had anything to do with our freedom movement, and for Indian Muslims it was anything but a religious war or jihad (the utmost effort, a war in the cause of Islam). And what he said about the Movement bears ample testimony to this fact. He said: “The brave and god-fearing Moplas were fighting for their religion in according with their religious tenets as they understood them.” (Dr. Ambedkar, Pakistan or Partition of India, page 148).

Gandhiji had two objectives when he decided to take up the Khilafat Movement, a purely religious issue of Muslims, having no relevance whatsoever to the Indian situation: one, he had somehow come to the firm belief that Hindu-Muslim unity was a prerequisite for securing India’s freedom from the British; two, he thought it to be the best means to bring Muslims, who were, by and large, keeping aloof, to the mainstream of the freedom struggle. Here, we have to bear in mind that, for all practical purposes, Gandhiji’s decision to take up the Khilafat cause was entirely based on his reliance on his own intuition and wisdom. Gandhiji was comparatively a novice in the Congress party having little experience or knowledge about the undercurrents or nuances of Indian politics of that period. The stalwarts in the party were neither consulted nor taken into confidence while making such a decision of far-reaching consequences.

In his over-enthusiasm to bring the Muslims into the mainstream of the freedom struggle, Gandhiji had miserably failed to assess or evaluate the Muslim psyche properly. The disastrous turn the Khilafat Movement was to take as had also the Congress leaders of Malabar who made highly emotional and provocative speeches to arouse Muslim passions in the name of Khilafat.

So, contrary to Gandhiji’s expectation, the Movement ignited the spirit of Dar-ul-Islam among Muslims in India, and the brunt of the enthusiasm to turn India, a Dar-ul-Harb, into Dar -ul-Islam, and the attendant orgy of violence had to be borne by the hapless, innocent and unsuspecting Hindus all over Bharat. And by the Hindus of Malabar in the Madras Presidency (presently part of Kerala) who were the most affected by the orgy of riots, arson and every form of conceivable atrocities, including mass killings and forced religious conversions, by Moplahs of Malabar.

What were the Moplahs aiming for: India’s freedom? Never! “To the simple Moplah folk, it seemed an excellent opportunity to establish their own government…”, says Pattabhi Sitaramayya in his book, History of Freedom Movement (Volume I, page 220). Although in the initial stages the jihad was intended against the British, as there were not much of any British to vent their fury on, they turned their ire against the Hindus, who, according to their faith, were kafirs.

Nandakumar is an RSS ideologue and All India Convenor of Prajna Pravah.

‘Danger to society’ — Saudi Arabia bans Tablighi Jamaat

 ‘Danger to society’ — Saudi Arabia bans Tablighi Jamaat

The country’s Ministry of Islamic Affairs called upon its mosques to allocate the next Friday sermon to warn against the group’s ‘misguidance, deviation and danger’.

THEPRINT TEAM

12 December, 2021 05:04 pm IST

A Tablighi Jamaat centre in Indonesia (representational image) | Photo: Commons

A Tablighi Jamaat centre in Indonesia | Representational image | Photo: Commons

Text Size: A- A+

New Delhi: Saudi Arabia has banned the Islamic movement Tablighi Jamaat, calling it a “danger to society” and “one of the gates of terrorism”. 

The country’s Ministry of Islamic Affairs has called upon its mosques to allocate the next Friday sermon to warn against the group’s “misguidance, deviation and danger”.

“Dr Abdullatif Al Al Sheikh directed the mosques’ preachers and the mosques that held Friday prayer temporary to allocate the next Friday sermon 5/6/1443 H to warn against (the Tablighi and Da’wah group) which is called (Al Ahbab),” the ministry tweeted.

It added that the sermon should include a declaration of the “misguidance, deviation and danger of this group”. 

It further said people should be told that it is “one of the gates of terrorism, even if they claim otherwise”. In addition, the sermon should mention their “most prominent mistakes”, which is that they are a “danger to society” and issue a statement that “affiliation with partisan groups, including (the Tablighi and Da’wah Group) is prohibited in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia”.

Powered By

VDO.AI

According to an article in The Week, Saudi religious leaders have for a long time viewed the Tablighi Jamaat as “deviants”. The former grand mufti Abdul Azeez ibn Baaz in 2012 had said that it was not permissible to “go out with them”, because they are “deviants”, except to disapprove their activities.

Tablighi Jamaat

The literal meaning of Tablighi Jamaat is a society for spreading the faith. It is a Sunni Islamic missionary movement, which focuses on exhorting Muslims and encouraging them to practice their faith, stressing in matters of ritual, dress and personal behaviour.

In March last year, the group came to light during the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in India. The group members were accused of holding an illegal gathering in Delhi, which was being linked to the spread of the pandemic. The central government had in fact blamed the group for the spike in cases, after its members were found to have travelled across the country. 

However, the group members were later exonerated by a Delhi court, which in December last year acquitted all 36 foreign nationals who were facing trial for allegedly breaking Covid protocols and contributing to the spread of the pandemic. 

‘Othered’ Muslim in Modi-BJP era: 3 essentials before mounting a political challenge to correct it

 ‘Othered’ Muslim in Modi-BJP era: 3 essentials before mounting a political challenge to correct it

If the BJP has unchallenged power, as it seems now, do they want one in seven Indians alienated because of their faith? At the very least, this would make for a very imperfect Indian democracy.

Shekhar Gupta

SHEKHAR GUPTA

16 July, 2022 08:32 am IST

Illustration by Soham Sen | ThePrint

Text Size: A- A+

With the end of Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, M.J. Akbar and Syed Zafar Islam’s Rajya Sabha tenures, Narendra Modi’s BJP will be left with no Muslim in either House. Read this with the following:

•In both the 2014 and 2019 elections, the Modi-Shah BJP won full Lok Sabha majorities without any of their seven and six candidates, respectively, winning. This, while 20 crore Muslims live in India. Or one in seven.

•In Uttar Pradesh, in 2017 and 2022, the Modi-Shah-Yogi BJP won humongous majorities without fielding any Muslim candidate. Muslims are about 20 per cent of the state’s population. Or one in five.

•In Assam, the Modi-Shah-Himanta BJP won two majorities in 2016 and 2021. It fielded 17 Muslims in the two elections combined, but only one won, in 2016. One in three of Assam’s people is Muslim.

•It is that rare juncture in our history when a Muslim sits on no constitutional chair in New Delhi (there’s one governor, Arif Mohammad Khan, Kerala), nor holds a position in the 76-member council of ministers, isn’t a chief minister anywhere. Of the 87 secretaries in the central government, two are Muslim. As this is being written, the BJP is yet to name its candidate for Vice President.

Let’s list the three stake-holders here. The BJP is the first because it’s the least affected. Ranking at number two are India’s Muslims, and at three, most hurt, is Indian democracy.

The BJP could easily take the couldn’t-care-less view and tell the Muslims, you do not vote for us, it’s ok, it’s a free country. Enough of the others do. You no longer decide who rules India.

That’s what BJP leaders often said in the pre-Modi era. I heard it first from former BJP MP Balbir Punj the day after Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s NDA government was defeated by one vote in April 1999. The Muslims, he said ruefully, have a veto on who rules India.

Between Modi’s mass appeal and Shah’s electoral smarts, they’ve ended that. How, we’ve discussed often, simply by targeting 50 per cent of all Hindu votes. Reunite with religion what caste divided.

Also read: Do I have a complaint with Mohd Zubair of Alt News? Here’s why I have 3 answers, No, No & Yes

Just because the BJP no longer needs Muslim votes doesn’t mean they do not want them living safely and prospering here. They just want them to do so on their terms. Ideologically, the BJP and the RSS admire Israel’s approach to nation-building.

If Israel can be a Zionist republic, a democracy, and yet accommodate its nearly 20 per cent population of mostly Muslim Arabs as near-equal citizens, India can similarly be a predominantly Hindu nation with the 14 per cent Muslims similarly “accommodated”.

See, the only country where Arab Muslims can live as a minority and freely vote is the Zionist republic. Name another Arab country whose people can elect a real government?

So, they should say thank you to Israel. Because you are safe, free to live with dignity, educate your children, do business and get rich, pray as you wish, just don’t ask for a share in power.

Ideologically, the Hindu political Right will see this as a perfect solution.

Israel’s idiosyncratic proportionate system of elections does sometimes give the Arab parties a foot in the door, as at present. In India, first-past-the-post can continue giving BJP easy majorities in spite of the Muslims. Beyond that, all welfare will reach them fairly, which is sab ka saath/sab ka vikas.

It’s this hyphenated equality that would be on offer to the Muslims in the perfect world of the BJP/RSS. It would imply that India is predominantly a Hindu nation, and follows secular governance because of that.

It leaves India’s Muslims alienated, othered, angry, nearly disenfranchised. Their vote no longer counts. Segregation, loss of power and a feeling that they might still live safely in India, if only at the sufferance of its Hindu majority.

This anger has erupted in protests, as against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act.

In the south-western coastal region, it is morphing into something angrier, led by the Popular Front of India (PFI), its political unit the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), and its student wing, the Campus Front of India (CFI). It manifested in the hijab protests, but we might as well brace for something more dire going ahead. As Manmohan Singh said at his press conference in the run-up to the 2009 campaign at New Delhi’s Constitution Club, if even one per cent of India’s Muslims decide they have no future in India, the country might become ungovernable.

If the BJP has unchallenged power, as it seems now, do they want one in seven Indians alienated because of their faith? At the very least, this would make for a very imperfect Indian democracy. A sizeable correction is called for. The question is, who will do it and how?

Also read: Secular Islamophobia: How Modi’s BJP bulldozed rivals’ imagination, left them scared to speak for Muslims

First, the ‘hope’ from international pressure. There was some excitement when the Gulf Arab states pushed back over Nupur Sharma. How sensitive Narendra Modi is to friendly Muslim countries showed in his immediate damage control. But no outside powers, no Washington, Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, Tehran, Brussels or London, have leverage over the Modi government except on a rare, episodic basis.

Modi and the BJP could easily take a cynical view that the Gulf states don’t particularly care what anybody does to their own Muslims (China, Uyghurs/Russia, Chechens) as long as you understand the no-go areas: the Prophet, the Quran.

See how barely a fortnight after the protests the ruler of the UAE received Modi at the airport with a hug, and then the I2U2 summit where the UAE joined the US, India and Israel in unveiling a new strategic grouping. Therefore, the Modi-Shah BJP may not see the need for a big course correction. Of course, we might be reminded of a childhood friend Abbas as much as L.K. Advani would point to the Muslim driver of his “rath” when asked if he was anti-Muslim.

If the BJP has no incentive to make corrections, who would? It can’t be done by outraging on social, domestic or foreign media. The courts won’t do it today, be realistic. You can’t, and must not try doing it by dragging young Muslims into protests that ruin lives and careers. It also can’t be done by articulate new Muslim leaders like Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM, who’d get applause but few Hindu votes. It won’t happen even if some divine power banished our polarising TV news channels.

It’s a political challenge that only a pan-national political force can take on. Before we discuss how this could be done, we must list three pre-requisites.

First, an acceptance that no shift is possible unless you convince the Hindus that they need it.

Second, you can’t begin the new secular age by blaming or mocking the Hindus or ‘normalising’ Aurangzeb or Ghazni.

Third, dump the fallacy that we lived in the perfect secular world until May 2014.

Remember that when in 2005, the Congress-led UPA set up the Sachar Committee to examine the plight of the Muslims, India had been under the rule of the Congress or coalitions backed by it for 49 years out of 58 since Independence. The committee gave a report so damning, the UPA itself buried it.

To ‘comfort’ Muslims, the Congress repealed POTA (Prevention of Terrorism Act). But it made UAPA stringent, so stringent that Muslim victims might be nostalgic for POTA.

Once we accept that India didn’t leave a perfect world behind in 2014, that just the inclusion of the word ‘secular’ in the preamble by an illegitimate Emergency Parliament in its sixth year, with opposition in jails, didn’t cast Hindu-Muslim unity on a rock-face, we can think of the future. The BJP’s ideological rivals must first accept that their missteps, hypocrisy and cynicism allowed the BJP to ride polarisation to successive majorities. Only then can a new political challenge be designed.

(National Interest next week: Constitution, culture, politics & some way forward)

‘Boycott Muslims’ Call

 After ‘Boycott Muslims’ Call Comes VHP Threat of Killings, ‘Will Repeat Gujarat if Situation Demands’

Organisers of the Manesar ‘boycott Muslims’ event say Hindus need to arm themselves and prepare for war, and claim the Modi government is giving them moral support.

L: Aachary Swami Ishodass Om Ram with J.P. Nadda. Photo: Twitter R: Devender Singh, VHP, Manesar addressing the Hindu panchayat in Manesar, Haryana. Photo: Astha

Astha

Listen to this article:

COMMUNALISM

20 HOURS AGO

Manesar (Haryana): Just a week before Eid, more than 300 Hindutva activists – including members of the Bajrang Dal, Vishwa Hindu Parishad and other organisations – attended a ‘mahapanchayat’ to protest the gruesome murder of a Hindu tailor, Kanhaiya Lal, in Rajasthan’s Udaipur by two Muslim assailants. At the event, there were calls to boycott Muslims and ‘if need be’ to pick up weapons against them.

Manesar is a part of the National Capital Region, around 50 km from New Delhi, and an important hub of the Indian automotive industry. The call to boycott Muslim shopkeepers and vendors was reported in the national media.

While many saw the Manesar meeting as a random expression of intolerance, its connection to the wider arc of Hindutva mobilisation in which online mobilisation links up to ‘offline’ events remained hidden. One of the trending Twitter hashtags in the days leading up to the ‘mahapanchayat’ was #TotalBoycott. Though the call was  in open violation of Section 153 A and B of the Indian Penal Code, the fact that an organised push could be made to trend that hashtag on social media is symptomatic of the impunity enjoyed by its sponsors.

The Wire spoke to the three Hindutva leaders who organised the Manesar panchayat about their wider agenda. Dharmender claims to be a social worker committed to the building of a Hindu rashtra, Aachary Swami Ishodass Om Ram is vice president of the Sant Samaj with close links to Bharatiya Janata Party leaders and Devender Singh is the general secretary of the Manesar  branch of the VHP – an organisation that is part of the same Sangh parivar to which the BJP belongs.

Of the three, Ishodass Om Ram has a significant online presence, with over four lakh followers on Instagram. He has shared pictures of himself with top BJP leaders like party president J.P. Nadda and Bhupender Yadav, currently minister for labour and environment in the Modi government. Apart from that, he has also posted pictures of himself  with Kulbhushan Bharadwaj, the man who led the anti-namaz protests in Gurugram, and controversial Hindutva seer Paramhans Das. Recently, Paramhans Das was reported as threatening to set ablaze the Hyderabad MP Assaduddin Owaisi during a protest against the Udaipur murder.

Following are excerpts from the interview, translated into English from the Hindi original and edited for clarity. The Wire has not verified the claims and allegations made, but they are being published as they portray the ideological framework in which Hindu Right leaders operate.

What made you take this decision [to call for a boycott of Muslims]? What is the motivation behind such a move? Were you facing any problems because of the Muslim vendors?

Dharmender: When there was a lockdown in 2020, the people earning even Rs 50,000 had to leave with their families because there was no certainty about the situation. Nobody knew how they would pay the rent. A lot of people in our area left their houses and went back to the villages. But you look at the jhuggis (slum settlements). They (Muslims) offer namaz there. Their language is different from ours. They are mostly Rohingyas and Bangladeshis. And they  have rented the jhuggis. When nobody was allowed to step out of their homes at that time, how did they manage to eat? Who paid their rents? This is my concern.

You go to any juice seller here, ask him his name. He will say ‘Raju’. You check his ID and the name would be different. Many times, we have found that the ID is with a Hindu name but the person offers namaz on Friday. These people (Muslims) have arranged fake IDs. Such elements are increasing in our area. We constantly get such complaints from our (Hindu) tenants – ‘My daughter has been abducted.’  ‘My wife has gone (run away).’ Considering all these issues, we took such a stand. If you look at the bus stand, there is a biryani stall. We Hindus don’t eat biryani. He has mentioned ‘Veg/Non-veg biryani’ on the board. What if our kids someday go there and eat non-veg? Who knows what they (Muslims) put in their food? Go to any lane, only these people have their shops. Our people are left with no jobs. Why? Whatever job a Hindu would do for Rs 5, these guys would do it for Rs 2. Why? Because they would do anything to just get inside your house. So, we need to check if any bad element is breeding in our locality. What if in the coming days they become so dangerous that neither us nor the government are able to control them? Any bad element – Hindu or Muslim should be inspected. We must know if a person is claiming to be Rohit, he is actually Rohit.

When in the Shaheen Bagh protests they can give a call to boycott Reliance because its money funds the weapons bought by BJP and RSS, why can’t we do that? Don’t we have a responsibility to empower our people- the Hindus? If a poor person in our community wants to work, shouldn’t we help him set up a business? These people get money from masjids. Look at their homes, they stay in jhopadpatti but their shops are plush. If we don’t wake up today, when will we?

Also read: ‘Flood Jihad’: How Media Outlets Communalised Silchar Floods

Every time the Gau Raksha Dal (cow vigilantes) catch vehicles carrying cattle, they find illegal weapons. And if you go to some Hindu’s house, you won’t even find a proper vegetable knife. So, this is not an issue of Manesar, this is an issue of India. Why did a country like Myanmar have to wake up [referring to Myanmanr’s Rohingya crisis]? Buddhism is called the most peaceful religion, why did they have to wake up? Manesar has had a history of fighting these people. If we have taken a step, it is going to be a huge step. We won’t touch any right person but we also won’t let any wrong person stay here. We will stay within the boundaries of the law. We have given a seven day ultimatum to the administration to verify the identities of these jihadis.

Hindutava activist Dharmender addressing the Hindu panchayat in Manesar, Haryana. Photo: Astha

Devender Singh, VHP: After Nupur Sharma’s statement, these jihadis raised the slogan of ‘Sar tan se juda’ and killed Kanhaiya Lal in Udaipur, Umesh in Amravati. They were killed only because they were Hindus. The most guilty among all are those who emboldened such a slogan. We have resolved to put an end to this extremism;  our (Hindu) samaj has risen. We decided to boycott them in every possible way.

When will your movement start?

Devender Singh, VHP:  The movement started on July 3. We gave an ultimatum to the administration. Depending on what their action is, we will give a tenfold reaction… We have started identifying these people- Who are Muslims, what kind of ideology do they have? We have started fully boycotting them.

There were videos where the leaders in the panchayat were appealing to the Hindus to keep weapons. Is it true?

Dharmender: Everyone is advised to take precaution. The mountaineers are advised to carry ropes with them. And by the way, they haven’t said anything wrong. Look at any of our gods and goddesses. All of them carry weapons. Read Bhagwat Gita, it also calls for keeping weapons. If we won’t protect our religion, who will?

Aachary Swami Ishodass Om Ram: What is a panchayat? It’s a setting where people share their feelings with their near and dear ones. Although, law talks about Panchayati Raj, but doesn’t value Panchayats that much. But when a panchayat gives a call, even law cannot dismiss it. What if our children are attacked the way Kanhaiya Lal was? You are sitting here. Suppose, a Muslim comes and misbehaves with you what will we do? We will save you and there are many ways to save someone. If they come armed with weapons, we won’t fight with our hands.

Have you seen Maa Durga? She has eight arms. And she carries weapons in all the eight. So, this is our culture. Our religion tells us to keep shaastra (religious texts) in one hand and shastr (weapons) in another. Those who understand the language of Shaastra,  talk to them with love, otherwise use sudarshan chakra (a spinning, discus weapon with 108 serrated edges, attributed to Vishnu or Krishna in Hindu scriptures). This is not new. Like Muslims have jihad in their blood, we also have been fighting against these rakshasas (demons) for centuries now.

Aachary Swami Ishodass Om Ram with Union minister Bhupender Yadav. Photo: Twitter

Devender Singh, VHP: You see, this is no less than a civil war. And in a civil war, we have to pick up the weapons. We cannot just give speeches. We will fight the way it is needed. You see, mosques across the country provoke people and want to turn Bharat into Ghazwa-e-Hind. We have to teach a lesson to those who don’t want Bharat to remain Bharat. Muslims have lost our trust, now we break every relation with them- economic, social, political, every relation.

Even if it means going to any extent?

Dharmender: Yes, it happens.

How will you train your cadre to use weapons? Are they already being trained?

Aachary Swami Ishodass Om Ram: A lot of things are going to happen in the coming days. Remember 1947, when we got freedom? This war is going to be bigger than that. This is going to be a crusade. In the coming days, a lot of people are going to die. We cannot make Hindu Rashtra so easily. It will demand sacrifice and we are ready to give it. 

Also read: Hindu Right Groups Issue ‘Warning’ to Muslims at Delhi Rally

Devender Singh, VHP: Our community is already prepared. We have always fought them. We even fought them in 1947. Even our women, our children, our elderly – everyone is prepared. We have no hesitation or fear. We declare this aloud. We are doing this to protect Hindus, our women, and India. We are doing it for our own security.

How will you arrange the arms? Who will help in the funding?

Dharmender: When they can arrange weapons for jihad, why can’t we do that for our religion.

Devender Singh, VHP: When they can arrange weapons, why can’t we? For big weapons, we will ask the government to give us licences and the smaller ones, we already have. Axe is a big weapon. Sickle is a weapon. We already have axes, knives, sickles, pole axes, spades.

Do you feel you have moral support from the current government?

Aachary Swami Ishodass Om Ram: Yes, definitely. All of us feel this support. You tell me when were Hindus motivated like this? They were just oppressed. Now, all our places of pilgrimage are being well maintained. Our mandirs are being built. PM Modi is getting them built. So, this is raising confidence in us. The Hindus are confident now. There is no doubt about it. BJP is a party of values. It doesn’t want to cause harm to the minorities. But why can’t the minorities stay in India as Indians?

Have you read the shaastras? There are two types of people in our shaastras – Dev and Asur. The ones following Sanatan religion are Dev. And the ones against it – non-vegetarians, beef eaters, wrong-doers – are Asur. And these two can never be friends. Why would we want to be their friends? We don’t. If they wanted to be our brothers, why didn’t they give their daughters to us? They didn’t. In fact, they took our daughters through love jihad. We don’t want any brotherhood with them.

Aachary Swami Ishodass Om Ram with L.K. Advani. Photo: Facebook

Devender Singh, VHP: Since 1947, the past governments have made so many laws which have given a free hand to the Muslims. They can practise their religion, teach their religion, work for it, convert people. But every check and balance was for Hindus. All the prime ministers till now had been just pretending to be Hindus. They were actually carrying forward the agenda of Islam or Christianity.

This government has exposed the conspiracies of the past governments against Hindus but there is a lot more that needs to be done. We need a population control law. To run a democratic nation in a peaceful way, a lot needs to be done. We need to cure the maulvis who declare fatwas if we need to maintain peace in the country. We have no hope from Congress or any other party. This is a nationalist government and only it can save the nation. We will constantly pressurise the government and get our work done. And this is for everyone’s good. We believe that everyone, including the Muslims, will be better off under this government.

But the administration and army have their hands tied, so the civilians will have to wake up. This is a bigger battle and these enemies have got inside our homeland. The Army will fight its battle on the borders and we will fight these enemies here. Only then can the problem be solved. And we know how to give a fitting reply to these people. We have started doing it. We have started pushing them out.

Dharmender: Congress was bringing a law where if we even called someone ‘musalman’, we could have been booked under that law. And the onus of proving ourselves innocent would have been on us. We fought the battle against that law when Congress was in power. It’s not that we are doing it only after BJP came. Dharm Yuddha does not look at the government, we have to fight it whenever the need arises.

In the past, the VHP and Bajrang Dal members have carried out many such movements for Hindutva. Like what happened in Gujarat in 2002. There were claims that the state police helped VHP leaders there. Do you expect the same from Haryana’s police?

Aachary Swami Ishodass Om Ram: They will have to. They have no other option. Let me tell you one thing – look at the new BJP cap. The green colour from it is vanishing. This is a huge signal for us. The government  will support us. There is no doubt about it. Haven’t they supported Nupur? They could have arrested her. But they didn’t.

Aachary Swami Ishodass Om Ram with J.P. Nadda. Photo: Facebook

Dharmender: If a person is living in the area with a fake ID, there must be a legal action against him. Like thieves disappear even with a slight sound, these people (Muslims) will also leave. Administration has always helped us. It has always helped us in the past. They will help us this time and even in the future. It is the duty of the law to identify these bad elements and remove them. If they don’t, we will. We, the responsible citizens, will identify them. 

Devender Singh, VHP: We will try to remain within the constitutional boundaries, within the boundaries of law. But if our enemy crosses it, we might have to do something outside of law to answer them.

Do you think the police and the government might take legal action against you?

Aachary Swami Ishodass Om Ram: Nobody can stop us. Let me tell you this. This is a divine call and this will have to happen. 

Dharmender: Pakistan is a Muslim country. America is a Christian country. We also want our nation. We have heard this [slogan] ‘ Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan’, right? When will it happen?

Also read: More Hindu Right Groups, Polarising With Impunity: How Communal Tensions Intensified in Khargone

Devender Singh, VHP: Whenever there will be war, we will assess the situation. If we see that our enemies are not stopped by law or they are not being controlled, we will also break the law… If we were so afraid of court cases, we would not have organised the panchayat in the first place. There is so much anger inside us that it is bound to spill and we are ready to face the consequences.

Are you in touch with any political leaders regarding these activities?

Aachary Swami Ishodass Om Ram: I talk to J.P. Nadda (president, BJP), Shah and Bhupender Yadav (Union minister of labour and employment; Union minister of environment, forest and climate change; and national general secretary, BJP) over the phone.

One day, I went to Delhi for some work. I went to Nadda ji with my gunman. He smiled and said, ‘Maharaj ji aap kasht mat kiya karo.’ Since then, whenever I have to talk, I text him and the work gets done.

By Shah, you mean Amit Shah (Union minister of home affairs)?

Aachary Swami Ishodass Om Ram: Yes

Which of these leaders inspire you the most?

Aachary Swami Ishodass Om Ram: We are the ones who inspire people. The prime minister hosts Mann Ki Baat. You tell me who motivated him to do that? I did. I inspired him in 2014. 

Have they told you that they will support you?

Aachary Swami Ishodass Om Ram: They cannot say it outrightly. These things are on a moral level. They happen internally. They cannot show. These people have worked hard to reach the positions they are in. They run the government. They cannot outrightly say that they are with us. They aren’t fools. But yes, they won’t take any action against us. So, this is a kind of support.

Do you support [Hindutva leader] Bajrang Muni on his call for genocide and raping Muslim women?

Devender Singh, VHP: When the situation goes out of control, everyone will say things like this. What will we do to save ourselves? Will we sit with our hands folded? We will have to do something in our defence, if the situation demands.

Do you plan to repeat what happened in Gujarat?

Devender Singh, VHP: We don’t want that situation to come. We don’t want to destroy peace. But if the situation demands, we will have to repeat what happened in Gujarat. We are prepared at the ground level. In just a call, our Hindu brothers have started gathering. And depending on how the administration reacts to our ultimatum, we will decide our course of action. We will give an even bigger call, the next time. If the administration agrees to help, it’s okay otherwise we are fully prepared for this war.

You mean you are prepared with weapons?

Devender Singh, VHP: Yes.