Shehla Rashid’s interview with ANI clearly shows that former seditious, Left-‘liberal’ and separatist elements from Kashmir do not have any remorse for being part of the Intifada factory and waging a disinformation war against India on the behest of Pakistan and other anti-India factions, both domestic and abroad-based. Be it IAS topper Shah Faesal making a U-turn or Shehla Rashid, there is no ignoring the fact that they were part of the Intifada factory in Kashmir — a motley group of bureaucrats, civil society members, lawyers, media persons, politicians, clergy, and an assortment of overground workers parroting the ISI talking points regarding Kashmir and its relationship with India.
The defence that many of them are giving now in interviews is that they were born in the 1990s and grew up seeing violence, gore, mayhem and “open prison” of the Valley in their childhood and teen years. While for some, it is a war that India won on all fronts, be it diplomatically, legally, militarily, and economically, the U-turns of former separatists show that the Indian government has been able to bring them down to their knees.
I do not buy this. Islamism is something that never really goes away though it may change appearance, and camouflage itself into patriotism and sycophancy. Co-opting former disgruntled members of society who had no penchant for collaborating with anti-India organisations and think tanks based in the West, Middle East and even domestically is not the solution to the radicalism problem in the country. We don’t just have to secure the country, we must also make 174 million Muslims progress into the 21st century and that means coming down hard on radicalism, extremist views, and any sort of un-Indian-ness.
So co-opting people like Shehla Rashid and Shah Faesal means you are keeping the Islamism opportunity open. Remember, Islamism never dies down, look at Egypt and other countries, Turkey for that matter. Islamists bide their time and wait for opportune moments. They can even turn patriotic and sycophant for the time being, until the next opportune moment when the disgruntled population shows signs of rebellion and anarchy.
Unfortunately, the onus of empowering the Muslims, liberating Muslim women, and bringing an Islamic Renaissance or Enlightenment has fallen on the Hindu majority, since no initiative is coming from the Muslims themselves. All one gets is victimhood in the oppression Olympics from the Muslim community. Then the blasphemy laws and the periodic fatwas present another obstacle as does takfirism (the practice of labelling who is Muslim enough or not to speak about Muslim issues).
The Muslim organisations and the sole spokespersons of Muslim issues are still under the archaic Shariat Act of 1937 and will not allow any Indian Muslim to bring in reforms or change; Hamid Dalwai was silenced in the 1970s (Sitaram Goel’s account of how Muslims in the audience objected to his speech, after two hours of bashing Hinduism on stage). Whatever is left of the organisation he founded, has started to appropriate his writings, redrafting his ‘Muslim politics in India’ in which he was astute enough to capture the practice of “obscurantism” among Muslims, that the current leaders, politicians, Muslim intelligentsia and intellectuals so amply demonstrate every day.
An effective solution against Islamism is a tough, non-compromising stand on terror; something that Arab countries, monarchs, and their policies have adopted ever since the birth of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928. India, a victim of terrorism countless times, shouldn’t be bothered about the “Islamophobia” label, a misnomer created by the Muslim Brotherhood to shut down genuine criticism of regressive practices in Islam. In addition to this, the cultural resurgence of Hinduism is creating that space for Indic Muslims to give voice to their opinions, their views about being part of the Indic Civilisation without fear of being labelled ‘Sarkari Musalman’, murtad (apostates), house niggers, Kapo or takfiri-ied as not Muslim enough.
This Hindu cultural resurgence is also forcing gatekeepers of Islam to give answers to what Iranian and Afghan women, honour-killed Muslim women’s families, sceptics and heretics of Islam from Muslim heritage have been asking for centuries — explanations about the anti-Semitic verses, the radical Wahhabi interpretations about non-Muslims in the scriptures, troubled chapters in Islam’s history or the Prophet’s life which are taboo in the community — questions that used to be silenced by violence. Not anymore. The majority of Hindus are forcing the answers, and the answers need to come.
So co-opting former seditious separatists isn’t a solution. In fact, Indians should demand answers from the former “critics” of the government — do they support UCC, CAA, nullification of Article 370, banning of Triple Talaq, building the Ram Mandir at a sacred place for Hindus, which is equivalent to our Mecca and Medina holy cities? Rashid needs to pass this test before she can claim to pass the interview process for her new government job. This is an entrance exam for anyone coming to the mainstream from the Intifada factory.
Because their ‘college rebellion’ cost Kashmiri lives, cost the sanity of thousands of Kashmiris who couldn’t get over the dark decades of the proxy war, who lost loved ones, sacrificed so much, often at great risk to their lives to uphold the tiranga in the Valley. To see them let off so lightly with second chances is an insult to the blood of martyrs and innocents shed by their military wings, for whom these overground intellectuals used to provide cover fire to their terror activities.
The internal insurgency of the PFI should have alerted the government of how far embedded the infiltration of Islamism is. Nationalists who are at great risk to their lives and careers are still struggling against Islamist forces. To see former Islamists being eulogised, rewarded, and mainstreamed is demoralising and many do give up, receding into their shells and their families, not bothering what trajectory the country or the troubled region takes. With designs of Soros-like people for India exposed, the government should have openly expressed its intolerance for Islamists and support for Indian nationalists of Muslim heritage.
The soft, covert, closet Islamists will have to be weeded out. Inter-faith seminars, reconciliation workshops and diversity talk circuits do not change attitudes on the streets of Shaheen Bagh or downtown Srinagar. A tough stance coming from leaders, clerics, and social media influencers is what is going to force millions to walk into the 21st century and leave behind the medieval mentality which believes women do not have half the brain as men and should be shrouded in black from head to toe or that non-Muslims deserve to be killed if they do not convert.
The author is a writer and an educationist from Srinagar. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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