Muslims Discriminated in Mumbai?

The prominent Muslims especially those from Bollywood are complaining about the discrimination of non Muslims in renting out to selling their property to Muslims merely on the grounds of religion. Earlier Shabana Azmi and Emran Hashmi have complained the same. This kind of discrimination should end immediately.

The Times of India writes (4 August 2009)


The waters have been muddied further in the Emraan Hashmi imbroglio. The actor has been in the limelight for filing a complaint with the State
Minorities Commission regarding his difficulties in purchasing a flat in Mumbai. Allegedly, this has been because of an anti-Muslim bias on the part of the cooperative housing society involved. However, BJP worker Sanjay Bedia has now filed a complaint against Hashmi and director Mahesh Bhatt for making statements along communal lines. And not unexpectedly, various other celebrities have chimed in as well, some castigating Hashmi, others backing him. It is par for the course when such issues are raised in the public sphere in this country. But that does not make the general approach to the debate any less disappointing.

It is unclear whether there actually was religious prejudice as Hashmi alleged or not. In a sense, it is also irrelevant. The matter is being looked into and the truth ought to be ascertained at some point. More important than this specific instance of discrimination or not, as the case may be is the reactions it has evoked in a larger context. The problem of religious bias cannot be wished away. What is needed is a constructive, mutually respectful public dialogue.

The reality of what happens when such issues are brought up, unfortunately, is quite different as evidenced by Bedia's complaint. It is an unjustified, wholly unnecessary attempt to stifle free speech. Hashmi has spoken out for what he perceives to be an infringement on his constitutional rights. How this can be interpreted to be communal in nature is difficult to comprehend.

Bedia's gambit is a pointer towards the dominant trend in Indian public discourse. Hot-button topics such as religion and caste invite knee-jerk reactions characterised by shrill demagoguery and unbridled aggression. Such conflicts are waged at two levels inflammatory protests on the streets, often with little understanding of the issues at stake, and a war of sound bites and pithy putdowns waged via the media. Neither approach is particularly conducive to arriving at a lasting solution. Whatever the truth of the complaint lodged by Hashmi, he deserves to be heard.

Mosque terror

The foreign funded terrorists target religious places to divide the Indian society communally. After failing to break India with their bombings and gun battles now they have resorted to attacking soft targets. Supplementing the violence on the ground they are attempting to destroy software and economic power bases of the country. Defacing the government websites, spamming important official email addresses, sending counterfeit currency notes, large investments in the stock market to artificially raise the share prices, brainwashing the unemployed youth into terrorism are some of the sinister designs of the terrorists groups. These gangs are now global in reach out. Mainly the misguided youth from Muslim dominated countries are recruited for exploding the bombs. Ironically it is the rich and famous family’s children who are falling victim to the recruitment drives of the terrorist gangs. The high influence religion is used to wrongly motivate the highly educated and rich youth to get into the terror network. To supplement the religious pills they repeatedly show the atrocities committed against the Muslims in Iraq, Palestine, Kashmir, and Afghanistan. In a very short time they have succeeded in collecting thousands of youth from half of the world. Now terrorism is a global industry involving trillions of dollars.

Initially the terrorist network was concentrating in Kashmir, Afghanistan and Iraq. With the Kashmiris strongly opposing the involvement of external terror groups and the strong action taken by the Indian army, they were pushed back. The unprecedented bonhomie between the governments of India and Pakistan were also responsible for the dilution of terrorist activities in Kashmir. Although terrorism is not eliminated completely in the Kashmir valley, the official patronage of the Pakistan government has come down drastically. Now it has gone out of the control of its original patrons like ISI and other official wings of Pakistan. It is another matter that the Pakistan government is yet to crack down the anti-India staunchly and flush out masterminds like Daewood Ibrahim from its soil.

What was started as the promotion of religiosity and protecting the attacked Muslims from the armies of Israel, India and United States has turned out to be the killers of Muslims. This is evident from the mindless killings of innocent Muslim children, women and old age people in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kashmir. To keep running their terror industries, the Muslim terrorists do not mind killing their brethren and sisters. An average of 200 people is killed in Iraq alone.

After failing to divide the Indians on religious and narrow social lines, now the terrorists are attacking religious shrines with a firm hope that will create communal violence. Time and again the Hindus have proved them wrong. The attack on Ram temple in Ayodhya, Sangat Mochan in Varnasi and akshardham in Ahmedabad were taken as the terrorist designs rather than a Muslim violence. This broad thinking of the Hindus frustrated the terrorist groups. Result of this dejection is the recent attack on mosques and dargahs.

The last hope for the terrorist organizations is the immediate backlash of the Muslims against the Hindus. But the majority Muslims in India is glued by the nationalistic feelings than religious orientations. The Muslims too maintained calmness after the terrorist attacks in Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad and Ajmer sheriff.

Any amount of attempts to divide the Indian society between the Hindus and Muslims will bound to fail. The Bombay blasts in the post Babri Masjid demolition is a crude reminder to the two communities that the terrorists are sitting on their heads to create communal violence. Further any plans by the violence creating masters across the border are bound to fail. Better they understand the changed psyche of the Indian society and stop triggering their evil designs to kill innocent people. The Indians are ready to lose lives than to surrender to the heartless and mindless terrorists.