Counter Radicalism

Sanity Forum
It is time a sanity forum is floated in India. We have had too much blood letting in the name of religion, caste, and honour killings. Why do we need a terror strike of the type in Mumbai to stir our feelings to say ‘enough is enough ’We have 2nd largest population of Muslims in the world. In addition we have a large number of Christians, Sikhs, and others. There is also ethnic, racial and linguistic variety. But over the centuries we have lived side by side and worked side by side, peacefully and with understanding of each others’ faith . .

Let us take a leaf from our history, Akbar , who ruled most of the present-day India, Pakistan and parts of Afghanistan adopted ‘secularism.’ He established rapport with his Hindu subjects by abolishing Jhajia [the tax collected from non-Muslims] formed an alliance with the Hindu warriors by marrying a Hindu, who retained her faith even after becoming the queen. He showed equal respect for different faiths. He laid the foundations of the Mohgal kingdom that last for several generations as the people of India considered Mohgals rulers as Indian and owed allegiance to them. This happened several centuries ago because there was a man with a vision.

In modern times similar efforts were made by leaders like Mahatma Gqandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Maulana Azad and a host of others. They succeeded in stemming the rot spread by Jinnah ,Liaqat Ali Khan and others and establish peace and communal harmony in India. However in Pakistan bigotry was practiced as government policy and even Shia, Bhora and Qadiani Muslims were declared as ‘minorities’ denying them equal rights.

Army Generals like Zia-ul-Huk and Yaya Khan radicalized the country so that they could rule without any challenge to their authority. They set the direction and the self seeking clerics brainwashed young men in the madrassas to produce ‘terrorists’ Today Pakstani terror is looking inwards and spoiling to radicalize the entire country from Swat in the north west to Punjab and Sindh in the east. It is rising like a killer typhoon which can spread beyond the national borders of Pakistan. America, which was privy to the generals’ rule, is now worried that it might blow up the entire world if the ‘mad men’ succeed in laying their hands on the nuclear arsenal of Pakistan. The American answer is ‘limited army action’ The question is; will it succeed?

Radicalization cannot be eradicated by force. It is engendered in the mind and unless we change the mindset of the people nothing can stop the hate preachers. We need to reform the madrassas [Muslim as well as Hindu and of other denominations].Fortunately in India we have a large base of sane population who don’t get enough exposure in he media which is playing the disaster news. We should encourage sane voices to spread the message of secularism, peace and harmony. I propose these measures.
1; Persuade Bolywood producers to make films with mixed casts and stories covering people of different faiths like Amar, Akbar, Anthony.
2; Encourage schools to inculcate secularism along with patriotism by adopting songs like Iqbals’tarana yeh Hindustan hmara …
3;Start a scouting movement [open to every body of any age] to help general public to deal with the bureaucracy by invoking the right to information act, with the corporate sector by using the buyers forums. The scouts should belong to different faiths.
4; Persuade known people like Amitab Bachhan, Shah Rukh Khan, artists like F. M. Hussain, singers like Asha Bhonsle and A. R. Rehman to raise their voice publicly in favour of secularism and harmony between the different communities.
5; Make it obligatory on the media to reserve 2% of their advertising space/time to publicise exhortations like Hindi hain hum Hindustan hamara.
A campaign to make people aware of the rising danger and the need to meet the challenge ideologically. We should also use our diplomatic service to tell foreign governments about the rising dangers from terrorism in parts of Pakistan. Our media thrust to Pakistan should be based on peace and cordial neighborly relations.