N. P. Upadhyaya (Aryal)
Kathmandu: Veteran Sikh writer of international repute Khuswant Singh said a long time back that the “End of India” is inevitable and that shall in all likelihood be presided over neither by Pakistan nor by “outside” powers, but the end of India is sure on grounds of religious fanaticism.
Whether Singh was then correct or not in his somewhat “gloomy” prediction, is best to be decided by the Indian nationals across India but not by the neighbors, who unfortunately border the now “troubled” nation born in 1947.
India’s neighbors certainly wish that their elephantine next-door neighbor doesn’t disintegrate as the split or for that matter the big bang of the approaching collapse would jolt the entire South Asian region for a variety of political-social-economic reasons for sure.
The spillover effect will be disastrous indeed.
The kind of situation that has
of late developed in adjoining India on the grounds of religion (the Hindu-Muslim chaotic divide) has indirectly had already a negative impact in Nepal which got testified by the “demonstrations” held simultaneously in Nepalganj (a Muslim area) or say Birganj (a Hindu zone) either in favor of Nupur Sharma or against in the recent months which doesn’t augur well for the otherwise “peace-loving” country that is Nepal.
Nepal is on record to have maintained “religious harmony” throughout its chequered history in an exemplary manner which could and should be copied by all the countries who fight with each other on faith beliefs.
For some in India, Ms. Nupur Sharma is now a “personality” who in a way challenged the Prophet passing on some harsh comments, however, for others who may differ with Sharma’s remarks, she is just a human being who has already added fuel to the fire and has divided entire India or even “set fire” on religious grounds.
Nepal is predominantly a Hindu country but made secular by some “alien” forces yet respects the galaxy of religions that splendidly are in practice to the extent that Nepali Muslims are on record to have said in the course of their Hajj in Saudi Arabia proudly that “we come from a respected Hindu country that is Nepal”.
The Saudis have then reasons to feel electrocuted upon listening to proud Nepali Muslims ventilating their inner pleasure in an alien land with local Muslim inhabitants.
The Nepali Muslims deserve gratitude who in many more ways than one has exhibited to the world that the Hindu and the Islamic faith can go along with each other for centuries and centuries distancing the communal conflict. Unfortunately, India invites such conflicts at regular intervals.
Enters India’s Pandit J. L. Nehru:
Pandit Nehru when alive was taken as a skilled player of international politics who had a role in shaping global politics then.
Nepal King Mahendra together with and Nehru were the founding fathers of the Non-Aligned Movement, NAM in Bandung which has been made irrelevant today by the regional bully and toed verbatim by its satellite Nepal.
However, for the independent and sovereign Nepal, he was, with due respect, just an international quack who coerced and dominated this country to the extent that Nepal is taken, as of 2022, as a satellite or for that matter a colony of the Indian regime-the regional Goliath.
The fact is the Indian spy agency RAW runs Nepal since the ouster of Nepali monarchy, it is so believed and felt by the nationalists.
Prime Minister Nehru forced sovereign Nepal to sign an “unequal” treaty of peace and friendship on July 31, 1950-the darkest day for Nepal.
This treaty neither heralded peace nor friendship but remains as a cancerous albatross in the Nepali soft neck.
Sovereign Nepali nationals have thus abundant reasons to take the month of July as the gloomiest month because of the treaty signed in 1950 which subjugated and submitted Nepal to the mercy of the former slaves of the British India Company.
The situation now is that the Kathmandu-posted Indian Ambassadors are equivalent to British-era Viceroys sent to dictate, instruct, order and control and micro-manage Nepal’s internal as well as external affairs.
If the open border phenomenon is the bottleneck to Nepal’s development then the excessive “penetration and interference” of the Indian regime too could be taken as the prime reason for Nepal’s uninterrupted dissipating international image.
Highly placed sources say that Nepal’s foreign ministry has some “paid Indian moles” who leak the foreign policy moves of the nation much ahead it is brought into practice or announced.
Some investigative media men of Nepal of late purportedly are on work secretly to uncover the Nepali quislings or for that matter the domestic Mir Jaffars.
Similarly, media men with India bend too have reportedly easy access to the Nepal Army institution who somehow or the other pass security information to their masters in Delhi. The Army must investigate. Earlier the better.
Back to Nehru again:
Prime Minister Nehru who was more British than the real English men, to our utter surprise, too had prophesied much earlier than what Khuswant Singh had made known about his own country as regards the “End of India” in a similar but yet in an oblique manner. End of India is a pocket-size book authored by Khuswant Singh.
Sagarika Ghose, an Indian journalist/columnist, in one of her recent Tweets, 8 July, recalls what Nehru had said.
Nehru on religion: “Religion in India is like the old man of the sea, it has broken our backs and is stifling and killing all originality of thought. Like Sindbad, the sailor, we must rid ourselves of this terrible burden so we can breathe freely”.
This means Pandit Nehru too had an early inkling that the issue of religion will bring disaster for his India in due course of time.
And that he was accurate in his head becomes clear when one sees a totally fractured, split and broken India on religious grounds more so with Nupur Sharma’s outbursts made on the Prophet early week of June this year.
Taking a meaning-loaded jibe at the current sad developments in India on matters of faith, veteran media man Raj deep Sardesai says in one of his fresh Tweets that, “the biggest minority in India are Indians. The rest are busy calling themselves Hindus or Muslims”.
Sardesai’s remarks hide the message that Indian nationals across the country should read and then act to lessen the great divide.
By and large, the “remarks” made by two BJP functionaries Nupur Sharma and Naveen Jindal on Prophet in early June this year jolted not only the minority Indian Muslims but also made a host of Muslim countries across the world take notice of increasing India’s Islamophobia.
The countries that were up against India were the UAE, Oman, Indonesia, Iraq, the Maldives, Pakistan, Jordan, Libya and Bahrain and much earlier Kuwait, Iran and Qatar had called Indian ambassadors to register their protest, and Saudi Arabia had issued a strongly-worded statement.
However, Qatar cancelled even the scheduled dinner to be hosted in Doha in honor of the Indian Vice President in the first week of June last month.
Enters China:
India’s nearest and dearest rival China too on June 13, had come out with its short and sweet remarks on Nupur and Naveen’s remarks on the Prophet wherein the Chinese spokesman Wang Wenbin said, “We have noted (the) relevant reports and hope that the situation will be handled properly,” question from the official Chinese media here on the protests triggered by the comments made by the BJP leaders.
Observers in Nepal opine that the ruling Bharatiya Janta Party must have taken action on Nupur and Naveen Jindal looking at the flood of ire expressed by several Muslim countries that the BJP have had to suspend both Sharma and Jindal from their BJP posts. And this was done to pacify the ire coming as it did from all over the globe.
The logical twist that it is:
A retired Supreme Court Justice Deepak Gupta said on July 7 that questions naturally arise on the Delhi Police’s intention for arresting journalist Mohd. Zubair for allegedly hurting religious sentiments even as suspended Bharatiya Janta Party leader Nupur Sharma is still free despite making controversial comments on Prophet, the Scroll, on July 5, quoted live Law reporting.
Justice Gupta talked also with India’s critical media man Karan Thapar from the Wire on why Zubair was sent to jail but Nupur was left free? Zubair is the co-founder of Alt News and is a fact-checker.
His website is the Alt News and this online journalist was arrested in Delhi on June 27 over a Tweet that he posted in the year 2018.
As per NDTV on July 7, Zubair had flagged suspended the BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma’s controversial comments on Prophet Muhammad on a TV show.
In light of all these, justice Gupta wonders why Zubair is in police custody but not the one who in effect passed on some objectionable comments on the Prophet.
And it is this phenomenon which sensitized the German government and also the entire countries housed in the European Union.
The German reaction is considered important in that the reaction has come close on the heels of PM Modi’s short trip to Bavaria, Germany, to participate as a guest at the G7 meet.
Berlin, Germany has said that “journalists should not be persecuted and imprisoned for their work.
The reaction from Berlin has come only after India detained an Indian Muslim reporter Mohd.
Zubair.
“Free reporting is beneficial to any society and restrictions are a cause for concern”, the German foreign ministry spokesman Christian Wagner said during a press conference in recent days.
Wagner further said that “freedom of expression and freedom of the press is a focus of those discussions with India.
What was the most hard-hitting line on India from Germany was when the powerful European nation, Germany taunted “India describes itself as the world’s largest democracy and so one can expect democratic values like freedom of expression and the press to be given the necessary space there”.
The German spokesman also said that the German embassy in New Delhi was monitoring the entire issue that has centered on Zubair and Nupur Sharma. This is an interesting development and is loaded with meaning. Attack on media freedom is not limited to India only.
Very recently a Pakistani YouTube/vlogger Imran Riaz Khan too was humiliatingly arrested in Pakistan. Khan has a distinct favor for the ousted PM Imran Khan. However, this could not be taken as the fault of journalist Khan. The detained Khan must be released and his right to express his opinions must be honoured and respected. ( He has been released as of today).
Enters yet another legal eagle: Colin Gonsalves is a designated Senior Advocate of the Supreme Court of India and the founder of Human Rights Law Network (HRLN).
“The person who made the hate speech, they have been released on bail, and the person who exposed them, he is in jail. What this country has become”? submitted senior advocate
Colin before the Apex Court on July 8, seeking to make null and void the UP, India, police FIR against media man Zubair.
The advocate made it known to the Supreme Court that Zubair was merely reporting the hate speeches made by the persons and in doing so was inviting the attention of the police authorities to their somewhat objectionable statements.
Lamenting India’s great Hindu-Muslim divide, Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, on July 9 said that the people of the country were being divided for ‘political opportunism’.
He further said that “there is an effort to divide the Indians…create a rift in the coexistence of Hindus and Muslims on account of political opportunism.
Sen said this during a virtual address at the centenary celebrations of an old Indian newspaper, reports National Herald on 9 July.
Amartya Sen, however, did not say who was dividing the Hindus from the Muslims or vice versa? This too is meaningful indeed.
Zubair gets bail:
The Supreme Court of India granted interim bail for five days to Mohd. Zubair in connection with a case registered against him by the UP government police for a Tweet wherein he allegedly called Hindu ‘seers’ hate mongers, informs the National Herald.
And here is what you must read:
Recent research by ‘LedBy’ Foundation, a non-profit professional leadership incubator for Indian Muslim women, reveals serious obstacles in the way of Muslim women in the job market.
The LedBy found that for every two callbacks that a Hindu woman receives from job applications, a Muslim woman gets only one. “The net discrimination rate of 47.1% for Indian Muslim women relative to Hindu women, represents a massive discrepancy between call-backs for Muslim and Hindu women, proving that a significant hiring bias against Muslim women” exists in Indian society, the study says.
Tarushi Aswani writes this for the Diplomat on July 5 a Delhi-based independent media woman who reports mostly on HR issues, communalism and religion.
All said and done, it is up to the Indian nationals across the Indian landmass to decide whether the Hindus and the Muslims wish to co-exist with each other to cultivate friendly and harmonious tries or prefer to fight to prove that writer Khuswant Singh was correct while he wrote the book “End of India” predicting that the disintegration of the entire Indian landmass is only but inevitable?
Will India disintegrate or remain intact is the moot question today? Is the breakdown approaching? Let the Indian nationals decide their fate. The neighbours can do little if the two religions intend to fight to finish which is what is happening.
Neighbors wish India to remain intact as the spillover effect of the disintegration, if perchance, will be felt much in the neighboring countries as the “exodus” of immigrants will surely be unmanageable for a variety of political, social and economic reasons.
That’s all.