In a recent speech in New York which he is presently visiting, Mohan Bhagwat, the head of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh ( RSS, a right wing Hindu organisation ) said ” If any Hindu thinks there should be no Muslim in Bharat, he will not remain a Hindu ”. He added ” Every human has dignity. There is no difference between human beings. The reality is we are one ”
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On the face of it these words seem laudable. But problems arise when we probe deeper.
It is deeds which matter and are relevant, not words. Everyone knows what has been happening to Muslims in India ever since the BJP, which is the political wing of the RSS, came to power in 2014. Have there not been atrocities and oppression on them ? Have some of them not been lynched by so called ‘cow vigilantes’ ? Have many not been beaten up for refusing to say ” Jai Shri Ram ” ? Have the houses of some not been bulldozed ? Have many not been arrested and imprisoned for several years on false and concocted charges ( e.g. Umar Khalid, who is still in jail for over 6 years, on trumped up charges of sedition, etc ) ? Have they not often been discriminated against ? Have hate speeches not often been made against them with impunity, demonizing them, calling them terrorists, anti-nationals, etc ?
https://time.com/6320003/india-weaponizing-history-against-muslims
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-60225543
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/world/reports-of-hate-crime-cases-have-spiked-in-india
https://www.resetdoc.org/story/violence-india-muslims-bjp-complicity
So while Muslims can remain in India, can they live with dignity, and as equals to the majority community ( as Mohan Bhagwat claimed ) ? No, they must live as second rate citizens under the dispensation since 2014, accepting whatever ill treatment is handed out to them.
In his famous treatise ‘On Liberty’ the British political philosopher John Stuart Mill ( 1806-1873 ) wrote :
” The tyranny of the majority is among the evils against which society requires to be on its guard. Like other tyrannies, the tyranny of the majority was at first, and is still, held in dread chiefly as operating through the acts of the public authorities.
But reflecting persons perceived that when society is itself the tyrant—society collectively, over the separate individuals who compose it—its means of tyrannizing are not restricted to the acts which it may do by the hands of its political functionaries. Society can and does execute its own mandates : and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practises a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself.
Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough : there needs to be protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling; against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them, and compel all persons to fashion themselves upon the model of its own. There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual independence : and to find that limit, and maintain it against encroachment, is as indispensable to a good condition of human affairs, as protection against political despotism ”.
The situation in Pakistan and Bangladesh is similar to that in India. While minorities can live there, and in theory as equal to the majority, in practice they are second rate citizens, and at the sufferance of the majority. So it is the tyranny of the majority which is prevailing in all 3 countries, while the minorities live in fear, and are often oppressed.
In Pakistan, often false blasphemy charges are foisted against Hindus ( who constitute only 2.17 % of the total population of Pakistan ), putting them in mortal danger.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_in_Pakistan
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-49714196
https://www.amnesty.org.au/pakistan-drop-ludicrous-blasphemy-charges-against-eight-year-old-boy
In Sind province many Hindu girls have reportedly been forcibly abducted, converted to Islam, and married off to their abductor.
Ahmadis, who constitute 0.07 % of Pakistan’s population, have been treated barbarically.
https://www.rabwah.net/the-barbaric-persecution-of-ahmadis-in-pakistan
In Bangladesh the Hindu minority has been often persecuted by the bigoted section of the Muslim majority, as mentioned in Taslima Nasreen’s famous novel ‘Lajja’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lajja_(novel)
As a result, Hindus, who constituted about 25-28 % of the population of Bangladesh in 1947 are only about 8 % today.
A hallmark of a civilised society is that minorities therein can live with dignity and honour. From that standpoint, I do not regard India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh as civilised countries.
Mohan Bhagwat’s statement ( abovementioned ), must therefore be taken with a pinch of salt
