Basirhat: Jinhen naaz hai secularism per wo kahaan hain…

The Left-liberal establishment is likely to pounce upon Bharatiya Janata Party MLA H. Raja Singh who has harangued the Hindus in West Bengal to “respond in the same way” as their coreligionists in Gujarat did in 2002. The pinkish folks have maintained a studied silence in the last few days over the violence perpetrated by Muslims at Baduria-Basirhat and the Mamta Banerjee government’s reluctance to bring the guilty to book; Singh may have given them an opportunity to intervene into the matter.

In a video message posted on Twitter, the BJP MLA from Hyderabad made outrageous remarks: “Hindus in Bengal should respond in the same way as Hindus in Gujarat did.” He urged “Bengal Tigers” to awake, unite, and protect themselves. The stupid outburst smears the crores of Gujarati Hindus as murderous mobs.

Usually, such reprehensible statements act as red herrings—which the Fabindia crowd loves. The focus shift from the growing Islamist menace and Muslim appeasement policies to what some semi-educated saffron hothead said; this time, too, it may happen.

It would be unfortunate if that happens again, for Basirhat disturbances underline something much deeper than violence allegedly triggered by a Facebook post: it is the Islamization of certain areas in our country. The Kashmir Valley was ethnically cleansed over quarter of a century ago; after driving out the Pundits, jihadists and jihad-compliant politicians have thoroughly Islamized the Valley. In the Malappuram district of Kerala, the Muslim share in the total population from 1951 to 2011 has gone up from 54.3 per cent to 70.24 per cent. Similarly, the presence of Muslims and Islamist elements has increased in the areas near Bangladesh border, thanks to the unrelenting flood of immigrants from our eastern neighbor.

According to a report in www.firstpost.com, the Baduria Assembly segment has around 65 per cent Muslim voters with mosques and madrasas outnumbering any other new construction. “Baduria, it appears, had become an extension of Bangladesh and the locals felt like aliens in their own land. The police had stopped heeding to complaints of eve teasing and molestation of young girls as they went to schools/colleges. The violence which began on 3 July was just a pretext, my hosts informed me, to compel the remaining natives to leave,” Mayank Singh of Firstpost wrote.

All this is the consequence of unabated appeasement of Muslims, though most of them in this part of the country are not even its citizens. “Treating the hate mongers—clamoring for public hanging of the young boy as retribution for the blasphemous post—with kid gloves, and allowing them a free run of Baduria, Basirhat, and adjoining regions by not allowing security forces to implement law and order is a manifestation of Mamata succumbing to fundamentalists,” Singh wrote.

To be fair to the Chief Minister, she did not invent Muslim appeasement; that credit goes to the Congress; the Left following it with unsurpassed fervor. All in the name of secularism, of course. These included such ennobling practices as promoting Maulvi Noor-ur-Rehman Barkati who offers to reward anybody blackening the face of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and letting Maulana Nasser Sheikh proscribe TV, music, photography, and interaction with Kaffirs at Kebala, a small town in Malda district. Mamata has ensured that Imams and Muezzins get paid from state exchequer.

That is not all. “As an extension of the mode of appeasement, Durga Puja immersion processions were prohibited after 4 p.m. to accommodate Muharram processions, disregarding the common Bengalis’ attachment to the festivities,” Singh wrote. Even the Calcutta High Court slammed the government on this subject.

Disreputable as her conduct vis-à-vis fundamentalists is, she still can offer an excuse, if not a justification, for what she has done. But what excuse do the Not In My Name crowd has?

A number of media houses, which usually scream when the victims are Muslims as in the recent lynching incidents by gau rakshaks, have also been unenthusiastic in reporting the Basirhat disturbances. They, however, regained their enthusiasm while reporting social media rumors and fake photographs, something that is common in the wake of riots. At any rate, media Brahmins did not worry about pluralism, liberty, rule of law, secularism, etc..

To paraphrase Sahir Ludhianvi, Jinhen naaz hai secularism per wo kahaan hain…