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Showing posts with label Religious Intolerance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Religious Intolerance. Show all posts

Tuesday 1 January 2019

Life of Muslims in Non Muslim Countries: India


Whenever India is mentioned as tourist haven, Taj Mahal is projected as its 'proud heritage' - a heritage which is legacy of Muslim rule and Mogul architecture in India. While still boasting of its secularism, India today has become one of the most notorious countries for its indifference and extreme hostility to its minorities, specially Muslims, who once ruled India and let Hindus lived peacefully and coexist beside the Muslims. 

Islam, which today is the second largest religion in India with its 189 million Muslims (2017 estimates), came to this part of the world  when Arab traders came here as early as the 7th century CE to coastal Malabar and Konkan-Gujarat. The presence of Cheraman Juma Mosque in Kerala which was built in 629 CE is still thought to be the first mosque in India.

However, a Muslim expedition under Muhammad bin Qasim in the 7th century CE brought the province of Sindh (in present-day Pakistan) under the dominance of the Muslims and Sindh became the easternmost province of the Umayyad Caliphate. Up in the north, Mahmud of Ghazni added the Punjab to the Ghaznavid Empire and conducted 17 raids on modern-day India in the 10th century. In the 11th century, Ghazi Saiyyad Salar Masud played a significant role in the conversion of locals (Hindus) to Islam. A more successful invasion came at the end of the 12th century from Muhammad of Ghor. This eventually led to the formation of the Delhi Sultanate. There have since been many changes in the dominating Muslim powers which continued to change hands till the arrival of the Mughals of Central Asian ancestry.

The Mughal Empire, founded in 1526, became the largest and most stable Muslim ruling elite over India and ruled India till 1857 when the last Muslim emperor was defeated by the British and brought into an era of famous British Raj that ruled lands that constitute present day India, Pakistan and Bangladesh till 1947 when the indigenous independent movements forced British to end their last and the largest overseas empires.

The Muslim rule over India has left a profound and meaningful impact on India's religious and cultural heritage. Although over the centuries, there has been significant integration of Hindu and Muslim cultures across India and Muslims have played a notable role in economics, politics and culture of India. All over India, once can find Muslim and Mughal architecture. Lahore in present day Pakistan is still known as the showcase of Mughal architecture.The Muslims also contributed a lot in various forms of art and literature and most of the notable poets and writers have been Muslims.

The majority Hindu population which once ruled the India became more restive to regain their lost glory from 19th century onward. And the rift between Muslims and Hindus became so pronounced that the ruling British were forced to divide the erstwhile United British India into India and Pakistan in 1947. The partition of India and Pakistan saw display of bitter animosities between the two leading religions and have since then prevailed not only in relations between Pakistan and India, but also between Hindus and Muslim population of India.

With the breakaway of Pakistan from British India, the Muslims who once ruled India, became a minority, but have been coexisting with the dominating Hindu population in varying degrees of peace and animosity. However recently, the rise of extremest Hindu parties, the life of Muslims has become a nightmare. Today, Muslims get abused, investigated and dissected daily on Indian channels and media while they have been barred from slaughtering cows, which Hindus worship as their mother. In recent times, since the ban on cow slaughtering, many Muslims have been killed on the suspicion of slaughtering cows. There have been videos viral on social  media wherein Muslims are shown tied with trees and beaten to renounce Islam and raise pro Hindu slogans. Those not 'cooperating' are beaten mercilessly and even killed in many instances. 




Muslims today are eyed as sympathizers of Pakistan and even if someone has never visited Pakistan or have no relations there, they should be prepared to be harassed and called a Pakistani by Hindus. as per one 'advice' one has to try to be extra sad if India loses a cricket match to Pakistan, even though one is supporting India. Still don’t smile or make a happy face next day or else a Hindu friend will congratulate you and say your country has won, and immediately he’ll file verbal complaint that you were celebrating Pakistan win with fire-crackers.[2]

In a report published by the Council on Foreign Relations, in an answer to the question:How has the Hindu nationalist movement affected Indian Muslims?, it is said that:[3]
Anti-Muslim sentiment has also been used to win votes. For Hindu nationalists, who warn of a threat to India’s Hindu heritage, religion serves as a rallying cry to gain support. Their movement is “at the core very anti-Muslim,” says Ashutosh Varshney, an expert on Indian ethnic conflict at the University of Michigan. Hindu nationalists stoke fears, arguing that Muslims’ higher birth rate and an influx of migrants from Bangladesh threaten India’s Hindu majority. Hard-line Hindu nationalists argue Indian Muslims (as well as Christians) converted from Hinduism and should reconvert to the majority religion.
In a report published by TRT World under the title Life of Muslims in 'Modi-fied' India, the treatment meted out to Muslims highlights extreme indifference to Muslims and their rule of India. The report highlights that:[4]
  • The BJP government has added a “Hindu first” version of Indian history to school curriculum, which had long taught that people from central Asia arrived in India much more recently, some 3,000 to 4,000 years ago, and transformed the population. 
  • The Mughal Empire, established and governed by a Muslim dynasty, ruled most of the sub-continent in the 16th and 17th centuries before the arrival of British colonialists. However, the government of Maharashtra state revised the curriculum of state textbooks by removing the Mughals from its history altogether, as part of the campaign of erasure of the Mughal rule-era of the subcontinent from the syllabus textbooks.
  • There have been reports, supported by videos circulating online, that show right-wingers shaving off the beard of a Muslim convert and forcing him to renounce his religion.
Harsh Mander writes in his article 'India - No country for Muslims' [5]:
A rising tide of hate is surging through India, of toxic speech and attacks on religious minorities, mostly Muslims. A permissive environment that tacitly or openly encourages hate speech and assaults is actively, even aggressively, fostered by the majoritarian anti-minority ideology of the country’s political leadership. Muslims are systematically demonized as sexual predators, as being sympathetic to terrorism and as people who slaughter and eat cow, which is held sacred by many Hindus. Most hate attacks on Muslims are never publicly condemned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is otherwise extremely voluble on Twitter and public addresses. This has fostered widespread social legitimization of anti-Muslim prejudice, hate speech and hate crimes.
Vigilante mobs, who style themselves as cow protectors, lynch people transporting cattle with impunity, visibly supported in many instances by the local police. India Spend, a news data portal, found that 97 per cent of reported hate attacks in the name of the cow since 2010 occurred after Modi was elected to office in 2014. About half the attacks were on Muslims, but 86 per cent of the people killed were Muslims. This means that if vigilante attackers learn that their victim is Muslim, there is a much greater chance that he will be killed. Eight per cent of those killed were from the Dalit community of untouchables. 
In a report published under the title of Profile of Muslims in India, it is asserted that: [6]
  • The Indian Constitution claims to provide equality of opportunity to all individuals, organizations and social groups. But the biggest Indian minority is a victim of deprivation. Whether it is legislative assemblies educational institutions, government jobs, the problem of security in case of riots, representation in political organizations, posts in policy planning and decision-making groups or other pressure groups there is acute shortage of Muslim representation everywhere, resulting in constant social tension and problems in governance.
  • The state of present textbooks in the Indian education system are very aggressive in teaching Hinduism. This hits Muslims' faith, culture, civilization, language and way of life. The educational syllabi have prescribed course books in all states, which are replete with matters pertaining to the faiths of the majority community, mythological and other stories of Hindu gods and goddesses against the principles prescribed in the Constitution. Obviously all these things are negations of Islamic beliefs and teachings, especially about the Oneness of God Almighty. Hence there is no doubt that these things are causing great concern to the Muslims.
  • More than fifty percent Muslims are leading a life below the poverty line as compared to thirty-five percent of Hindus who live below the poverty line. Because of a general environment of hostility against Muslims, decent employment in the private sector is becoming increasingly difficult for Muslims, while in the public sector there is no encouragement for Muslims either. The future of Muslim professionals and its working class, traders etc has been very greatly affected.
  • Today very few Muslims are found in government jobs. A recent survey shows that there are only eight Muslim police chiefs in India's 591 districts. That is .01% as compared to 12% of the Muslim population in India. The situation of other departments is also worsening day by day. 

However, despite all odds, the Muslims continue to observe their religious obligations even under duress with religious zeal and fervour. The mosques are fill to capacity on Friday and Eid congregations and month of Ramadan is observed true to its sanctity by a large majority of Muslims. A majority of Muslims in India are either Sunni Deobandi or Sunni Barelwi allegiance, although some declare allegiance to Shia, Sufi, Salafi and other smaller sects. Darul-Uloom Deoband has the most influential Islamic seminary in India, considered second only to Egypt's Al-Azhar in its global influence.
Muslims offer Eid prayers at the Jama Masjid, Delhi | Reuters

"The Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1937" governs Muslims in India. It directs the application of Muslim Personal Law to Muslims in marriage, mahr (dower), divorce, maintenance, gifts, waqf, wills and inheritance.[3] The courts generally apply the Hanafi Sunni law, with exceptions made only for those areas where Shia law differs substantially from Sunni practice.

As of today, the Muslims of India are very vulnerable in a country which describes itself as the world's "largest secular democracy". Muslims today remain poorer, less educated and less empowered in India.

You may like to watch the video "The price of being a Muslim in India" - An eye opener for those who think India is a true secular country. But reading what is shared above and what is said in the video below, one gets a feeling that India is the most minority offensive country inn the world, specially with regard to Muslims:

Photo | References: | 1 | 2 | 34 |  5 | 6 | 7 |
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Monday 19 November 2018

Muslims in non Muslim Countries: Australia


I always thought that Australia is an outward looking country which absorbs people form all over the world, specially students and even allows immigration on very easy terms to professionals to add to their work force and progress of the country. But today a news caught my eyes which was really disturbing. The news heading read: Nearly half of Australians want the number of Muslim immigrants slashed following the Melbourne terrorist attack. Now this is really disturbing. If an Australian kills someone or sexually assaults a minor, no one question it for he is a Christian and Australia. Now read just another reported headline: The grubby dance school toilet cubicle where a girl, 7, was ‘sexually assaulted' by a man, 54 – as the ‘hero’ dentist who kicked the door in to rescue her breaks down while calling for a parole review. Now imagine if the assailant was a Muslim and then how differently this headline would have appeared.

I  had thought of writing about Muslims in Australia in my series of posts at a later stage for I thought Australians were more outwardly looking people than others and always embraced people of other faith with open hearts. But after reading the above headline, I thought of writing about plight of Muslims specially after the recent Melbourne terrorist attack.

After the dominating Christian region, Muslims are the second majority people. According to the 2016 Australian Census, the combined number of people who self-identified as Muslim in Australia, from all forms of Islam, constituted 604,200 people, or 2.6% of the total Australian population, an increase of over 15% of its previous population share of 2.2% reported in the previous census 5 years earlier.[1]

Muslims started vising Australia generally by Indonesian Muslims trepangers from the southwest corner of Sulawesi visited the coast of northern Australia, "from at least the eighteenth century"to collect and process trepang, a marine invertebrate prized for its culinary and medicinal values in Chinese markets.However the earlier settlers were the camel drivers of Afghan origin the mid to late 19th century. Between 1860 and the 1890s a number of Central Asians came to Australia to work as camel drivers. Camels were first imported into Australia in 1840. The camel drivers, from thence on who  came from many other countries, started to be called as 'Afghans' and they brought with them the first formal establishment of Islam in Australia.


Afghan grave Bourke [Photo]

However,  in the 1920s and 1930s Albanian Muslims, whose European heritage made them compatible with the White Australia Policy, immigrated to the country. Albanian Muslims built the first mosque in Shepparton, Victoria in 1960, first mosque in Melbourne in 1963 and a mosque in Mareeba, Far North Queensland in 1970. The Albanian community in Far North Queensland settled in the area in the early 20th century searching for work in the sugarcane and tobacco industries with many descendants still living in Mareeba, Cairns and other small towns across the Atherton Tablelands. Later Muslims from Bosnia and Turtkey aslo came in the 1970s and settled in Australia. Even as per 2011 census, 1,140 people identify as Aboriginal Muslims, almost double the number of Aboriginal Muslims have been recorded in the 2001 census.[1]




By the beginning of the 21st-century, Muslims from more than sixty countries had settled in Australia. While a very large number of them come from Bosnia, Turkey, and Lebanon, there are Muslims from Indonesia, Malaysia, Iran, Fiji, Albania, Sudan, Somalia, Egypt, the Palestinian territories, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh, among others.Muslim students from countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, are among the thousands of international students studying in Australian universities.

Muslims have thus formed a size bale Muslim community in Australia and have been contributing positively yo the growth and development of the country. But in recent times, eye brows have started to be raised among the Christian majority community, even on production of Halal meat. The Halal meat products are exported to the Middle East and Southeast Asia and are a big source of earning for Australia. However, Halal certification has been criticized by anti-Halal campaigners, who argue that the practice funds the growth of Islam.

However recently the trend of intolerance towards Muslims is increasing and currently a great deal of interest in, and misunderstanding about, Australia's Muslim communities. Although Muslim Australians are not a homogeneous group as some media reports might lead us to believe, but make up a small, culturally diverse section of Australian society. But despite that, incidents like Melbourne recently are blown out of proportion, which even compelled the prime minister to come on TV and talk of terror Islam. and captions like Radical Islam are on the increase. I wonder how many of the total Muslim populations are of jihadi nature or are involved in terrorist activities. 

In fact such incidents should not mean that all Muslims are all suspect. And this worries the majority peace loving Muslims in Australia and even all non Muslim countries. Sensing a threat to their faith and way of living, the Muslims from various countries and sects are striving to change the negative perception. In a new SBS documentary, 10 Muslim Australians with vastly different views on their faith live under one roof for eight days to explore what it means to be a Muslim in modern, multicultural Australia. Marshall Heald of SBS is of the opinion: “Muslims Like Us showcases the diverse range of interpretations of Islam that are practiced in Australia, with the broader aim of giving Australian audiences a chance to learn more about what it means to be a Muslim today.” 

Watch this documentary:

What worries the Australis today is the ever increasing Muslim population. The number of Muslims living in the country has almost doubled from 341,000 in the the 2006 census. as per 2016 Census showed the Muslim population in Australia has soared to more than 604,000 people, overtaking Buddhism as the most popular non-Christian religion.  The Muslims are predominantly concentrated in Sydney and Melbourne, with the majority of the population being working class.

While most Muslim men can go unnoticed, it is the female Muslims wearing Hijab that are more often than not singled out . The Department of Immigration and Citizenship found 88 per cent of Muslims in Australia felt harshly judged for their religion. SBS columnist Ruby Hamad wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald that the media had been obsessing over Muslim women and their choice of Islamic garments for far too long. “The dynamic conversation about the veil’s place in western society has become an obsession to some people and it needs to be had both on the role and manifestation of modesty within Islam itself, and on the responsibility for children to follow the beliefs of their parents,” Ms Hamad said.

However, despite concerns and fear of Islamophobia, the life of Muslims is generally peaceful. And they do celebrate their religious events with much fanfare and large participation. The Islamic Eid Festival is widely celebrated throughout Australia by Muslim communities, with the biggest celebration being The Multicultural Eid Festival & Fair (MEFF) in Sydney. in 2014, the Islamic Museum of Australia was opened in Thornbury, 10 kilometres outside Melbourne’s city centre. It’s the first Islamic Museum in Australia and aims to dispel stereotypes and promote understanding of Islam’s unique heritage and its contributions to Australia. A rich collection of contemporary art by Australian Muslim artists as well as crafts and artifacts can be found here in five permanent galleries as well as one designated for visiting exhibitions. The museum also holds lectures, workshops, events, screenings and more.

Muslim-friendly restaurants in Australia are plenty and prominently display the halal sign – although be mindful that they are self-certified; currently there is no official restaurant certification body in Australia. By the way have you ever watched the show MasterChef Australia? Then you might be familiar with George Calombaris. Well, his Greek restaurant in Melbourne serves halal food so Muslim patrons can happily dig into the chicken wings in smoked black Aleppo mayo, grilled squid and calamari.

Author's Note: The data above has been collected from the references as given below. If any one differs with the material contained in this post, one may consult the references and their authors.  If someone has more material about the subject, he/she is most welcome to share in the comments box to make the post all encompassing.

Photo: Chullora Greenacre Mosque  | References: | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
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