Shiv:
On Sania: Someone criticized her for wearing a small skirt. I heard that. Well that's someone opinion and as long as they're not coercing her into doing anything, they are entitled to think or say what they want (unless its incitement, etc). Right?
The problem in my mind is the media. The media is making too big a deal out of people who say such things. No one really cares about all this. Just completely ignore what they say and if they try to act on this, then the law must take its own course.
How can a non Muslim who witnesses all this from the outside, and observes that the fundamentalist minority get away time and again while this "silent majority" remain silent time and again actually be convinced that the silent majority really oppose the vociferous minority?
I think you're getting it wrong. Have you read the book "World of Fatwas" by Arun Shourie? Anyone would be appalled to read the opinions expressed by people that he has compiled. The book, while good academic work, is not well-intentioned. Its meant to just "show" the "true face" of Muslims, etc.
The thing is, too much importance is being attached to this. These people don't have any such great influence as its being made out.
That book talks of fatwas like "Don't study English", "Don't study medicine", even "Don't use loudspeakers in mosques"!
Who even cares about all this? India is moving on and moving on fast, and Muslim society is moving too.
It is all very well to say that Muslims speak with one voice over many issues. But it appears that when there is more than one voice, some of those voices are suppressed by a powerful minority in the Muslim community.
Well I don't think that's true. Instead, my complaint is that the media focuses only on the more regressive voices.
a) What is visible to us is ONLY the agitation and complaints of the vociferous Muslim minority about Rushdie, Cartoons, Sania Mirza etc
Here's what I'll say. The Rushdie protests are not within my memory. I was probably too young. And the cartoon issue happened while I was in US.
But in the intervening, 15 years, nothing really of this nature happened, right?
My friend, Muslims are moving on, sending their kids to school, even college, constantly interacting with Hindus, etc. I grew up in Lucknow and it was very integrated and I didn't really feel alienated or different until 9/11, Gujarat, etc.
I think the because of what the media highlights, you're only focusing on this negative things. But by and large, Muslims are going on with their lives normally.
That's my opinion.
b) You say that there IS a silent majority. But we dont see them. We don't hear them. How are we to know at all that they exist?
You certainly won't see them or hear them on TV. That's not our fault. That's the TV channels' fault.
Just go around the country, talk to Muslims, talk to Hindus -that gives a better picture than TV or rediff.com