This is the transcript of the Great Hindu debate held on the 31st of November 2007 . The debaters were Dr. Sekoo, Lecturer in Secularism, JN, and Mr. Hindooram Professor of Fundamentalism, Ayodhya University.
Dr Sekoo (S): There is a systematic demonization of Muslims by people such as yourself. There is a politically motivated plan to declare Muslims as untouchable by the BJP-VHP-RSS troika and you are flying their flag.
Mr.Hindooram (H): I deny that there is any deliberate demonization. Demonization is an interesting word. Why would Hindus want to demonize Muslims. There can be only two possible reasons. The first is that Hindus are naturally bigoted. The second reason is that Hindus have genuinely had reason to fear Muslims and see them as demons, hence demonization
S: Thank you. I quote your words, not mine Hindus are naturally bigoted That is true isn't it? At least for some of your ilk?
H: Well that is an accusation that Muslims have made about Hindus and you appear to agree with that. If you consider what Islam says about how unbelievers (non Muslims) should be treated, you can say that Muslims are bigots too. Is it OK then for you to take the side of one bigoted party and accuse another party of bigotry. That is, after all, exactly what you are doing. If there is any demonization of Muslims today it is related to violence from Islam. A thousand years ago, tens of thousands of Hindus were killed and thousands of Hindu temples were destroyed by invading Islamic forces. And the violence still continues. We still have violence in the name of Islam. A recent study showed that apart from Iraq, India has suffered the maximum number of terrorist deaths, and most of them due to Islamist terrorism.
S: I don't believe these fairy tales about temple destruction and killing of Hindus a thousand years ago. That is just another excuse for Islamophobia and a lame one at that. Even if some killing and destruction occurred 1000 years ago I am sure that it was done by both sides. In any case, why should Muslims today be blamed for that? Do you know that Muslims today have the lowest levels of literacy among minorities? They have the highest unemployment. They do not have proportional representation in government or the security forces, and you want to push them down further with your wild accusations? How much more nasty can anyone get?
H: Well just because you choose not to believe documented history, some of it in Islamic records detailing killing and temple destruction, it does not mean that the events did not occur.
You speak of Muslim literacy. isn't that their own fault? They prefer to send their children to madrassas rather than schools. I spoke to a social worker who worked in a Muslim community. He spoke of their great reluctance to send girls to school. Is it any wonder Muslims don't get jobs? Even the SCs and STs who were in a far worse state are now doing better than Muslims.
S: The SCs and STs are not doing so well, and even if they are doing better than Muslims it is because Muslims have been denied the reservation that SCs and STs get.
H: After all Hindus were blamed for keeping the SCs and STs down in a caste hierarchy. Muslims, we are told, are totally egalitarian. No caste. So SCs and STs are a Hindu problem, and Hindus therefore had to take the responsibility to improve their lot. Why cant Muslims do better? It is not as though anyone is stopping them, they have all sorts of privileges of the type they wanted. They have their own personal law. They are allowed four wives in India, and the taxpayer bears the burden for Muslims annual Haj pilgrimage to Mecca. Hey I want to visit a Hindu temple in Bali. Will the government subsidize my trip?
S: But Hindus have their own personal laws too and I think some Hindu laws tell them to demonize Muslims. You still have not answered why Muslims today should be made to suffer just because you accuse their ancestors with cooked up stories of violence.
H: Please don't say those stories are cooked up. There are records. But I was trying to point out that Muslims were violent then and they are still violent now, as you can see from modern day records of terrorism that you cannot erase or dismiss as easily as you choose to dismiss documented history.
S: Why are you blaming only Muslims for terrorism? We see terrorism from so many groups, not just Muslims. The LTTE, Naxalite terrorism, insurgents in the North East. Why is it that you specifically want to pick on Muslims?
H: India has many problems. One of those problems is Islamist terrorism perpetrated by some Muslims. Just because there are other non Islamic terrorist groups does not mean that Islamist terrorism can somehow be hidden away in the crowd of terrorists and its existence denied. We have hundreds of people being killed in India every year by terrorists acting in the name of Islam. Groups like the Lashkar e Tayeba, Jaish e Mohammad, Harkat ul Mujahideen and the Harkat ul Jihad Islami base their ideology on Islam and conduct their operations for Islamic causes. Those who are caught are all Muslims. This is Islamist terrorism and denying that is unconvincing.
S: OK. But why blame the vast majority of innocent Muslims for the actions of a few misguided people who are not even true Muslims?
H: That is an interesting question. No we must not blame the vast majority who are innocent Muslims. But it is also wrong to turn away from reality. When you have self-confessed Islamic terrorist groups conducting terror attacks it is stupidity to try and deflect the blame by saying that the terrorists are not true Muslims. True or not they are Muslims alright. On another level, the Muslim community in India finds it easy to whip up a frenzied crowd for all sorts of Islamic causes outside India. We saw huge demonstrations, death threats and offers of bounty on the head of some Danish cartoonist. More recently we have witnessed a big hue and cry about Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen. Why do I not see Indian Muslims whip up frenzied crowds against Islamist terrorism?
S: What good would it do to whip up a crowd? That would not stop terrorism. Muslims are just expressing the sentiments they feel and it is a free country.
H: Exactly. That is why I am expressing the sentiments I fell in this free country. Muslims do not show the same fervor opposing Islamist terrorism in India as they do about Islamic causes outside India. And this is a Muslim community that gets more sops in India than Muslim get in any other country.
S: It is all very well to keep rehashing the same old bilge, but tell me why should all Muslims be blamed for the actions of a few?
H: OK, you say that many should not take the rap for the actions of a few. Then how do you explain the following? Take a look at
this poster. It was put up in public places. An Islamic group in India says that Anti Muslim riots in Mumbai and Coimbatore led to bomb blasts. More recently, multiple bomb blasts occurred in the courts of Lucknow and Varanasi. The reason for those blasts was stated as an attack against all lawyers just because because some lawyers had refused to represent accused Islamist terrorists who were in custody, and because of that someone else was bombed. In all these cases, the people responsible for the anti-Muslim riots and the allegedly guilty lawyers were blamed, but retribution was inflicted on innocent people belonging to a group that was identified as a guilty group. Are saying that it is OK for Muslim terrorists to perform a punitive retaliatory killing of innocent and uninvolved people of a group identified as guilty, but I should not blame all Muslims as a group for Islamist terror attacks.
S: Yes. That is what I am saying. Let the law take its course. Do not apply collective guilt on all Muslims and hold them collectively responsible.
H: Let the law take its course? How right you are. Except that you do not seem to recognize which law is taking its course here. Sharia or Islamic law allows the application of collective guilt and punishment of a group for the crime of an individual from that group. Such crimes are described in sharia as qesas crimes. That is why innocent Mumbai people are bombed for anti-Muslim riots. That is why innocent lawyers and bystanders were bombed for the presumed guilt of some lawyers. Allowing and accepting such eye for an eye or tit for tat group punishment by Muslim terrorists is accepting sharia, and if we apply sharia we get some interesting conclusions. According to a system that allows punishment of a group for guilt of a small segment of that group. It can be said that the killing of hundreds of Muslims in Gujarat was a perfectly just and acceptable act in retribution for the killing of Hindus in a train. No need to accuse or blame anyone. By Islamic law it is just and we seem to accept and allow the application of sharia in India. If retribution by Muslim groups against innocents is accepted as a natural consequence of the action of Hindus, retaliatory killing by Hindus should surely be equally acceptable. Why the double standards?
S: Sir. I end the debate here. I refuse to speak to a person such as yourself.
