"Just because of a few fellows, don't brand us
all" they had explained.
But that same explanation had to be
kept very handy as incidents of civil disobedience from the community never
stopped.
Let's be clear, stupidity is
secular.
It was, is & will always be the
case, that a few will be deviant in every group, tribe, community or
nation.
The job of the many then, is to
condemn those few at the earliest instance. That as much an instant reflex due to
the deep sense of both anguish & embarrassment and also a mature thoughtful
response.
A clue can be taken on how the Sikhs
did not allow the Khalistani brand to stick on the community & erased it
from the Indian public's memory space. And one can also learn from them, on how
they fought the mistaken-for-Taliban identity in foreign lands.
Barring the fringe, most were always aligned to the mainstream, but through the clarion call of their religious
leaders, they became consciously aggressive in positive posturing everywhere in
the world.
Not done, those few deviants would
have got encouragement to march on & set the tone for the many, especially
amongst the gen-next and would have given a bad name to the entire Sikh
community.
The turbaned Sardar today is a proud
& solid global brand. One that is correctly stereotyped as - those folks
who are at the forefront of national security & those who don't ever beg,
but on the contrary serve.
In this, in some instances the
Muslim leadership has severely failed, not just in India but across the world.
They've oscillated from either
defense, to offense - but not been indulgent introspectors or demonstrating
efforts to severely reverse the flow.
They've either shown active sympathy
towards the ruckus makers of their own by remaining silent or passive (if not
instigating to disobey the law) or their first port of call has been : So
what(?) ... others too have such fringe amongst them.
It is assumed that such a tendency
arises from some misplaced belief in their own super exclusiveness.
This does everything to alienate
themselves, while knowingly & unknowingly playing cheerleaders to the
deviant few and thereby adding to the eddies of a downward whirlpool in which
their youth are sinking.
This is pure human psychology,
nothing to do with religion.
Having said that, I find the
leadership of say Qatar, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Oman and now Saudi Arabia under MBS
to be far more enlightened.
Thus, their subjects are seen to be
so well behaved in such trying times as compared to the some in the current
crop of Muslims here.
The Muslims themselves, must first
accept that there is an issue within their community.
The terror attraction is a
manifestation of their inability to reform with time & that can happen to
persons of any faith, irrespective - if they remain frozen in the past.
For most Muslims, religion even
today is not about a personal spiritual experience in solitude, but the
faithful are expected to visibly practice the rituals in a manner that makes
their religiosity a central life theme.
That gets further rekindled at the
almost mandatory weekly Friday ( working day at office ) mosque's mass
congregations. As a result, Muslims encounter many modern day requirements that
cannot be compatible with their daily mandated religious routines.
Being accommodative, would attract
scorn from the community peers or make them feel incomplete Muslims.
Thus most cannot convince the world
at large that they are beyond & larger than their self imposing religion
bearing identity.
In a fast globalizing world where
cultural assimilation is an expectation, interdependence a maturity and gloss
& glam a norm, their inflexibility to adapt to the order of the day renders
them somewhat unemployable & their school of thought as obsolete.
Not willing to bow out as misfits in
the fast paced modern society, some staunch Muslim community leaders have
lately been instigating a retaliation, rather than reform.
These so called leaders don't seem
to resonate with the likes of say Abdul Kalam the former president of India or
the Khan trio Bollywood superstars or A R Rehman the master music composer or
Bismillah Khan the instrumental music Ustad or Sania Mirza the tennis ace or
Azharuddin the cricket captain or IH Latif the ex-air force chief or Ahmedi the
ex-justice at Supreme Court - to just name a few of the Muslims, that have
negotiated with their personal space to reach great heights & become entire
India's favorite. It is not even in their reckoning that this makes India perhaps
the most unique country in the world where a minority community has achieved so
much & in so many spheres.
For some, the heroes to emulate are
perhaps foreigners like Osama Bin Laden or even Burhan Wani, a Pakistan
declared "martyr".
Some parents too get influenced and
so fail to teach their children, that there is solace in societal achievements
and not in being a claimant of perpetual victim-hood by it.
The Muslim issue must be resolved by
Muslim themselves. Building a positive brand is a great starting point, giving
explanations is definitely not.
It is time for the Muslim leadership
of India, irrespective of the sect, to express assertiveness in the opposite
direction - that they are collectively more than 10% of the population, more than
100 million in absolute numbers and have been sons of soil for more than 500
years !
And so they are fully assimilated
into the mainstream & don't need any minority rights whatsoever.
Further, that they're capable of
taking care of selves and on the contrary providing postive guidance, including
alms to the deprived - not just to their own but even to the other smaller,
poorer and underprivileged groups too.
That alone can be a true Muslim
pride.
