Moving from negative type to an inspiring stereotype

"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.