Bharatiya Pragna - Dr. Th Chowdary

W hatever happened to the ‘silent
majority’ in India? Is it not time for all of them to
speak up?
Let me begin with the Muslims. Today
when you hear about a terrorist attack in some
city the knee-jerk reaction is to blame it on a
Muslim fundamentalist group. The secondary reaction,
a corrosive by-product of the first, is to
dub all Muslims as ‘supporters of terrorism’.
That is just insane! The vast majority
of Muslims are neither terrorists nor supporters
of terrorism. I would go so far as to say the average
Indian Muslims despises those buffoons who
dream of recreating the India of Aurangzeb.
So why does the ‘sane’ majority persist
in remaining the ‘silent’ majority? From time to
time the occasional Muslim cleric issues a denunciation
of terrorism. But such rare chirping is
simply not good enough any longer, Muslim terrorists
must be flayed from every pulpit across
India when the Friday sermon is delivered. And
this must be done not once or twice but for years
on end.
Consider the alternative if the Muslim
majority does not actively distinguish itself from
the smaller tribe of Muslim terrorists. Other Indians
shall then believe that the absence of condemnation
means automatic support.
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It’s time for the ‘Silent Majority’ to speak up
T V R Shenoy
It is not enough if majority of Muslims are not supporters of terrorism. They
must also denounce terrorism openly, says the writer.
The anger among non-Muslims was so
strong that one could almost reach out and touch
it in the aftermath of the recent Delhi blasts. It is
not often that you see senior politicians — from
the Union home minister to the Leader of the Opposition,
from the lieutenant governor of Delhi to
its chief minister — attending the funeral of a
humble police inspector. But public bitterness was
so great they felt compelled to salute Inspector
Mohan Chand Sharma.
How many of the leaders of the Muslim
community did you see laying a wreath at Inspector
Sharma’s feet? How many of them were
heard praising a brave man who had died fighting
for India?
What I did hear were reports of ‘tension’
in Jamia Nagar, the Muslim-dominated
colony in Delhi where Inspector Sharma died fighting
terrorists. To a non-Muslim ear it sounded
querulous, completely out of proportion to everything
that had happened. Which sounds worse, to
be under suspicion (as they claim to be) or to be
under a shroud (as Mohan Chand Sharma was) I
am sorry if that sounds crude but that really is the
long and the short of it.
I will accept for argument’s sake that
Muslims acutely resent their lack of representation
in government agencies, corporate entities,
November & December 2008 Bharatiya Pragna