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Rohit Singh
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Wed, 22 Aug 2007
Vir Sanghvi on Muslim Communalism
The recent boneheaded
response of some Muslims to Taslima Nasreen's
work prompted a column
from Vir Sanghvi a few weeks ago. He argued
that the silent (and presumably, vast) majority of moderates in the
Indian Muslim community need to do a better job of standing up to the
extremists within. Sure, they have a much harder task of it than Hindu
moderates,
but the stakes for them are also much higher. He also mentions the abysmal
quality of political leadership that Indian Muslims have:
"Sadly, Indian Muslims have the worst political leadership of any community in India.
Worse still, it is a leadership that is illegitimate. Muslims are affected by many of the same issues as Hindus or Christians: inflation, law and order, economic growth, corruption etc. So why then do they need Muslim leaders? Why cant secular leaders represent them on secular issues? The short answer is that, of course, they can. And Muslim leaders, fearful of their own irrelevance, needlessly whip up sentiment on religious issues to try and ensure that Muslims vote only as Muslims and not as Indians. So, an insult to the Prophet by Taslima will be manufactured; some Samajwadi thug-cum-minister will offer a reward for the death of a Danish cartoonist that his constituents have never heard of; The Satanic Verses will be burnt by people who would never otherwise have read it; and a bogus cry of Islam being in danger will be raised."