The riots seem to be a direct result of the failure of Khilafat 2.0 of Shaheen Bagh to make an impact. Dr Ambedkar’s prognostication of ‘gangster’s politics’ and H.V. Seshadri’s prognostication of ‘denunciations, and street rioting’ has played out exactly like that. Add to it the expertise in victim playing. However, the other prognostication of appeasement and surrender has not happened. Instead, the riots were brought under control quickly, and the investigations seem to be throwing up a web of funding, planned incitement, and intent to wrest back the lost ‘Muslim Veto’. The assertion of mazhabi pehchan seems to have acquired a new urgency.

If the conspiracy angle turns out to be correct, as the Lok Sabha and Rājya Sabha debates seem to indicate, the riots would fall into the familiar pattern of communal rioting in India.

As with the overwhelming majority of riots, the reaction from the other side has been fierce. In Direct Action Day 1.0 also, the eventual losses suffered by the aggressors were higher than those of the defending community. However, the Muslim leadership is always a winner; even if the Muslim public suffers, the clerical leadership gains by radicalizing the public and preparing them for retaliation. The tactic goes into fortifying the strategy of maintaining the power of the clerics over the faithful.

The ISIS tactics are a good indicator. Their leadership has always been the gainer in terms of maintaining their hold, whether their followers die or live; whether they kill more or be killed in greater numbers.

The classic Muslim leadership tactic is to provoke strife and invite counter-attacks. If the riots result in an upper hand for the clerics, the leadership ascribes it to the grace of Allah.

If the Muslims suffer disproportionately, it is even better, because the leadership can then radicalise their followers by playing victim.

To understand this mindset, a little peek into Islamic theology is warranted.

Islam, like other Abrahamic religions, views the life on earth in the following fundamental way:

1. Time flows linearly and has a definite beginning and an end. In other words, Time has a finite existence;

2. Time is created by the Creator, Allah, and will be brought to an end by Allah;

3. Logic is bi-valued, either true or false. Whatever is said by Allah through his Rasool (prophet) is true. Everything else is false;

4. The only correct proof is the proof of scripture, it prevails over empirical proof (epistemic concept);

5. Human beings have only one life, at the end of which they will be judged by Allah on the Day of Last Judgement (akhirat or qayamat) with the help of prophets;

6. Based on the judgement, a human being will be cast into eternal heaven of perpetual carnal enjoyment or a perpetual hell of terrible hellfire;

7. Only human beings have souls, the rest of creation is for their enjoyment;

8. Non-believers in Islam will be compulsorily cast into hell, irrespective of their merits.

The entire Islamic theology is built on these premises. The clerical ensures that the layperson is kept under the fear of hell, and made to conform to every absurd idea that they throw up. The development of the exegeses of Quran that form 86 per cent of the Shari’a Trilogy (Quran 14%, Hadis 70%, Sirat-e-Rasool 16%) serves to enhance the power of the clerical and ruling classes and keep the public under thrall.

How does this work out in practice? The leadership is fully in the hands of the clerics. The Urdu press is a particularly dark side of this mazhabi politics. Arun Shourie quotes Maulana Wahiduddin Khan in his seminal book, The World of Fatwas:

“Events having shown that Muslims clash not only with Hindus but also with the police we should now ascertain where to lay the blame. The greatest offenders are the journalists and leaders of the Muslim community itself. After every riot they cannot find words enough to describe the ‘brutality and savagery’ of the police; in consequence, Muslim sentiments are kept perpetually on the boil. Their anger against and hatred for the police are never allowed to simmer down. As a result, whenever policemen appear on the scene, they become enraged and hit out at them, trying by all possible means to humiliate them. This belligerent attitude on the part of Muslim newspapers and leaders is the root cause of the intense mutual hatred between Muslims and the police.”[1]

You may check the utterances of the Muslim leadership after the Delhi riots of 2020 and juxtapose them against this quote. One can easily see that the response and reaction exactly fit the template.

That the ‘gangster’s method of politics’ is projected as jihad by other means by the leadership, which mostly consists of the upper-class ashraaf, has been noted by many people. Let us understand the classic meaning of jihad in the Indian context because every Muslim ruler in India has styled himself as the ‘Emir of Islam’, his Army has invariably been called the ‘Army of Islam’ and the chief theologian has always been called the ‘Sheikh-ul-Islam’.

The nature of ‘jihad’ is often asserted to be that of an ‘inner struggle’. However, one look at the various Hadis and the final Surah of the Quran, At Tawba (9th), and its immunity verses, would make it clear that the nature of jihad in a land where the faithful are in a minority would necessarily lead to religious riots.

Suhas Majumdar says in his insightful work — Jihad–A State of Permanent War — that in a place where the faithful are in a minority, any Imam can take up the mantle of issuing a call for jihad:

“By the same token, non-Islamic states with a large body of Muslim population must of necessity give rise to religious riots, if the ulema declares these states to be Dar-ul-Harb. The Immunity Verses of the Koran must, in the nature of things, come into full play in such states. In this restricted sense at least, jihad and religious riot are one.

Who would give the call for such riots? It has been shown in the previous chapter that jihad cannot start without the Imam pronouncing a call for it. It has also been pointed out that in Islamic states, the king is the person best qualified to pronounce such a call. But in Dar-ul-Harb such an Imam is not available. So any person with the requisite Islamic qualifications can give the call for jihad, and even the Imam who leads the congregation in Friday prayers can very well undertake the job. Needless to say, such a jihad can hardly turn out to be anything but a species of religious riot.”[2]

Jadunath Sarkar is even more explicit:

“Islamic theology, therefore, tells the true believer that his highest duty is to make exertion (jihad) in the path of God by waging war against infidel lands (Dar-ul-Harb) till they become a part of the realm of Islam (Dar-ul-Islam). After conquest, the entire infidel population becomes theoretically reduced to the status of slaves of the conquering army (Muslims). The men taken with arms are to be slain or sold into slavery and their wives and children induced to servitude.[3]

“The murder of infidels (even if they are innocent) is counted merit in a Muslim…. He has only to slay a certain class of his fellow-beings (non-Muslims) or plunder their lands and wealth and this act is itself would raise his (Muslim’s) soul to Heaven. A religion where followers are taught to regard robbery and murder as a religious duty is incompatible with the progress of mankind or with the peace of the world.”[4]

The understanding is essential because Pakistan was the outcome of minority politics of Muslims in UP, CP, Bombay, Madras and Orissa, and not of the majority politics of Punjab and Bengal.

The Shaheen Bagh and Delhi riots are an exact template of the above-mentioned phenomenon, with the minor difference that a certain secular theocracy has joined hands with the Islamic theocracy.

Cut to the recent incident involving the Tablighi Jamaat. Its Chief is descendant of a Deobandi cleric, who went even more conservative than the Deoband’s austere creed. However, the essentials remain the same — absolute faith in the Word of the Shari’a and the inevitability of the Last Judgment Day. If anything, they try and hasten the arrival of the day of Qayamat. To this end, an epidemic like the COVID-19 or Corona Virus Epidemic becomes a gift from Allah as they feel that it would kill kafirs in great numbers and brings the Akhirat closer. Even if 90% of the infected are from among the faithfuls, it does not matter because the Chief says that it is the kafirs getting killed in larger numbers. In the ‘World of Faithfuls’, the ones with ‘Iman’, facts do not matter. What matters is the assertion of the Amir, or the worldly leader of their death cult, whom they regard as next only to Allah and the Prophet.

Time is right that people study these facts and understand them. Once they are understood, they should be articulated. As the clichè goes, sunlight is the best disinfectant.

[1] Arun Shourie. 2012. The World of Fatwas or The Sharia in Action. India: Harper Collins. Location 3922–3930,Kindle Edition.

[2] Suhas Majumdar. 1994. Chapter 10. In Jihad, a State of Permanent War, Voice of India.

[3] Jadunath Sarkar. 1912–1924. Vol. 3. In History of Aurangzib, 163–164.

[4] Ibid.