Rajiv Malhotra’s new initiative of Swadeshi Muslims is garnering plenty of attention from the people on our side and the mixture of optimism and criticism has been the response of fellow Hindus so far. While I hold Rajiv Malhotra in high regard for the works which he has done in past, I restrain myself from ego investing in any individual which would put me in the state of cognitive dissonance while burdening myself with undertaking the task of defending the actions of a particular individual.

The foundation of Swadeshi Muslims initiative rests on the assumption that Muslims in India have been a menace for Hinduism and Hindus not due to its theology, but due to its foreign character. Had it been an Indian entity, Islam would have been altogether different albeit with the same theology. However, the history of Islam in India has shown conclusively that it’s the theology of Islam that determines the actions of Islam, not its foreign origin. When Muhammad Ali Jinnah called for Direct Action Day, it was based on the theology of Islam as Jinnah was an Indian born Muslim. When Nizam of Hyderabad and Razakars wreaked havoc on Hindus, they weren’t the typical foreign invaders.

Secularists have perpetuated the myth that Muslims invaders in India were aggressive at certain instances while whitewashing their crimes, they blame it on their Turkish and central Asian origin, not on Islam. Similarly, Sangh and Rajiv Malhotra believe that it’s the foreign character of Islam which is a problem, not the theology of Islam. While making such an argument, they tend to forget the fact that Muhammad waged war against his very own tribe for the fundamental reason that they weren’t Muslims. When we are dealing with people who adhere to such theology and Sunnah of Prophet, it’s laughable to assume that Muslims will extend the olive branch towards Hindus once they start identifying with India. In reality, when the talks about partition were beginning to take place in British India, Deoband opposed this on the ground that the whole of India belongs to Islam, not merely a part of India. So, Muslims do identify with India but that India must be Islamic India, not India where Hinduism is the predominant dharma. Swadeshi Muslims

I was surprised to see Rajiv Malhotra saying that in the beginning of Islam, it conceptualized itself as a very personal religion between the individual and Allah without having the need of any institution like the church. Rajiv Malhotra probably forgets that Muhammad is the intermediary between an individual and Allah, and nobody can surpass this definite arrangement. Also, from its very beginning, the issue of political power within Islam was the central concern which resulted in 4 civil wars within the 200 years of inception of Islam over the issue of Caliphate. Islam didn’t make any distinction between personal and political as Malhotra claims but made these two entities inseparable.

The wild goose chase of sanitizing Muslims and Hindu-Muslim unity has been tried during the freedom movement in all the possible ways by extending every form of privilege to Muslims, yet it resulted in naught. What makes Rajiv Malhotra think that it will work in India can only be explained by the logic of Sangh. In one of my earlier posts, I had written about how Sangh approaches the issue of Hindu-Muslim discord, and Malhotra is exactly parroting the same thing. In integral humanism, Deendayal Upadhyay claims that every nation will have a national soul called ‘chitti’ and national culture. In the case of India, the Bhartiya culture is the central aspect while religions like Islam and Christianity are just like the different sects of Hinduism in the opinion of Upadhyay. So, in the thought process of RSS and BJP, it all boils down to the level of nationality after bypassing theology as it treats Abrahamic religions at par with different Dharmic sects as long as these Abrahamic cults identify themselves with India. Swadeshi Muslims

Hobnobbing with Sangh can kill your brain cells, impair your ability of critical reasoning and takes away your common sense to do something which has been tried and tested again and again, yet yielded nothing constructive. Stupidity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results. Hindus are the champions of this dangerous game without any competitor.

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