I won't talk your talk

The hypocrisy of the liberal Muslim is in evidence. Everyone does not have to agree with my views on Taslima, but the very people who line up outside my Inbox to laud me for speaking up for the riots are now silent. Reason? It does not sound right. By showing they are on Taslima’s side, they will prove that they are not that kind of Muslim.

I don’t give a rat’s ass how I am perceived. Some Muslim Intellectual forum has “condemned the attack” and is now saying it was “not by a conservative Muslim organisation but by legislators”. Whoa. Imagine if Ms. Nasreen pays heed to this. Her world will come crashing down. Oh, they are not Muslims? Then how will I butter my toast? I can hear her mutter…

So I am like really being nasty to her? As I just wrote to a friend who spoke about the hegemony of the West (and if it is of any consequence, he is a Hindu): “The strange response I get these days is that perhaps I have become a fan of the clergy! This is so far from the truth. The thing is that most people blindly wish to accept the West's version of Islam, and the liberals in our subcontinent swallow this. The idea has been to question their questioning of a group that itself has disparate streams of thought. Sometimes, I do feel like the battle is a losing one. The West has colonised minds and few are putting up a spirited fight. Even our concept of liberalism is borrowed. I wish it did not seem like a fight each time I tapped on the keyboard.”

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We have a new Vice President. In his first public comment after being elected vice-president, Hamid Ansari on Friday night condemned the attack on Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen. "Use of violence to make a point of view is wrong."

The V-P had nothing else to say? Hello, isn’t India dealing with the nuclear issue, kidnappings, Maoists, and if he did not want to start with a politically-sensitive subject then how about illiteracy, malnutrition, child rights, women’s empowerment? I will tell you why he has spoken up for Taslima. See, he is a Muslim. He has already been put on the mat to prove that he is a good guy. And what better way than to take on your own community.

If he is so concerned about violence, then why does he not talk about human rights violations, the treatment of under trials, encounter killings? Will he have the courage to even utter a word about this report which says that a 1993 riot victim is being hounded?

Yes, you heard it right. A victim is being hounded.

Excerpts:

Farook Mapkar, who had received a gunshot wound in the Hari Masjid shootout in the 1992-93 riots, is being hounded by the Maharashtra government even today. He had already been tried in the case made against him in the Hari Masjid firing even though he was the victim. Yet, on Friday, the government asked the fast track court for time to file supplementary charges against him. His lawyer, Mr Shakeel Ahmed, told this newspaper: "On the one hand the government says that it is going to implement the Srikrishna Commission report, and on the other they are hounding him. Why don’t they withdraw the case?"

Mr Mapkar is one of the material witnesses to the unprovoked firing by sub-inspector Nikhil Kapse at Hari Masjid on Mumbai’s Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Road. He said that on January 19, 1993, the situation in the masjid area was tense and Shiv Sainiks had taken to the streets. Then suddenly, at around 12.45 pm, a police van appeared near the masjid, forced its way into the premises of the masjid and the policemen beat up the namazis and started firing indiscriminately with their rifles and service revolvers. Seven people died on the spot and several were injured. The police arrested 50 persons, all Muslims.