Siege in the mind

In light of thinly veiled attempt to pander to Muslims by present "secular" disposition in form of Sachar committee and enabled by progressive stooges in media and intellectuals, this article by Swapan Das Gupta is well timed.

I have repeatedly stressed that today the most vexing issue that Muslims (and as a result India) face is the siege and persecution complex. Fuelled in no small measure by secular types, this all too alarming propensity of Muslim intellectuals to take cover under the label of perennial victims is not only historically inaccurate, but also in present context a most disheartening and dangerous trend, trend which is not without precedent. If anyone cared about history, one will encounter this phenomenon in the run up to partition. It was not Taliban or barelvis who were the most articulate constituency (although they acted as ), but "moderates" like Jinnah and Iqbal.

But of course this doesn't happen, because we prefer comfort of numbness. To us partition remain as an act of God, and not a particular tragic, but perfectly logical and somewhat predictable culmination stretching back to centuries. To say before English came with "divide and rule", there was perfect harmony between the religions is most foolish. For the truth is, except for particular regions, relationship between Hindu and Muslims were intermittently stable at best. Psyche of Muslim elite, shocked by the loss of power to phirangees withdrew itself in a cocoon, notwithstanding effort by Sir Syyed Ahmed Khan to modernize the masses.
It was this anguish, resentment at living as subject, on par with kuffirs which encouraged the isolation that caused the partition.To make the matters worse, the educated, middle class Muslims migrated to land of pure, since then the story has been pretty downhill.

To look for oppression as a cause for impoverishment, when the reality is contrary , while it may fetch votes will just bog down India.

Related posts by Nitin, here and here