Misleading and saddening post by Milind

Submitted by RStoutness (United States), May 4, 2007 at 08:17

MIlind's post is misleading and saddening. First of all, he implies that right wing Hinduism is a new phenomenon in response to Muslim aggression. This is completely false. Right wing Hindus have been intimidating Muslims and Christians in India for a long time. Indeed, they murdered Gandhi in the 1940's

Milind speaks of his personal experencies when he was terrorised by Muslims during religious riots. That was of course a terrible experience, but the complete picture is that the vast majority of victims in religious riots in India have been Muslim. This makes sense, since Muslims comprise only about 15% of the population. Of course, in some neighborhoods Muslims predominate and it seems like Milind grew up in one of those neighborhoods.

Having lived through those experiences, he surely believes that those Muslims who terrorised his family were wrong to do so in retaliation for what Hindus were doing elsewhere. How then can he call for the same kind of communal punishment against Muslims? If someone of religion X commits a crime against someone of religion Y, the solution is to punish the perpetrator of the crime, not an attack against innocent members of religion X.

He speaks of instituting discrimination against Muslims in jobs. I've met Muslims from India and there already is discrimination against Muslims there. They are woefully underrepresented in institutions of higher learning, government, the police, and the army. Of course there are some exceptions - the president of India is Muslim. But the concepts of communal punishment and discrimination are immoral. All of you would be up in arms if Muslims were doing that to Christians somewhere. You should be equally up in arms if the measures are against Muslims.

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