Multicultural India

From the editor’s desk

Nirmala Sitharaman, the Indian Finance Minister’s recent rebuttal in the United States to journalists questioning her on the deteriorating state of minorities in India, is worth a listen. She unequivocally echoed the ground reality in India. Here are three pieces evidence substantiating her sentiments.

First, India’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval in 2022 met with Syed Salman Nadvi, Umar Ahmed Ilyasi, and Kalbe Jawad in a meeting hosted by the All India Sufi Sajjadanashin Council (AISSC) in India, a secular country’s capital in order to show solidarity with Muslims, India’s largest minority. Dialogue, formal condemnation of radical bodies and mutual respect for the faith of one another formed part of the progressive agenda of the meet. Doval was only following in the footsteps of Modi, and reiterating the Indian Government’s commitment to Indian Muslims and Islam. It is ironic to note that the same Sufi sect of the wider Muslim community has been perpetually persecuted and barbarically bombed in Pakistan, an Islamic Republic. The latest deadly attacks on the community in 2017 and 2019 are testimonies to the fear that grips the minorities in Pakistan.

Second, there were around 35 million Muslims in India in 1951 and there are around 213 million Muslims in India now. 15% of present-day Pakistan’s population comprised of Hindus in 1931 and 1.6% of present-day Pakistan’s population comprised of Hindus in 1998. The current population of Hindus in Pakistan is an abysmal 2.2 million. Systemic statesponsored neglect, economic violence, societal pressures, unfathomable racism, want for an escape route from bonded labour, sexual violence against Hindu women and the threat of violence force Hindus to convert to Islam. The entitlement to economic well-being is tied to faith which is why Hindus are forced to accept Islam and abjure Hinduism. It is appalling to note that one of the recent conversions took place during the peak of the coronavirus pandemic when people all over the world were in the most desperate of their times, under the aegis of a faith that touts itself as a helpful and merciful faith.

And third, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Jains and Parsis are some of the other minority communities that adorn the myriad milieu of India. Talking of the minorities, Dr Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India (2004 to 2014), Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission (2004 to 2014), Kushwant Singh, Indian Journalist and Novelist, Captain Amarinder Singh, Indian Politician and Indian Army Veteran and Milkha Singh, Indian Sportsman among Sikhs, Verghese Kurien, Father of the White Revolution in India, George Fernandes, Indian Defence Minister (1998 to 2004), A.K. Antony, Indian Defence Minister (2006 to 2014), Roger Binny, Indian Cricketer and Mary Kom, Indian Boxer among Christians, Ayushmann Khurrana, Indian Actor, Danny Denzongpa, Indian Actor, B.R. Ambedkar, Father of Indian Constitution, Kiran Bedi, First Woman Indian Police Services Officer and Nandita Das, Indian Actress and Director among Buddhism followers, Gautam Adani, Indian Businessman, Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Director and Producer, Vijay Rupani, Chief Minister of the Indian State of Gujarat (2016 to 2021), Taarak Mehta, Writer, Homie Jehangir Bhabha, Father of the Indian Nuclear Programme, Ratan Tata, Indian Industrialist among Jains and Parsis respectively, are some of the countless members of the Indian minority communities who could not only flourish but make it big in India.