The plus tending towards minus

I read a rather interesting article in TOI on Sunday, about why terrorist advocated jihadi fever has not penetrated India as badly as other nations. It is a well known fact that after Indonesia, India has the highest population of Muslims in the world. Its seen in media every other day on how extremist forces in Indonesia have had open rallys promoting jihad. The same holds good for the Arab and African countries. But one thing which most don't notice is how the name of Muslims in India do not appear in any of the terror strikes that have happened in the affected countries(other than India). This is not to say that there are no such organisations in India or that non-muslims don't help these terrorists plan missions. But it is still a fact that, when seeing the bigger picture, Indian muslims have not been swayed by the jihadi ways.

This is both a vindiction of the Indian constitutional setup, which in its form stays adamantly secular and also to the political parties which though for political mileage support the cause of the minority. This has enabled this large Muslim population to see steady governance for a period of almost 60 years, which none of the muslim dominated middle east, african or asian countries can boast of.

Now, while this is true, there are also increasing incidents of locals i.e. Indians supporting the cause of these terrorists. This has come to the fore during the investigations of the recent Mumbai blasts. Many of the locals who were caught said they gained their inspiration from the atrocities that Muslims suffered during the Gujarat riots. We all know what happened in Gujarat and no point dwelling on it any furthur, but the affected people sure have to live with the nightmare they faced and the passionate youth see this as their reason of right to help the terrorists. The politicians who fuel such passions on either religious camp, encourage skewed ideologies which alienates the minority. And as a result, the alienated feel oppressed. A colleague of mine whose father, a Hindu who has lived as a minority, always says, you never know what a Muslim feels in India unless you stay as a minority in a country where the political masters always entice the gullible into questioning the integrity of the minority, day in and day out! We need to resist and even fight this implosion of the secular fabric by people and parties who could care less.

If the mumbai blasts are terrorist acts, they were a result of the riots and more, also terrorist acts!

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