In the last couple of weeks, Sachar Commission’s work regarding demographic distribution in the armed forces has received much critique. Most major newspapers have carried them. Ghulam Muhammed provides another perspective.

To: Mr. Shekhar Gupta, Editor, The Indian Express, Mumbai, India

1. The title of your article: 'Kitne Musalman hain', inadvertently or otherwise, appears to Muslim readers, at least, as a take on the famous one-liner, from the film 'Sholay', when Gabbar Singh derisively asks his henchmen: Kitne aadmi the, Kaalya. In effect, you are demeaning the Muslims as well as their presence in the armed forces.

2. You have written a long account how Army's neutrality and non-communal visage in people's mind has forced the rioters to melt away, without the army having to shoot a single bullet. This is far from the truth. As Muslims as well as objective observers firmly believe the whole political and security gamut is hand in glove whenever a communal riot occurs or in fact organized. The army is not allowed in until and unless the rioters' job is fully accomplished. (the then Prime Minister Vajpayee did not act on the then President Nayarnan's urgent request to send troops into Gujarat to quell the riots. Congress has not allowed the Presidential request on the matter to be released to public. Who is covering whom, is a mute question!) The riots are all organized affairs and all political parties, may they be Congress or Hindutvadis; see to it that neutrality and credibility of the Army is built up, so as to give a semblance of law and order in the country.

You have given the wrong side of the Assam election genocidal riots, when 7000 Muslims were butchered. It is widely believed by many in Assam and all over India that the 'Nellie' massacre was planned and executed by the army itself, when Jaswant Singh was the officer commanding of that area. So much for your army neutrality! If the victims were asking for army, they were only fooling themselves. Media is the biggest culprit in perpetuating these myths.

3. You cannot absolve BSF (Border Security Forces), as not being from the armed forces, when they are fully believed to be responsible for Maliana massacres of innocent Muslims.

4. During Bombay riots, when the then Defense Minister Sharad Pawar was in the city and Muslim groups met him, pleading him to deploy army in the city, Sharad Pawar is reported to have mocked the group, by saying in so many words, if they think, my soldiers will fire on their brothers to save you Muslims. This was narrated to me, personally by Abdul Wahid, President of The Bombay Aman Committee.

5. Sachar commission has been enquiring about the number of Muslims in armed forces, to make out if there is any discrimination in recruitment of Muslims in the army. Sachar commission was interested only in numbers and not the treatment or psyche of the Muslim soldiers. The innuendo of communalization was the deliberate handiwork of the Army commander himself, who seems to be in sympathy with the opposition Advani group that were against the whole Sachar Commission, that unfortunately had become a willing Congress tool to steal a march on BJP, and in the process of concocting one more myth that Congress was more caring for Muslims, than the BJP.

The contempt for all such Congress 'appeasement' exercises in Muslim circles has to be closely observed to fully grasp the disenchantment of Muslims from the total political processes. And that is more dangerous for the integrity and security of the nation, than the head count of Muslims in Army.

6. With the entire journalistic prowess at your command, Mr. Gupta, you will have to gather up some moral courage to publicly record that Muslims are being deliberately, systematically and maliciously discriminated against. A simple well-meaning, if one may hazard the notion, affirmative exercise to remedy the imbalance in opportunities open to Muslims, has been hijacked by Muslim-bashers first in Army, then in politics and now in media. No positive results can be expected from such a formidable array of opposition to Muslims in this age of disinformation and ill-liberalism. America could deliver justice to its blacks, mainly because the media had some liberal crusaders against gross racial and ethnic injustices. Unfortunately religion is the anathema of the liberals in India as elsewhere and they hold it much worse in contempt than the wholesale discrimination and ghettoization of such a big chunk of our people. That has to change if India is to fit in with the New World that is shaping up, in the post-clash of civilisation era.

Ghulam Muhammed may be contacted at ghulam_muhammed2@yahoo.co.in

Contact in Lucknow: Arundhati Dhuru (0522-2347365, 9415022772)

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