Our own Hindufication
We write this not as outsiders pretending to diagnose India, but as people who have undergone a gentler version of the same process. Over fifteen years of family and work on the subcontinent, our own Islamicate inheritance has been quietly sifted. The Persianate was retained. The Arabic was allowed to fall away. The qawwali, the food, the manners, the ghazal, the Mughal grammar of taste. All survived. The devotional Islamicate self did not. We arrived as something close to a Anglo-Islamicate hybrid. We are leaving, slowly, as a Hindu-Persianate one. We did not plan this. We watched it happen to ourselves.
The Persian survives. The Arabic does not. The poetry survives. The prayer does not. This is the formula. Once you see it, you cannot unsee it.
We made this passage with privilege, with distance, with choice, and with somewhere else to be if we changed our minds. The Indian Muslim, the one with no other passport and no other country, is being asked to make the same passage on terms set by people who never had to make it themselves. That asymmetry is this post.
The morning song
The news this week was Memo No. 470-ME, dated 19 May 2026, signed by the Director of Madrasah Education, Government of West Bengal. The order makes the singing of Vande Mataram mandatory at morning assembly in every state-recognised madrasa: government, aided, unaided, all of them. Immediate effect. Approval of competent authority.
Note the date. Suvendu Adhikari was sworn in as the first BJP Chief Minister of West Bengal on 9 May, ten days earlier, on a 207-seat mandate that ended Mamata Banerjee’s fifteen-year run. The order is ten days into the new government. Of all the actions available to a freshly-installed state administration, this is the gesture chosen. The first major item on the agenda was the Muslim schoolchild’s morning. The signal is the signal.
The Pakistani faction of our commentariat is aghast, and not unreasonably. The song is a hymn to the Great goddess Durga, drawn from a novel that called for war on Muslims, and forcing a Muslim child to recite it is a small humiliation that announces a large arrangement. One of our Pakistani commenters compared it to forcing a vegetarian Hindu to eat beef. The comparison overstates and understates at the same time. It overstates because nobody is forcing food into anyone’s mouth. It understates because food is forgotten by the afternoon, and a song sung daily for ten years writes itself into the spine.
The row is the symptom. The disease is older. Bengal is the latest frontier, not the first.
The Persianate without the Muslim
The Taj Mahal is read in India as Indian architecture. It is, in fact, Timurid-Persianate, with closer cousins in Samarkand and Bukhara than in any pre-Mughal Indian building. Mughal food is read as Indian. It is, in fact, a Persian and Central Asian transplant adapted to Indian spice. Urdu is read as Indian. It is, in fact, a Persianate register of Hindustani that the upper-caste north Indian Hindu has spent a hundred years either disowning or absorbing, depending on the political weather.
The strategy is clear and largely effective. Keep the form. Discard the producer. The shell of the Persianate is welcomed into the national pantheon. The people who made it are walled off as a problem to manage.
The strategy has a limit, and the limit is depth. The biryani at the Lucknowi Dadi’s table, made by the eighty-year-old aunt who still speaks a mix of Urdu and Persian and cooks with a vocabulary the Brahmin caterer simply does not have, is better than the biryani at any five-star Hindu-run restaurant in Gurgaon. The best Muslim food in India is still in Old Delhi. The best hummus is still in Jaffa, not Tel Aviv. When you divorce a high culture from its inheritors, you can serve the dish, but you cannot reproduce the depth. The inheritor holds something the appropriator cannot copy. That is small comfort, but it is real comfort, and it is the one card the Indian Muslim still holds. It is unclear how long he will be allowed to hold it.
The Ashraf bargain
The Hindufication of the Muslim does not happen at one level. It happens at two, in opposite directions, and that is the part that gets missed in most South Asian commentary.
At the top, the bargain is generous. The Indian Muslim who carries Persian, Turkic or Arabic ancestry, the Ashraf, the Sayyids, the Mughals, the Pathans, the families with a recognisable foreign quantum, will be quietly re-read as upper-caste-adjacent and admitted to the elite tables on those terms. Their Urdu will be praised, their adab celebrated, their cookbooks published, their daughters welcomed into mixed marriages with Hindu Khatris and Brahmins. They will be invited to opine on television and play in the cricket team and act in Bollywood. They will sit on heritage trusts. They will be permitted to be Muslim in the limited register the new mainstream tolerates: cultural Muslim, secular Muslim, syncretic Muslim, anything but the praying Muslim.
This is not absorption against the will of the ashraf. It is a bargain. They get class continuity. The price is the rest of their community.
At the bottom, the bargain is harsher. The pasmanda, the converts from Dalit and OBC ancestry who are eighty to ninety percent of Indian Muslims, will be re-read as nothing in particular and treated accordingly. No ascendancy. No invitation. No representation in the consultant rosters of charitable hospitals or the IAS short lists. They will be Indian Muslims the way the Indian Dalit is Indian: present, counted, and structurally excluded from the rooms where things are decided. Islam is their bulwark.
Caste reabsorbs Islam
The parallel is the African-American experience, and it is exact, though it is rarely named in South Asian commentary.
The light-skinned house slave with white ancestry rose. The dark-skinned field slave with West African ancestry did not. The mulatto ascendancy of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, from Frederick Douglass through W.E.B. Du Bois to the Harlem Renaissance figures, was structurally the elevation of those African-Americans whose blood was closest to that of the conqueror. The Indian Muslim ashraf elevation, when it comes, will play out the same way, by the same logic, for the same reason. The conqueror’s blood confers entry. The conquered’s blood does not.
This is the pathology, and it is close to universal except in the case of African-American slaves, who were barred by the one-drop rule. In most documented cases, every descendant of a conquered population identifies with the conqueror rather than the conquered. The mixed Indian identifies with the Aryan, not the Dravidian, not the Dalit. The mixed Muslim identifies with the Persian or the Arab, not the local convert. The mestizo in Latin America identifies with the Spaniard, not the indio.
There are dignified exceptions, Ambedkar foremost among them, but the gravitational pull runs only one way. The body remembers the wrong side.
Watch this running live in our commentariat. One of our Hindu commenters offers a list of urbane Muslim chefs who eat pork, Bollywood Muslim stars who marry Hindu women, Muslim cricketers who do puja. The list is offered as evidence of beautiful syncretism. It is evidence of something else. It is the inventory of the Muslim subset that has been judged safe to admit. The same Saffroniate, when asked about the absence of Indian Muslims from elite medical consultancies, is non-plussed.
The same commenter, in the same week, recommends an “Ataturkization” of Indian Islam: a reform from above, conducted by the state, in the name of liberalism, against the wishes of the community. The Muslim is to be modernised on terms set by people who did not have to modernise themselves. When pressed on caste, the conversation collapses into deflection and counter-example, and the privilege never quite arrives at the surface.
The Hindu liberal who tells you about his wonderful Muslim friend is doing the exact work that the liberal white American does with his wonderful Black friend. The friend is loved, but only on the host’s conditions, and only so long as the friend does not start making demands.
Pakistan and the three paths
Pakistan has been the great accelerant. Every time Pakistan acts as a Muslim state, the Indian Muslim pays a small tax. Decades of those small taxes compound into the long dark night. Without Pakistan, the consolidation might have taken another fifty years or it might have been savage civil war, counterfactuals are anyone’s guess.
With Pakistan, it is nearly done. The Hindu-Muslim conflict, once internal to the subcontinent, has externalised into the India-Pakistan conflict, and the minorities caught inside the wrong state, Pakistani Hindus, Bangladeshi Hindus, Indian Muslims, are devoid of leverage unless they conform or escape.
So what does the Indian Muslim do.
Three options, as far as we can see.
Conform, and become a Hindu-Persianate Indian with a Muslim name, like the three Khans of Bollywood, who married Hindu women, raise composite children, perform Diwali on Instagram, and execute the new mainstream with practiced ease.
Exit, to the Gulf, where he becomes a brown labourer in an Arab state and lives in perpetual subordination, working twenty years for a passport he will never receive.
Hold, and accept that he will be increasingly minoritised in the country his ancestors built much of. The fourth option, which was Pakistan, has already been taken. It is not on offer to those who stayed.
The precedent is not encouraging. The Bengali Muslim earned his independence in 1971 through what was, by any honest accounting, near-genocide. The Punjabi Muslim earned his by surrendering his own ethno-linguistic identity to an Urdu-speaking elite from Lucknow and Karachi, a surrender (Faustian bargain) he is still negotiating in real time. Neither path was a triumph. Both were survival under terms set by others. The Indian Muslim now faces a third version of the same negotiation. The terms are not yet final. The direction is clear.
The Hindu-Persianate morning
We do not write this in despair. We write it as observation, the kind we have earned by watching it happen to ourselves over fifteen years from the outside, and to our extended family from the inside.
The subcontinent is consolidating. Every great civilisational mass eventually consolidates, and the consolidation always feels like a long dark night to whoever is being absorbed. The Dravidian under the Aryan. The Dalit under the savarna. The Buddhist under the Hindu. The Persianate under the Hindustani. The Indian Muslim is the latest to walk through it.
The morning that follows will be a Hindu-Persianate morning. Whether the Indian Muslim is in it as a Muslim, or only as a Muslim-named Indian, is the question that will define the next fifty years.
The Lucknowi Dadi will still cook the better biryani. Her grandson will be forced to sing Vande Mataram at assembly, the next morning. Both things will be true.
Great essay.
Just to clarify: I have no issues with an individual choosing to sing “Vande Mataram”. That is his or her choice.
The problem is the compulsion. This is state-level indoctrination. Especially when it is done in madrassahs. Presumably, people send their children to madrassahs in order to ensure they get a proper Islamic education. Being made to do things that are fundamentally against Islam is a red line.
I was not aware that this order had actually been passed in West Bengal.
This is unfortunately very true. The Two Nation Theory is alive and well. I find it tragic that India–which was meant to be a state of all its citizens and is still constitutionally secular– is going down the path of Pakistan and becoming another majoritarian state.
the Commentariat seem to assume that we are taking a position when we are making an observation.
we are in favour of Vande Mataram but yes this is the destruction of a cohesive Muslim identity by making their children sing paens to the Great goddess.
it’s important that one is intellectually honest
Imo the crux of the issue is trying to reconcile two fundamentally incompatible ideologies. That’s why the strife. Been happening since the dawn of human history, so it is a story that will keep repeating itself.
But this reconciliation is happening as there is a path towards it.
The Crescentiate are right about one thing – Islam’s biggest fear is not Hinduism or Christianity or Judaism etc. It is westernization/liberalization with all it entails. And that has only been a viable thing for less than a century (and already transformed most of the world).
As with all the “examples” I gave of the elite, this reconciliation does exist.
Amongst a minority yes, but it exists.
As India modernizes further, the process will accelerate.
The reconciliation was happening till the Wahhabization paused it and rolled back a few decades in the process.
Once the examples in the elite become the norm, only then will this end up being sustainable even in the face of conservative movements.
Till then expect a bit of a tug-of-war until stable equilibrium is reached.
I think the economic reforms have moved it in the other direction.
And even the Arabs are reforming in the modern day.
“Hindutva” might end up being positive for Indian Muslims in a way.
Good point. The Arab modernization may prove to be a catalyst in accelerating the reformation.
The ordinary Muslim doesn’t mind.
For him bowing to elders especially their mother is not seen as shirk.
When speaking to Hindus They phrase their religious references using the Hindu words such as swarga, naraka, deva, papa, punya etc.
Pakistanis often make the mistake of seeing Indian Muslim issues through a Pakistani lens.
Pakistani Muslims live in an extremely Muslim majority country under Islamic law. Indian Muslims live as a minority with frequent interaction with Hindus under secular law (minus personal law).
Considering that partition took place 70 years ago, there will be obviously be a divergence. Further “westernization” especially post reforms has accelerated this divergence.
A lot of the outraged comments on Indian Muslim celebrities’ social media when they celebrate a Hindu festival is by Pakistanis who just don’t get India.
//we are in favour of Vande Mataram but yes this is the destruction of a cohesive Muslim identity by making their children sing paens to the Great goddess.//
In christianity intent is a very important thing, a song or an action is just that unless you have the intent behind it. I dont know if Islam has something similar given many christian sects also cant make a difference between intent and action, but this on its own will not lead to anything, like many things if muslims would just say this without any hesitation I think a lot of interest will also die down.
I actually had a chance to work for a day in an hindi medium school that had a fair amount of muslims students, before lunch they had all students even the muslim ones say the saraswati strotam, I dont think Vande Mataram will destroy muslim identity, any more than the above did of the muslim students there.
we just listened to this – https://youtu.be/p7nMZt7dMLs
stunning..
Yeah, naah I disagree with that last part.
Yeah, no one is stopping anyone from praying or practicing their faith.
The issue is with the illiberal parts which need to be “modernized”.
And this is not even a one way thing. It was done for Hindus a long long time ago.
it is always suspect when a majority tries to “modernise” the minority..
@RNJ everyone is welcome to disagree as they seee fit
Except what is a “majority”?
You can divide the population on any metric to create majorities.
I belong to a section of the population (tribal) which is lesser in number than Muslims.
Of course, tribal Muslims exist too (in J&K and Ladakh) making all this more muddy.
It is “Indians” modernizing other “Indians”.
And the “Hindu” majority “modernized” long time ago and just wants the Muslims to follow suit.
Women have equal inheritance in the law for Hindus, not Muslims. Polygamy is illegal for Hindus, not Muslims (and that too for men only) .
Such gender biased laws cannot be allowed to exist in a modern society.
I am sure @Nivedita will agree. And considering she is a woman, she has skin in the game.
Extending your logic, I don’t think men should get to decide women’s rights.
Many Indian communities are still quite conservative in thinking and habits and this includes non muslims of all kinds.
Individualism, or freedom of expression or scientific temper are some of the things all Indian communities still struggle with.
I don’t disagree.
It is not a Muslim specific thing.
But the Muslim personal laws codify this “conservative thinking” in law.
UCC brings them in line with other communities with the “laws” being liberal even if practices are not.
Economic progress/modernization will take care of the rest.
Well said.
Ultimately the sooner we get richer, most of these objections to modernization will fall by the wayside.
After all, just like the American identity supercedes all others, so will the Indian super identity.
Exactly.
Main thing is the UCC as it removes the “backwardness” from the law.
Like @Calvin said, it is not that non Muslims are extremely liberal and modern. But legal safeguards against things like dowry, caste discrimination exist (no matter how effective they are).
Except for the fact that this modernization happened back in the 50s itself.
Completely untrue. Where did I say that? I showed a Hindu cricketer celebrating Eid and a Muslim cricketer doing puja on separate occasions.
You do realize that I am Northeastern Tribal? That collapses the entire argument.
caste is alive and well.. it is not dead or dying; that is observational ..
you personally may have aspect of minoritised existent but you may partake in majoritarianism.
again your opinions are completely valid but it is important for the Saffroniate to realise that there won’t be a viable or distinct Indian Muslim minority, half a century out, with the cultural siege they are under.
It is not dead. But it is certainly dying. That is observational as well as backed by data.
There won’t be a “viable or distinct” Indian Hindu majority either half a century out with all of the liberalization happening.
Numbers wise, Indian Muslims will actually increase as a percentage. They might not be “distinct” but that is fine.
Indian Muslims and Hindus will basically be like in America – white WASPs vs white Italians vs white Irish etc.
And that is a good thing. The future we want.
//It is not dead. But it is certainly dying. That is observational as well as backed by data.//
Data if anything shows the opposite, most inte caste marriages are either between people of similar caste status or hypergamous.
And this is way too optimistic to think there wont be a hindu majority given the last 10 years where a hindu identity has become even more central to the identiy of many indians, and this kind of identity needs a other to exist as well.
Also the conflict in America is between white supermacists and everyone else, not between different white ethnicities.
This itself supports my argument. Hypergamy by its very nature breaks the “hard boundaries” that existed. Caste “status” is also flexible. Nadars were an untouchable community which have risen to economic prominence. Previously “inter caste marriage” did not even exist.
Indian Muslims and Hindus are not different ethnicities though. Religion is not race.
//This itself supports my argument. Hypergamy by its very nature breaks the “hard boundaries” that existed. Caste “status” is also flexible. Nadars were an untouchable community which have risen to economic prominence. Previously “inter caste marriage” did not even exist.//
But hypergamy is not new or modern. It happened even in pre modern times. The fact is as long as there is a view that some communities are better than others, casteism will continue. Hypergamy does not change this.
Not to the extent it is now with far greater female autonomy (as well as male to be honest).
The fact is due to greater autonomy and liberal values – people will be judged on other attributes – physical, economic, intellectual etc than “caste”. This itself reduces casteism.
Casteism might “continue” but it will keep reducing as it has over time.
I don’t think that’s fully true here. Caste discrimination in a direct form (like untouchability) will naturally decline since that was tied closely to a system of feudalism, which has gradually fallen apart. However, caste discrimination in an indirect form will probably remain for a long time due to very specific traits within the caste itself.
From a perspective, caste is composed of two elements: Jati (endogamous groupings) and Varna (social structuring element), which work distinctly across political, economic, and social areas. For example, if you pay close enough attention to the economic actors, one consistent theme that appears would be the fact that the majority of the industries are primarily run by people from the Vaishya varna (like Baniya, Khatris, Parsis, Jain, etc.). The political sphere, on the other hand, is dominated by members of the agriculturalist or Shudra varna, including groups like Ezhavas, Yadavas, Vokkaligas, etc. Their large size gives them political sway and forms a core base for most parties. On the social front, most of the key members of academia, acting, singing, etc., come from the Brahmanical/Literati groups like Kasyasthas, Nambooris, Pandits, and others.
Vaishyas have economic power, but lack political and social clout. Shudras have political power, but lack social and economic clout. Brahmanical groups have social capital, but lack political and economic power.
Vaishyas compensate for weakness by using their money to influence institutions and support cultural or social institutions that add social value. Both Amabani and Tata make a lot of political contributions to different parties in addition to closely tying themselves to celebrity figures or presenting themselves as nationalistic figure that produces social and political clout.
Brahmanical do the same thing, where they use their capacity as literati and social figures to obtain political and economic authority. Many brahmanical academic figures comment on politics and contribute to the construction of political ideology. Think about how many historical figures like Nehru or Savarkar, and the ideological underpinnings. On the economic front, many of these literati groups naturally ended up in government jobs and institutions that dictate economic policies.
Shudra caste groups use their own political advantages to gain economic and social benefits. Economic benefits are gained by leveraging voting practices to obtain social security and welfare to help in resolving their financial issues, or through their active participation in labour unions and protests for better economic conditions. Social improvement comes through using political leverage to obtain affirmative action and upward mobility via education.
These three varnas often cooperate and compete with each other for economic, political, and social benefits that produce the wide array of communal/class as well as caste conflicts that we see. Material factors cause this system of caste to exist. Merchantile clans have business connections needed to set up businesses, Academic/literati parents guide their children in the education system, and political dynasties pay the way for future generations to obtain power.
Mind you, it isn’t always as clear-cut due to Jaati. Depending on the political, economic, or social clout, each Jati is placed in a Varna position, but Jatis can sometimes be placed in a hybrid Varna position. Think about the Lingayat community, where some of the members are SC, and others are OBC, while the community has some political and economic power. Eventually, when a Jati gets enough power and social and economic clout, they transform into the Kshatriya varna, while they can become Dalits if they lose all of that clouts.
Kshatriyas act as the intermediaries between the trivarna, and Dalits act as the change bringers to this system since they live outside of the Varna confines. Dalits are not wanted, but they are needed since they complete the functions that no one else wants, which provides them with leverage to use in improving their position in different realms.
These tendencies don’t seem to have vanished in Indian society; they continue to live on indirectly in a systematic manner. In the article: “An Indian Philosophy of Law: Vijñāneśvara’s Epitome of the Law.”By Donald R. Davis, I remember a very unique point made by the author during the examination of the Dharmashastric text Matakasara. They noted that the writer of the text seemed to recognize the fact that caste is an artificial construction by noting the fact that animals can be distinguished by physical appearances, but different caste groups can’t be distinguished since they are basically humans with no distinction.
In addition, the writers seemed to believe that Varna simply ceased to exist if the political structure stopped existing. Ironically, the writer was wrong since caste remained even after the 12th century, when the Ghurids destroyed the classical political structure. So, I wouldn’t pre-emptively believe that caste would simply decline over time.
Structural issues do remain.
Even in first world USA you will see people of certain races concentrated in certain positions. But obviously it is not the same as back when slavery and segregation were legal.
Progress is progress, even if it is not a utopia.
Absolutely no one is “invited” to the Indian cricket team. This is not the Pakistani cricket team where parchis like Imam ul-Haq and Azam Khan have a career.
India’s top Muslim cricketer currently is a Pasmanda, two time World Champion and responsible for test series wins in Australia and draws in South Africa and England (His spell at the Oval last year is a thing of beauty).
https://theprint.in/opinion/in-mohammed-siraj-the-pasmanda-muslims-have-a-hero/2716534/
turn of phrase, mon ami
Wrong phrase though.
With all due respect, I think the reason this article fails is because it does not take into account the most seminal event that has happened in India since independence – the 92 economic reforms.
@X.T.M has said that his observations are from an outsider looking in for fifteen years and the thing is while you can be making observations from that perspective they won’t be as deep as the observations of an “insider” who has lived in India their entire life for a much longer period.
Capitalism unleashed by the reforms means that the old order is fading away. While it is true that structural issues remain regarding caste and religion, those boundaries are no longer “hard” boundaries and can be crossed over.
Obviously, social orders that have existed for eons will not be erased in just thirty years but those thirty years have seen progress that was not there for the past three hundred.
You have Dalit filmmakers from Bollywood taking their critically acclaimed work to Cannes (twice). The first Marathi film to cross 100 crores was by a Dalit filmmaker. Tamil Nadu itself has major Dalit filmmakers (from different Dalit castes) making movies on the Dalit experience often with A-listers.
And you can make similar arguments for Tribals and Muslims (Pasmanda or otherwise).
Further economic growth and the lower TFR of the upper castes (along with inter-caste/ inter-religious marriages) will only further this process along.
In 50 years we will only have one group – Indian.
the United States is the most capitalistic society on earth and arguably the *most* casteist.
Dalits/Pasmanda/Muslims are not a “visible minority” though unlike African Americans/Latinos/Asians etc.
India will reconfigure the way White America has.
strange we are meant to take your pronouncements on Pakistan as the gospel?
I never say a single word about Pakistan’s internal issues. I neither have the knowledge nor interest.
Things like cricket/Netflix are not really “internal” and very integrated with the global ecosystem, where India has a major role.
The 92 liberization has in my opinion strenghtened religious identities, while letting caste identities get subsumed under large categories depending on political calculations.
An individuals success does not equal to the reality of all people, not to mention that Indian identity is still contested and has many regional, and religious variants, given the high level of segregation in Indian society and the opposition to inter caste and inter religiois marrige in society I dont know how you think all the differences will melt away, even more so when these differing identities are the basis for not only culture, personal advancement but also political patronage.
The way it melted away in the other Asian countries which had similar economic growth.
Lots of people make the mistake that a $3000 pci 0.685 HDI India will be the same as a $16000 pci 0.85 HDI India.
Other asian countries are not comparable to India.
If anything goes caste is as dominant and important in many factors of life today as it was decades ago.
They are though. Primarily conservative agrarian societies with rapid economic growth.
Even the Japanese had a caste system.
Caste is no longer as hardcore as it was back in the day.
But here is the thing – that was the African-American experience more than a 100 years ago.
The current African American experience is that of Michael Jordan and Lebron and Kanye and Kendrick and Ryan Coogler and Beyonce.
The “light-skinned” elevation days were in the years immediately following partition, the heyday of “Urduwood” when Ashrafs prospered in Bollywood and Nawabs captained the Indian cricket team.
Those days, like the days of the “Harlem Renaissance” are long gone.
Like I have said in another comment, the 92 reforms opened Pandora’s box.
This is what India’s top comedian looks like now.
There was no “slip” here.
I replied to the comment saying what I meant by backwardness was “socioeconomic backwardness” due to the system, not “backwardness” inherent to Muslims.
https://www.brownpundits.com/2026/05/22/who-sees-a-caste-audit-of-an-anonymous-elite-indian-hospital/#comment-135844
This along with the “puja on Eid” (which I never said) paints the wrong picture.
And her granddaughter will be turning those recipes to “haute cuisine” in the new capitalist India.
https://www.instagram.com/taiyabaali/
Scandinavians and Greeks becoming Christian instead of worshiping Thor or Zeus does not dilute their “inheritance”.
Suggestion, maybe combine all your comments into a rebuttal post?
Will do it over the weekend. I had something planned.
Here I am just doing it separately to keep the comments short and focused on particular topics.
For what should it profit a man, if he shall gain the world, and lose his soul?
Don’t think joining the modern world is losing one’s “soul”.
Using that logic, even Hindus are losing their “soul”.
More Hindus are becoming “Hindu named Indians” than Muslims are becoming “Muslim named Indians”.
There is a reason the West had a 400-500 year winning streak.
The Japanese understood it. As did the Koreans. As did the Chinese. As did the Turkish.
And as are we.
1) The Hindus have tried very much to be fair to Muslims in daily life. But this is seen as a weakness by Muslims.
2) RSS much to the irritation of political Hindu is making overtures to Muslims only to be scroned.
3) modi made serious efforts to get pasmamda Muslims, alas, he got cold shouldered. Lack of real leadership in pasmamda Muslims is the cause.
4) opposition parties are the only ones to give a long rope to Muslims who wants to as backward as possible. Muslims support them when there is no Islamic alternative.
5) ordinary Hindus (and Muslims )now know a lot more about Islam, thanks to internet. Thus Hindus are questioning many aspects of Islam in practice.
Get the UCC in place (which is being done statewise).
Modernization will take care of the rest.
1) You do realize even before today when rallies are made that call for their social boycott, the muslim was still segregated as well as attacked due to conflict of some muslims elsewhere. Not to mention certain groups have long been accused of being infiltrators and are still accused of this despite no proof being given at all.
2) It is good that the RSS is making overtures.. But when its own affiliates are able to give anti muslim speeches or threaten social boycott or problematize the people they support even if they are hindus what do you expect?
3) One should have come down on his party members who stood with cow protection activists who lynched muslims, should have immediatelty come down on the officials who got Bilkis Bano rapists released. The list can go on and on, and some include speeches of our own ruling party members.
4) The opposition parties also give financial support for muslim run business like they do for dalit run business, promose to give other backward class reservation for muslim communities who are similarly backward, and do a whole lot of things that are done for hindus as well. It is not that complicated why muslims choose these parties, they choose more islamic parties when the oppositions parties are not as fortright in criticizing the above that I have mentioned.
5) Knowing Islam is not knowing about muslims, most people dont seem to know about the persian influence that has traditionall characterized Islam in India, nor do they know the context behind the revivalism movements in the subcontient. if people take the time to learn about muslims and through them Islam, rather than the other way around, even the rather obvious things behind the supposed failure of overtures would be evident, without needing to frame this as a fault of muslims.
PS: Everyime the above has been brought up the default response is that no discrimination has been done in giving government schemes, but given that the schemes are funded from the tax payer money of all Indians, the question of non discrimination being a virtue does not arise.
But what will the Muslims give in return? Should they not come a step forward? Always trying to vote against hindus, stubbornly defending mosques built on temples, unnessarily aggressive behavior in mobs will not help.
Their model might be the north indian Hindus, who endured centuries of muslim rule.
//Always trying to vote against hindus, //
Majority of politicians for most of indian independence who muslims voted for are hindus, no difference in aggression shown in mob behaviour regardless of religion and if you are not talking dealing directly with a group but a caricature of it what knowledge do you really have.This kind of double standard is what I was trying to point out.
Yes muslims should learn to cut their losses regarding certain mosques.
In my opinion, the Ashraf was never the friend of the Arzal and Ajlaf, I make a counterfactual to Indian christians, where similar caste differences persist, the Indian dalit christian who embraces their dalitness and christianity or the indian tribal christian who embraces their tribalness and christianity is leagues better than the Indian muslim who refuses to do either because of some religious reasons.
As far as the expectations put on muslims by others are concerned, I dont think things will go as you well as you see it, you cannot force people to join a mainstream that does not accept them. Not every muslim is shahrukh khan or APJ Abdul Kalam, nor is everyone an Assauddin Owasi either. Muslims in India at least are going to be religious, they are going to selectively choose rituals and practises that align with turkic or persian or arab sensibilities and they are going be who they are no matter what others say.
You bring up a good point that I have noticed as well, a very kneejerk response to blame other people backwardness on themselves obfuscating any structural reasons that they have no control over and a tendency to gloss over their own community issues through pointing fingers at muslims for their backwardness, this is not sustainable not the least because the only thing this leads to is persistence of the same cultural factors and an entry of the same regressiveness in the accusers community.
To end with, Indian muslims are not going to lose Islam, neither are they going to assimilate in ways that is acceptable to others in the mainstream, if anything large parts of others will start looking like each other in the near future.
No one is saying Muslims in India should convert or be atheist. The point is modernization which even the Turkic and the Arabs have done/are doing (and the Persians are trying to – tbh Iranians are quite liberal even if the government isn’t).
Indian Muslims becoming like modern day Turkish or Iranian Muslims would be “assimilation”.
Indian muslims are becoming modernized, as much as turkish muslims and not too different from other Indian communities. There is really no difference between the societal attitude of the average muslim and average Indian.
Yup, they are. I am not denying that.
India’s modernization plus them being a minority has played a part.
The UCC is the only step remaining.
Sensible Indian Muslims know what is up.
https://theprint.in/opinion/west-bengal-govt-welfare-imams-purohits/2937835/
These types of laws that seek to implement Hindu religious ideology on Muslim children is basically going to backfire spectacularly. We’ve all seen this before in 1937. The newly elected Congress government – by that time a Hindu majoritarian force – was the first time Hindus were given power over Muslims in North India and what did they do? Nothing substantial apart from trying to make Muslims sing Vande Mataram. And the result was Pakistan 10 years later. These types of acts demonstrate a very deep seated inferiority complex, where a subject who has deluded himself into being a victim of life long oppression lashes out at others with self destructive behaviour at the first instance of obtaining power.
The problem for them is that Hinduism has no real way of absorbing the 250 million Muslims in India.. They simply do not have the framework for it. They will never absorb the Ashrafs, so they try their tricks with OBC Muslims but run into the problem of casteism. Indian society is deeply casteist, and so is Hinduism. Lower castes are seen and treated with contempt. Hinduism has no framework for absorbing the OBC Muslims, so they pin their hopes on modernism and westernization. They believe that it is modernization and westernization that will break down the caste barriers and allow OBC Muslims to attain the Hindu shell, even if the shell is hollow and even if it comes at the cost of their own religious substance.
But this will not happen, you will see throughout the world that Islam has resisted modernization because Islam already contains in its doctrine the successful formula for long-term propagation that modern ideologies do not. While Hindus adopt western materialism, feminism and individualism and sow the seeds of destruction within their own societies, Muslims resist. Soon the gulf will be apparent and you will see desperate attempts like these (trying to force Muslims) but these are going to be in vain.
We may see more Pakistans popping up soon in India within 50 years as demographics shift. It’s going to be a self fulfilling prophecy, solely brought on by Hindutva movement.
This isn’t 1937. It is 2026. A more egalitarian feminist liberal world. No one can resist it, not even Muslims.
What you can see throughout the world is that Islam has not resisted but embraced modernization, at least in the richer core of the Islamic world. Those countries have below replacement TFR including below Indian Hindus – Iran (1.68), Turkey (1.48), UAE (1.21), Qatar (1.72), Kuwait (1.56) etc. So much for “long-term propagation”.
Poorer Muslim countries in the periphery like Somalia, Pakistan etc have higher TFR but that is more due to poverty than religion. Their TFRs have declined massively and will keep on declining. And there are poorer Christian countries in Africa with high TFR.
Except for the fact that Muslims do not “resist”. Not in the Islamic core as shown above nor in India.
Indian Muslims have had the highest TFR crash of all religions and is already at replacement rate. In fact, Muslims in the richer Southern states have lower TFR than Hindus in the poorer Northern ones.
Muslim majority Jammu and Kashmir has the lowest TFR in the country amongst the big states (1.4). There is a reason Bengali Hindu migrants are celebrating Durga Puja in Kashmir and separatism has stopped. The Kashmiri Muslims have just grown old. There just aren’t enough young men around.
The demographics “shifted” in Kashmir centuries ago and it is still part of India. And I have detailed the new demographic “shifts” happening there.
Nothing can resist modernization. Not even Islam.
Pictured: Farah Khan Kunder and Huma Qureshi celebrating Ganpati
Please continue living in your lalaland in the world of made up stats.
UAE and Kuwait’s TFR is 3 not low 1. But they don’t matter because they have tiny populations.
By 2032, there will be more Pakistani babies born each year than there will be Indian babies in Hindu families.Bangladesh’s TFR is also rising.
The world is healing.
And? How is this relevant? I explicitly mentioned that poorer peripheral Muslim countries like Somalia, Pakistan etc have higher fertility rates.
Indian Muslim babies will NEVER exceed Indian Hindu babies.
And since we are talking about Pakistani babies, let us also consider “where” they are being born.
Unlike in India, where Kashmir has a below replacement TFR which is much lower than the national average, Balochistan and KPK have a much much higher TFR compared to the Pakistani national average.
Good days ahead. 😀
The world is indeed healing.
I can just feel the doubt in that statement 😀
Naah, no feels. Only numbers
Like I said, Indian Muslims (like Turks, Iranians) are not immune to the wonders of modernization (tbh even Pakistanis aren’t. Their TFR has been declining massively).
This doesn’t look like modernization – looks like the effects of state engineered genocide of Muslims. An Indian nationalist gloating over declining Muslim birth rates is very nefarious especially considering how much the Indian society and government despises Muslims.
This blog is run by colonizers.
Colonizers of Dark Skinned Indians, of Dark Skinned Hindus.
Forcing madrassas to recite hymns from another religion is just straight up bigotry and xenophobia. Madrassas aren’t even Islamic schools, they’re just seminaries where you go to learn to read the Qur’an. You can’t play the secular democracy card and then force prayer in school and that too in the seminaries of an entirely different, minority religion.
Absolutely. Madrassa students being made to recite “Vande Mataram” (which as a hymn to a mother goddess is fundamentally un-Islamic) just sends a signal to Indian Muslims of their status as second-class citizens.
I have no issues with adults choosing to sing this song if they want but forcing it down the throats of children is something else.
As someone raised in the US, I firmly believe there should be no prayer in schools. That is not something that should be done in a secular state.
Yeah, what India passes for “democracy” is very perplexing from a western perspective.
Democracy evolves
More like devolves in this case.
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1BgcHTTswQ/
1) The speaker probably a maulana, says that Muslims should stop, take a deep breath and chalk out the future plan.
2) he also says that secular parties actually not supporting Muslims and that their leaders are not affected by change in regimes.
3) He says willy-nilly Muslims have become opponents of BJP by voting against them and is hurting. So he wants Muslims toupport vote BJP and make them winners!!!
https://kashmirtimes.com/opinion/comment-articles/why-1947s-partition-has-become-a-catastrophe-for-muslims
The Poisoned Promise: Why 1947’s Partition Has Become a Catastrophe for Muslims