History of Muslims in India does not start with Mughal history and it did not end with Mughal dynasty either. We were before them and we have outlived all Muslim rulers and dynasties. The reasons is simple Muslims are part of India for thousand of years and will continue to be part of India.
Hindus and Muslims and other communities have lived peacefully and continue to live with lot of cooperation seen every day. In recent days we saw two reports providing examples of how Hindu-Muslim dynamics work at the local level when politicians are not trying to create rift between them.
First report is in Hindi about Shafi Shah’s dargah in UP.
Second report is from Orissa on how Muslim joined hands with Hindus to help celebrate the rath yatra of peace and love.
I am sure that all of us have friends belonging to different religion and then we have stereotypes about people belonging to those religions. Now do an exercise and ask yourself how many of those stereotypes you can find in your friend. If you do find some, ask your friend about it, may be he has an explanation for it. This will help us in understanding each other and create a beautiful society rooted in peace and love.
nafrat ki laathi torho,
laalach ka khanjar pheko,
zidd ke peeche mat dorho,
mere desh premiyon…
aapas main prem karo desh premiyon.
What is true of Jagannath yatra is true of pretty much every festival in India. Market for production of diwali crackers, dussehra ravana and durga puja statues is almost monopolized by muslims.
However, some time back in Mumbai, I took my son to dussehra fair to educate him about our cultural roots. All was going well, when suddenly one neta-ji started his speech. Pretty soon, without any link, his speech diverted from ravana and dussehra to ‘internal traitors’ and ‘hidden pakistanis’ etc. etc. It was really scary. There were lakhs of people attending the fair and even minor mischief by someone had the potential of creating a bloodshed. I thought it was extremely irresponsible to incite passions in such a big crowd. A few hundred policemen guarding the mela site would be greatly outnumbered if crowd became mischievous. I alongwith my friend’s family immediately left the mela site and decided never to attend big religious mela-s in person. It is better to enjoy them on TV. Safety first.
I agree Kashif sahab. Its great to find so many of our fellow Indians visiting the site and speaking out their mind without any abuse. I believe this to be an achievement of this site!
When I go to Rediff or Outlook or any other site I see them as a playground of abuse. I am extremely happy that this is turning to be a forum where we can all of us can speak out our minds and then discuss over that meaningfully.
Let all of us keep talking. At times we will diverge on some viewpoints but we should end up in accepting those differences respectfully.
I hope both sides will come out with better understanding of each other. Way to go! InshaAllah!
There is this inspiring story of a Muslim girl who was sold-off but later rescued and brought up by a Brahmin couple in Tamilnadu. And that too as a practicing Muslim. Wow!
Not sure if any of you know about “Shishunala Sharif”. A post on the life of such a unifying & harmonising soul would be enlightening.
Beautiful post!
[quote comment="22218"]There is this inspiring story of a Muslim girl who was sold-off but later rescued and brought up by a Brahmin couple in Tamilnadu. And that too as a practicing Muslim. Wow!
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Mohib, this brought to mind a pretty good movie I saw recently – Amu.