By Omer Bin Abdullah
May/June 2022
Reincarnation – a Hindu belief — seems to be working at least for some in India, where Führer und Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler, who committed suicide on April 30, 1945, was re-born as Narendra Damodardas Modi on September 17, 1950.
In 1932, when Nazism was budding, Germany had 87 million people. In 1992, when a Hindu mob destroyed the 600+-year-old Babri Mosque and unleashed a wave of anti-Muslim violence, India’s population stood at 909 million. One might view that particular act as Hindutva’s Kristallnacht.
Germany, a small market, eventually evoked the moral indignation of France, Britain, the U.S. and the former Soviet Union, who allied to fight Nazism. One wonders where all of this self-proclaimed morality is when 200 million Muslim Indians and 12 million Muslims in illegally Indian-occupied Kashmir are undergoing the Modicaust.
But should one really expect the West’s weapons-exporting warlords to sacrifice their “legitimate” slice of India’s $635 billion foreign exchange reserves for a mere 212 million Muslims? And then there are those Muslim oil/gas autocracies who merrily oil India’s war machine via multibillion investments, purchases and special projects — more than a few of them located on stolen and/or illegally occupied Muslim land – Occupied Kashmir.
As Uppsala University’s Prof. Ashok Swain told Sweden’s “Svenska Dagbladet” newspaper on Dec. 28, 2017, “In today’s India, it is easier to kill a Muslim than a cow.” The same outrage over Beijing’s suppression of Uyghur rights is completely absent when dealing with India and Palestine’s Muslims. We don’t even hear any faux whispers about claims to champion their human rights and religious freedom.
Germany 1932 is here and now in India. It won’t matter to the latter’s 212 million Muslims when, years later, some sages clumsily whisper “never again” and then snicker. And yet the U.S. State Department refused to categorize India as a “country of concern” on its religious freedom list. Dr. Aslam Abdullah, a veteran journalist and observer of India’s Muslim scene, offers a deep look at what this unrelenting Modicaust holds for the country’s Muslims.
The mention of genocide invariably recalls former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who died on March 24. Who can ever forget her calm 1996 reply to CBS 60 Minutes’ Leslie Stahl’s question: “I think that is a very hard choice,” Albright answered, “but the price, we [the Clinton administration] think, the price [the death of 500,000 Iraqi children aged five years or less] is worth it” (Newsweek, March 24, 2022)!
Monia Mazigh talks about France, the other major practitioner of Islamophobia, and the new low reached by two presidential candidates who are using their hatred of Islam and Muslims to attain political success.
On March 21, the U.S. formally recognized Myanmar’s violent repression of the Rohingyas as genocide. In 2018, Canada was among the first nations to declare this publicly. Let’s hope Canada does the same thing for India’s Muslims.
On March 15, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution to declare March 15 an annual International Day to Combat Islamophobia. Unsurprisingly, India and France opposed it. Their reasons for doing so are stated in this issue.
The ravages of Covid-19 have put a new focus on health and wellness. We invited several experts to discuss ways of maintaining good health, eating well and building up one’s immune system. Their advice and suggestions are embedded in Islam’s tenets and our Prophet’s (salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) life and practice.
We share the much-awaited news that the 59th ISNA convention will be an in-person event convened on Labor Day (Sept. 3-5). Keep an eye on our website (isna.net), subscribe to our newsletter there and follow us on Facebook (facebook.com/isnahq), Twitter and Instagram (@ISNAHQ).
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