10. Jitendra D. Desai

FIRST DOCUMENT:

What is the harm in adding Jesus and Muhammad to the 33 crore Hindu gods and goddesses?
Response: What is the need? Why do we want to add two more gods to 33 crore gods and goddesses? Is this a genuine desire to assimilate two communities following two Semitic religions?

In my opinion, the Sangh leadership is guided by BJP leadership, which in turn is guided by desire to achieve political supremacy at any cost, and this desire (of political power at any cost) has brought down the BJP leadership to the lowly depths of electoral arithmetic - votes count, votes of Christians and Muslims also count. Hindu leadership may recommend addition of two more idols of Jesus and Muhammad in the Hindu pantheon, but are Hindus prepared to worship them? Are Christians and Muslims prepared to accept this accommodation?

All Religions (Including Islam) lead to God.
Response: True. But Muslims and Christians do not think so. It is they (Muslims and Christians) who need to be tutored on this, and not the Hindus. Most of the wars in modern time have been fought by Muslims and Christians to convince kafirs and heathens that it was only their prophet and their book which can lead to God.
Islam is good but Muslims are bad.
Response: If Islam was good, how is it that it has produced so many bad adherents? If Islam is good, then show us at least one Islamic nation which is at peace with itself. Show us one Islamic nation which is not undergoing a violent turmoil.

The forefathers of the Muslims of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Hindustan and Bangladesh were all Hindus. What is it that has transformed these erstwhile Hindus into fanatics?

Before the advent of Islam, the Egyptians and the Arabs were great people. Islam has turned these great people into morons. Arab nations which are sitting on trillions of petro-dollars, have failed to produce a great thinker or a great humanist or a great scientist or a great artist in all these years. They have failed to improve the economic conditions of their poor brethren in Asia and Africa; instead they are frittering away their oil wealth in building mosques and financing terrorism. Islam has failed to inspire them to improve the status of their own mothers and sisters.

If Muslims are told of their common ancestry, they will unite with Hindus.
Response: As rightly stated by Dr. Godbole, this historic fact is quite well known to the Muslims in the subcontinent.

Has it helped Muslims to unite among themselves, let alone uniting with Hindus?

And prey, why unite them with Hindus? For narrow political gains? Why not unite all 70 crore Hindus instead, for some purpose?

Congress used Muslims. Congress treats Muslims as vote banks. We (BJP) will treat Muslims as human beings.
Response: All politicians treat all their constituents as vote banks.

The BJP, rather than promising to its would-be Muslim voters a humane treatment, should quickly think of treating its Hindu voters as human beings.

Muslims have left the BJP alone and are ‘crying’ to be left alone, so leave them alone. The whole world is learning to leave them alone.

If at all you want to treat them as human beings, start treating their women as human beings. This work can be left to grassroot level workers of BJP’s Mahila Aghadi or Rashtra Sevika Samiti or Durga Vahini ‘Leaders’ should concentrate on ‘leading’ rather than ‘treating’ someone as a human or an inhuman being.

Sufis are tolerant Muslims
Response: Sufis were not ‘tolerant’, they were tolerated by ordinary Hindus in the false belief that they were saints and mendicants.
Muslim leaders are responsible for the ghetto mentality of Muslims.
Response: As stated earlier, Muslims have become a community which is ‘crying’ to be left alone, and Hindu society alongwith the whole world has learnt to leave them alone. Hence, the ghettos. Neither the Muslim leaders nor their Hindu counterparts can pull the Muslims out of their Islam-imposed exile.
Namaz offered on a disputed site (like Ayodhya) is not acceptable to Allah.
Response: Why become an unwanted emissary of their Allah? Let them decide, which namaz is acceptable to whom.

SECOND DOCUMENT

Response: ‘Sarva Dharma Samabhav’ is a value which is deeply ingrained in the psyche of every Hindu. It has evolved and flourished through the ages without the support of a ‘Manch’ or any such thing.

A Hindu is civilizationally trained to tolerate a sect to which he does not belong. This is because his civilization has gone on throwing up sects and sub-sects at regular intervals as part of an internal cleansing, invigorating, rejuvenating process. This has made a Hindu and his civilization one of the greatest survivors of history.

A ‘Manch’ is not needed by them (Hindus). However, a ‘Manch’ needs to be crated by Indian Muslims and Indian Christians which will enable Muslims and Christians to understand the Hindu ethos and value system. Sadly, such initiatives from Muslim and Christian leaders are not forthcoming. So be it. Why should Hindu leaders worry about Hindus cultivating ‘Samadar’ for Semitic religions?

The present-day competitive politics is slowly destroying the centuries-old values of ‘Sarva Dharma Samabhav’ of Hindus. There is also competition among newer and newer Hindu sects to win more and more adherents.

The competitive politics has also managed to divide the 70 crore strong Hindu community along caste and community lines.

Hindu leaders need to bring all these Hindus on the single ‘Manch’ of Dharma. We have to worry more about Hindus having ‘Samadar’ for their fellow Hindus rather than worry about Hindusthanis following Semitic religions.

Muslims will have to follow the example of Parsees in Gujarat, who have contributed so much for the well-being of their new nation state, but who at the same time have maintained their separate identity for the past 1000 years.

Footnotes: The writer who lives in Surat in Gujarat has been a Swayamsevak of the RSS since 1980.