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Lajja Dear Readers, VI Jholiwalas,      chaddiwalas... We, the suckers Angrez gaye, aulaad      chhad ke

One word: Khilafat

On October 7, 1996, PTI reported a symposium held at the Haj House in Mumbai and organised by the (now belatedly banned) Students Islamic Movement of India to call for the establishment of Khilafat, the Quranic concept of a world government based on moral principles laid down in the Sunnah. The symposium was but a prelude to a 10-day, nationwide campaign to be launched a month later, and was attended by delegates from Myanmar, Palestine and Iran. The organiser of the campaign, Mohammed Adil Khot, urged Muslims worldwide to strive for Khilafat as, without it, Islam is incomplete; for, under it, all humankind obeys the commandments of Allah. Khot decried the evils of nationalism, which had manifested in world wars, massacre of innocents in Chechnya and Bosnia, etc, etc, etc.

Khilafat, or caliphate, urges all Muslims to unite into a single nation devoid of geographical boundaries and regional loyalties. Meaning, an Indian Muslim must identify more with an Afghan Muslim than with his own Hindu neighbour. And if he must respect a temporal government, it should be one such as Saudi Arabia's: The Muslim ethos must always supersede the Indian one.

There's another aspect to Khilafat, that which is tacit and understood by the 'believers', and without also which Islam remains incomplete: Its ultimate aim is the Islamisation of the world. Like Christianity, and unlike Hinduism, Islam is a proselytising religion. However, whereas the West sends in overtly gentle missionaries, there are no such self-constraints on the desert states. So, the world saw a new Islamic fundamentalist government pop up in October 1996... The Taleban.

The SIMI symposium came close at the heels of another pan-Islamic conference called in London by Syrian cleric Sheikh Omar Bakhri. In the UK, there was a major to-do over it, and permissions were initially denied since the delegates included suspected terrorists from Lebanon, Algeria, Syria, Nigeria, Afghanistan and, of course, Libya, Iran and Iraq. Finally, the organisers cancelled the event, saying, "There has been an adverse press campaign and demonstrations were planned outside the arena by Hindu groups, Jewish groups..." ('Hindu' as in non-secularist/pinko).

The Sunday Times of August 18, 1996, reported: "Leading figures of international terrorism who will speak at the rally include Sheikh Osama bin Laden, the multi-millionaire terrorist financier linked to the murder of more than 30 American servicemen in the Middle East... Laden, 40, filmed at a secret location, calls for an international campaign against Western imperialism in his 10-minute speech. He has advocated an all-out war between Muslims and America." Bin Laden had also issued a 12-page memorandum declaring open war on US forces in Arabia as an occupying force.

The august company couldn't possibly have organised the get-together to swap recipes and knitting techniques.

Point is, this Rally for Islamic Revival was to be held at the London Arena, hosting some 7,000 to 14,000 Islamic activists, and Britain would be granting visas to the delegates... The same Britain which has begun monitoring the activities of Sheikh Omar Bakhri after he issued a fatwa ordering the death of General Pervez Musharraf, and declared that "using any biological weapons in self-defence is, in Islam, permissible, and I believe that we are currently operating under a defensive jihad". The same Britain whose prime minister is now... well, we may as well start calling Tony Blair the US secretary of state.

Another point is, the first six paragraphs of this column are simply a précis of my article written in October 1996. Which is why I didn't write these past some months. Hell, even I can tire of repeating myself and saying: I'd told you so...

So what's my world like now? Why are the Islahe Muashera committees of Andhra Pradesh asking Muslim women to wear burqas, men to grow beards, households to shun cable teelvision, all of which is mandatory as per the tenets of Islam to "bring about an improvement in society"? Why do bombs continue to explode in the Indian state of Jammu & Kashmir? Why are Hindus being raped and killed in Bangladesh at a faster rate since Khaleda Zia's victory? Why is UP rocked by riots over the ban on SIMI -- whose legal adviser, Khalid Shaikh, declared on September 13: "Peace will come only when Islam rules"...?

In a word: Khilafat. That which generates the mentality that cannot stomach the return of merely 3 Hindu temples from the thousands desecrated and turned into mosques by invaders.

Why is Malegaon in Maharashtra burning over bin Laden? Why do Muslim youth burst crackers, distribute sweets and take out processions with the posters of bin Laden in Talaq Mahal, Beconganj and Chamanganj areas of Kanpur when the WTC towers collapse...? Why have communal riots broken out in Jalgaon? Why are VCDs of bin Laden's infidel-hating speeches being sold and bought in Assam? Why do Muslims rampage in Patna when an effigy of bin Laden is burnt...? Why do tens of thousands of young Muslims chant in Delhi's Jama Masjid: "Taleban, Taleban, we salute you!"? Why are India's mullahs exhorting people to boycott Coke and Pepsi to protest against the US air strikes, and why do 800 Muslim hoteliers of Bombay ban these in their establishments? Why are 60 policemen injured as a crowd of Muslims stone them during an anti-US rally in Hyderabad? Why does Imam Bukhari still demand proof of bin Laden's involvement in terrorism? Doesn't he read the papers? Can't he hear Osama's own exhortations...?

One word: Khilafat. The call to extend Allah's empire. You see, when the Americans bombed Iraq, there was no such outcry from the Muslims in the Philippines or Indonesia or Britain or Pakistan or India. Those Iraqi civilians were also "innocent" Muslims. But Saddam (a Leftist, btw), made the mistake of not invoking an Islam-under-attack. As for the "innocent Afghan brothers" that India's Islamists keep invoking -- where is this sensitivity for victims when hundreds of people are slaughtered in Bangladesh and thousands are baked in New York??

In the meantime, Mulayam Singh Yadav demands an immediate withdrawal of the ban on SIMI because "the BJP wants to divide Hindus and Muslims and polarise votes", and the oh-so-respected Maulana Kalbe Sadiq, vice-president of the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board, does likewise. The Italian's Congress is taken with setting up an attack against the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance so that Lashkar-e-Tayiba and Co may continue their attacks freely. And the Leftists? They are busy agitating against India's support to the US for its strikes on an Islamic fundamentalist state which is harbouring a terrorist who continues to advise every Muslim in the world to murder every kafir...

In the meantime, the US re-discovers the concepts of patriotism and nationalism and seriously begins questioning the advantages of political correctness -- which it has forced upon the rest of the world (or, at least, India). After the Berkeley City Council approved a resolution demanding that the US government stop bombing Afghanistan, Americans cancelled hotel reservations they had made in Berkeley, terminated a number of business contracts and shunned Berkeley's shops and restaurants -- forcing the city's mayor to wring her hands in public. Point is, the resolution narrowly passed by 5 votes on the 9-member council. And, five of the council members are Leftists.

Notwithstanding the unprecedented gratis ad campaign for "peaceful" Islam running non-stop on television (with President Bush as spokesman), Americans are also beginning to discover the driving force of khilafat:

"Islamic fundamentalists have launched a Jihad against the entire non-Muslim world. This Jihad is being fought on three fronts. The first front is the war against secular or nominally Islamic governments. The second front is the war against all nations who are either on the fringe of the Islamic world or who have substantial Muslim minorities. The third front is the war against the predominantly non-Muslim US and other Western countries... The sooner we stop pussyfooting around and recognize the nature of the enemy, the sooner we can start winning... The Qu'ran clearly commands the faithful to engage in war against the infidels" -- Chuck A Morse, nationally syndicated talk show host.

"We have now Islam to deal with. We do not need to make the point that its political and economic record is miserable, that only one of 18 Muslim states (Turkey) is democratically governed... The Taleban has taken unmarried women detected in pregnancy and buried them to neck level before execution. Where is Islamic condemnation of such practices? For that matter, where is condemnation of Saudis chopping pickpockets' hands off? It is all very well for individual Muslim spokesmen to assert the misjudgment of the terrorist, but the Islamic world is substantially made up of countries that ignore, or countenance, or support terrorist activity" -- William F Buckley, Jr.

"The point is these folks could not have operated for so long in America without a support system -- one provided willingly by Islamicist (sic) supporters right here in the US... How vast is that network today? I hope it is not 5%, but if it is, consider the fact that estimates of the number of Muslims in the US today is as high as 7 million. Do the math. That would translate to a fifth-column army of 350,000" -- Joseph Farah, editor: World Net Daily.

Well, the conscious among Hindus always knew this stuff; good to know that Americans are waking up, too.

The first thing to do is make people accept that what's shaking the world *is* Islamic terrorism -- no more, no less. Shabana Azmi says, "The pan-Islamic ummah is a myth... It is strange that the Hiroshima bombings were never called Christian terrorism, the LTTE's action is never called Hindu terrorism." Well, Sri Lanka's militant Tamils -- who include Hindus, Christians and Muslims, btw -- don't quote the Gita to justify their terrorism, nor were the A-bombs dropped in the name of Christ. But then again, Shabana also found Sunny Deol's Gadar offensive to Muslims...

The question that vexes most of us is, do all Muslims support Khilafat...? Naaah, bull. For instance, Aamir Khan, who backed Sarfarosh so solidly, can't possibly be an Islamist; and I can't even imagine Dr Abdul Kalam getting into a fit over "our Pakistani brothers". I know too many Muslims who are Indians first and foremost. Too, the Islamic Council of Australia has just declared: "We don't take any orders from overseas calling us to war, it's just not acceptable anyone here would even think about having anything called a holy war in Australia." (Zafar, now I know why we are friends :-).) Nonetheless, at least in India, I do believe that the live-and-let-live kind of Muslims are a minuscule minority. The rest are the reason why Malegaon is still burning.

One of the biggest myths perpetrated by pinkos is that poverty and lack of opportunity breeds crime. Which myth has been blown to smithereens by the profiles of the fidayeen who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks, not to speak of bin Laden's own. What monetary problems did Sanjay Dutt have when he accepted a delivery of arms from Samir Hingora and Hanif Kadawala? Just last night, I saw on television a Muslim teenager hold forth on "our Afghan brothers" and "what does America think it is" outside a mosque in Delhi. He was vociferously supported by prosperous-looking, English-speaking elders in his rant against India's support to the US and his defence of the terrorist bin Laden...

It's not poverty and all that crap. Don't Christians have the New Testament?

Varsha Bhosle