Read Online Riot by Shashi Tharoor - Free Book Online Page A

about. When they broke our country with their treasonous partition, many of them left for their accursed Pakistan. In what was left of India, the Muslims were barely ten percent. By the time of the last census even the government was saying they are twelve percent of the population; and today, believe me, it is fifteen percent. It will not be long before they produce enough Muslims to outnumber us Hindus in our country, Mr. Diggs. You know what their slogan was, back in those days of Partition? They sang, “Ladke liye Pakistan, haske lenge Hindustan”: “We fought to take Pakistan, we will laugh as we take Hindustan.” That is the grave danger we are facing, Mr. Diggs. And what is the answer of successive Congress Party governments? Nothing but appeasement. Pure and simple appeasement.
    Things have declined even more dangerously under Nehru’s successors. The latest one, his grandson Rajiv Gandhi, is the worst, I tell you. Have you heard of the Shah Banu case, Mr. Diggs? A Muslim man wants to get rid of his seventy-five-year-old wife, and since it is easy for Muslims, he does so. But he wants to pay her just forty rupees in alimony, because he says that in his religion he is only obliged to return the bride-price that had been given when they got married, sixty years ago. Well, she goes to court, saying how can she live on forty rupees today, and what sort of justice is this after sixty years of marriage? The court upholds her claim, awards her a fair alimony every month, and reminds the government that the Constitution’s directive principles call for the establishment of a common civil code for all Indians. You will not believe the outcry from our Muslims! A common civil code — exactly what you have in America, Mr. Diggs — and their leaders acted as if the gas chambers had been prepared for their entire community. So what does the craven Rajiv Gandhi do? He quickly passes a new law, which he cynically calls the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights Upon Divorce) Act, to undo the court’s judgment. Muslim women, under the law, will have to abide by their religion’s mediaeval rules, and if they are left destitute, there is no protection, no remedy available to them from our civil courts. They will have to get help from their religion’s charitable boards, the waqfs. Can you imagine such a thing? In the twentieth century? And all to accommodate the most obscurantist Muslim leaders! When will this pampering stop?
    I’ll tell you, Mr. Diggs. Not until we have defeated these so-called secularists who are ruling our country and have brought us to our knees with their corrupt and self-serving ways. Not until we have raised the forces of Hindutva to power. Only then will we be able to teach these Muslims a lesson. Your Lakshman and others accuse us of fomenting violence. What nonsense! It is always others who do it, and then blame us. Sometimes I suspect the so-called secularists start the violence deliberately, just in order to discredit us. Wherever Hindutva governments have come to power — as they have done in four or five states, Mr. Diggs — there has been no communal violence, no rioting under their rule. What do the secularists say about that, hah?
    Do you know what my colleague Sadhvi Rithambhara says? The Sadhvi is a famous preacher — a woman, for we are a progressive, modern faith, Mr. Diggs: have you ever heard of a Muslim woman preacher? Anyway, this is what she says: Muslims are like a lemon squirted into the cream of India. They turn it sour. We have to remove the lemon, cut it up into little pieces, squeeze out the pips and throw them away. That is what we have to do, Mr. Diggs. That is what the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the Bajrang Dal, the Shiv Sena, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and all the associated organizations of our political family, the Sangh Parivar, will do one day. And the whole world should be grateful, because these Muslims are evil people, I