Antulay’s empty mind is a devil’s workshop: Time to recoup national unity

By Sultan Shahin, Founder-Editor, New Age Islam

Union cabinet minister Abdur Rahman Antulay has done a great disservice to the nation at a very critical time. He has particularly harmed the interests of the Muslim community and in a way undone all the good the exemplary Muslim response to the Mumbai terror attack had done.

Readers may recall my article: Muslim response to Mumbai terror in sync with the national mood, but what is wrong with our intellectuals? URL: http://newageislam.com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1043

 It was posted on 07 Dec 2008, but today after more than a fortnight I received a comment from Mr. Ashok Chowgule, vice-President, Vishwa Hindu Parishad, asking: “Given the fact that Antulay was mobbed, in favourable terms, when he went to a mosque near the parliament, how do you say that the Muslim response was in sync with the national mood?”

Mr. Chowgule is a regular contributor to NewAgeIslam.com. A prolific writer himself, he is kind enough to share with me his thoughts, send me his suggestions, urls of interesting articles, etc. regularly and this site benefits from his contribution. New Age Islam’s readers must be very familiar with this fact. But he never questioned the premise of my above article until today. What has happened between then and now? Obviously, Antulay happened to us.

We can only recall with nostalgia now the sense of unity and purpose we had developed after the Mumbai massacres. We knew who the enemy was. The enemy had attacked us indiscriminately. As many as 40 out of the 172 killed were Muslims. This was an attack on the Indian nation. There was no communal question involved. Western media did try to project the issue as an internal Indian problem and published articles dripping with unprecedented sympathy for the “plight of Indian Muslims” in their bid to save Pakistan from being blamed. But the country saw the games they were playing and why. This was an attack on the Indian nation from a foreign power and the Indian nation rose up as one man to face the onslaught. We were in the process of giving a fitting reply to the enemy.

What had happened was so obvious, so public, and with one terrorist captured alive, one would have thought, there would be no room for conspiracies this time. But conspiracy theories started swirling around within hours of the attack. Dangerous individuals with dangerous and completely baseless conspiracy theories started peddling their wares. Some Muslim intellectuals and Urdu newspapers editors initially lapped them up. But as the fog of whatever little misunderstanding there was cleared up, most Urdu newspapers too refrained from publishing these conspiracy theories. The nation was one and unified as seldom before after such a heart-wrenching tragedy. Mumbai Muslims refused to bury the Pakistani dead in their burial grounds, saying such dastardly killers and terrorists cannot be Muslims and do not deserve a Muslim burial. Muslims all over the country toned down Eid celebrations, merely going through the rituals, as they did not have the heart to celebrate Eid when the nation was in mourning. Describing the mood of unity I wrote a column titled: Indian Muslims’ maturity, deft govt. handling staves off a crisis: Time for the West to watch in awe India’s ‘unified response to terror’ This was posted on 10 Dec 2008 and is available at: http://newageislam.com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1044

Like the rest of the country Indian Muslims too opposed cricketing ties with Pakistan at this juncture. New Age Islam published two articles.

Mumbai-based columnist Dr A R Mookhi wrote: “Until Pakistan government succeeds in demolishing the terror machines on their soils, India should have nothing to do with that nation. How can our team of eleven contemplate playing cricket in Lahore within weeks of their team of ten invading our country to kill our people so mercilessly?”

Chennai-based columnist Jamsheed Basha Abumohammed wrote: "NO FUTURE SPORTING TIES WITH PAK UNTIL PAK DISMANTLE ALL INFRASTRUCTURE OF TERROR OPERATING FROM THEIR SOIL. We do not need such contacts with those people who come and enjoy our friendship and hospitality but behind the back, plan terrorist attacks."

Please see: Indian Muslims oppose cricket ties with Pakistan until terror machine is dismantled

URL: http://www.newageislam.com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1061

And then it happened. Antulay!!! An out of work politician, wanting to make his presence felt. He demanded a separate probe into the circumstances that led to former ATS chief Hemant Karkare’s death, throwing suspicion on the sequence of events we had been told about in which the terrorist attacks took place. I wish some one had told the prime minister in his childhood as my parents did: ‘An empty mind is a devil’s workshop’. He made Antulay a cabinet minister, for some reason, but gave him no work to do. Few people even knew he was still alive. His devil’s workshop saw an opportunity. What the terrorists had wanted to do and failed, Antulay did for them.

The very purpose of Pakistani terrorist attacks on India, whether by state actors or non-state actors or as a joint venture, is to disturb our communal harmony. The very idea of co-existence is anathema to them. Hindus and Muslims living and working together, in harmony, hits at the very idea of Pakistan, as an exclusivist Muslim state based on the infamous Two Nation Theory.

Let me refer to two more articles on NewAgeIslam.com in this context:

Religion of the Jahiliya: Jihadism is Kufr, not Islam - Pakistani Jihadists revealed plans for Indian Muslims in 1999 URL: http://newageislam.com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1048

Destroy Lashkar Camps: Why Indian Muslims are an existential threat to Pakistan?

URL:  http://newageislam.com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1042

No wonder Antulay has become a hero in Pakistan. He has done what the Pakistani terrorists and their sponsors had failed to do – turn a national issue into a communal one.

But he is not the lone culprit. What about the members of parliament from other partiers, including from the NDA who came out in his support, throwing suspicion on the turn of events? And what about those in the mosque near parliament who mobbed him, expressing their approval and appreciation of what he had done? Ashok Chowgule does have a point. Antulay has given him too an opening. His party too was dispirited with the sense of national unity prevailing in the country. VHP-brand politics too cannot survive in an atmosphere of the kind of national unity, communal harmony and cohesiveness seen following the Mumbai terror attack. In an article in The Hindu, Siddharth Varadarajan weaves his own conspiracy theory: “Amidst the bizarre conspiracy theories swirling around the subcontinent in the wake of last month’s terrorist attacks in Mumbai, I would like to offer one of my own: Minority Affairs Minister A.R. Antulay is a secret agent of the Sangh Parivar. The reason I say this is because he is doing his utmost to ensure the involvement of Hindutva activists in the Malegaon blasts is not fully probed and that the fight against terrorism is converted into a communal issue.” In similar vein a Mail Today report by Kay Benedict says BJP makes hay with Antulay fodder. Antulay, of course, is convinced that his secular credentials are too well-established for any one to question.

Now what? Well, it seems the Prime Minster is retaining Antulay in the cabinet. He has made a retraction of sorts. He is no longer demanding a separate probe into the circumstances that led to former ATS chief Hemant Karkare’s death. With the government rejecting the conspiracy theory propounded by him over the death of ATS chief Hemant Karkare, he is now convinced that "there was no need for further probe" as the issue was now "settled". He has ruled out his resignation. Let us hope that if he is being retained in the cabinet, the government does give him some work to do as well. As for us, the beleaguered Muslims and genuine secularists, we have to get back to work. May not be easy to retrieve the magic of pre-Antulay days. But we have no option but to try and see that Muslims continue to demonstrate that they are truly in sync with national feelings and sentiments, aims and ambitions. Our national purpose right now is to make sure that Pakistani Jihadis do not see us as an ineffective giant, ready to be hurt again and again, not able to respond. Admittedly, we have to do that in a certain geopolitical environment over which we may not have much control. But we have to demonstrate our unity once again.

Let there be no doubt in our enemy’s mind that we are united in our resolve to make the idea of India, a secular plural India, a successful one. We may have in our midst a few Antulays and Safdar Nagoris, not to speak of Pragya Singh Thakurs, Praveen Togariyas and Narendra Modis, but we are a billion-strong country and these malefactors do not really count. We can build the country of our dreams and fight our wars and defeat our enemies despite them. Let Pakistani Jihadis and other enemies of India not think that a few politicians out to sell their country for a few votes can weaken our national resolve.

URL: https://newageislam.com/war-terror/antulay’s-empty-mind-devil’s-workshop/d/1073