Deep Irony….and flippant remarks

Going through some old material in my folders, I came across this deeply ironic article by Ferdinand Mount, penned just over a year ago, which appeared in the Sunday Times of August 15, 2004. It was titled, “Back off, British Muslims Are On Our Side” and had this sentence in the first few paragraphs: “Yet it remains as fashionable as ever to claim that most Muslims in Britain are hopelessly alienated and that they represent a potential enemy within…” (sic). Mr Mount would probably reconsider his words if he were to write this article today.

Talking of which…the reason that the article had caught my eye was a flippant remark which I quote, “…And some of the worst communal violence of the past 10 years has been directed against Muslims, by Hindus in India and Christians in the former Yugoslavia” (sic).

It typified the sort of ill-informed, careless and flippant remark that pretends to be informed opinion. Worse still, it was an example of how such comments perpetuate the propaganda and the fallacy of a violent Hindutva ideology.

In response, I sent a letter to The Editor of The Times. It was in vain. The letter never got published. I have reproduced excerpts below:

“…this comment very unfairly portrays Hindus as a violent community perpetrating atrocities on Muslims in India; Worse, it gets its facts wrong.
I suspect Mr. Mount had the riots in Godhra (2002) in the back of his mind when he made this comment. The facts of those riots are however only part of the story. It has now been established that about 900 people were killed in these riots of which more than a quarter were Hindus. If this is Mr. Mount’s illustration of “communal violence directed against Muslims by Hindus in India,” he should also note the unprecedented violence in Kashmir directed against Kashmiri Hindus which has left at least 2000 dead and several hundred thousands displaced.

Even at an extremely crude (and offensive) level of comparison, (such as numbers killed and families displaced,) the violence in Kashmir that has been going on for almost 15 years now, makes every other communal incident in India pale into insignificance, And yet, the world knows little about it (and cares even less). In fact the numbers far exceed the scale of violence and displacement in Kosovo which prompted NATO action in ’99.”