Featured

The Appalling State of Muslims in post-colonial India

Published

3 years ago

June 11, 2023

South Asia is home to one-third of the world’s Muslim population. Contrary to the popular belief there are more Muslims in South Asia than there are in middle-east which is popularly known to be the heart-land of Islam. After Indonesia, India is the second country in the world with the largest Muslim population. India is anciently known to be the hub of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. So, when and how did a country largely consisting of Hindus, Buddhists and Jains become so densely populated by Muslims? How did Islam emerge in pre-colonial India? As much as there is a controversy around this inquisition, there is also a lack of historical, geographical and political awareness related to it. The most important aspect to this bone of contention is the appalling state of the Muslims in post-colonial India, and how is it different from that of the Muslim diasporas in the rest of the world, in specie the West. Albeit there have been events of religious violence in pre-colonial and British India, the post-colonial period has seen an enormous increase in riots and hate crimes against Muslims in India.

Also read, India Ranks 161st in Terms of Journalistic Freedom- RSF

The Image of Muslims in the West

The image of Muslims in the west has been in question lately more than ever in the world in general. The rise of hate crimes against Muslims usually chalk up to the 9/11 attack against the United States which was allegedly carried out by a religious extremist organization Al-Qa’ida. Having said that there have been some crucial conspiracy theories that called for a new investigation into the attacks, because they asserted that there was evidence of individuals from within the US government being either responsible for or knowingly having conspired in the attacks as a means for America of justifying the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, majority of the general public held the opinion that Al-Qai’da had orchestrated the attack. Because the members of the Al-Qai’da were people who proclaimed to be the adherents of the religion of Islam, this gave rise to a sense of bigotry and intolerance in the west towards the entire Muslim community.

The widely accepted notion among the broad commonality incriminated the Muslims of effectuating the attack. Non-Muslims started generalizing Muslims and started viewing them as people who endorsed terrorism, which led to a common prejudice against them in the western society. From their customs and religious practices, including their eating habits, to their appearance and clothing, Muslim men and Women were looked down upon and stereotyped as radical and fundamentalists. This generalization and stereotyping of Muslims gradually turned violent in nature and this turn of events gave rise to a series of hate crimes resulting in abuse and even unfortunate deaths of many Muslims. Howbeit, even before the 9/11 attack, many bookmen and laypeople alike had accepted a prior perception that religious terrorism had become the most common form of terrorism, particularly with regard to Islam. This suggests that Islamophobia was a common practice even before 2001.

Read here, “The Kerela Story” Controversy in India

Islamophobia before 9/11

People have associated Islamophobia with various manifestations. While some people reckon the phenomena with the increasing population of Muslims in the United States and Europe, others deem it to be retaliation for an ostensible anticipation of the emergence of a global Muslim identity. Yet many others identify Islamophobia with xenophobia and racism. Another less talked about reason for Islamophobia is the media’s double standards while reporting terrorism. A recent study has found out that terror attacks by “muslims” receive 357% more press attention. This was University of Alabama researcher’s newly study which was published in Justice Quarterly (academic journal covering criminology and criminal justice) authored by Dr. Erin Kearns, UA assistant professor of criminology and criminal justice. Still and all the causes of Islamophobia have always been and till date are debatable.

In the spate of attacks on Muslims in the western countries including the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Switzerland and New Zealand, it should be noted that the occurrence of such deplorable crimes in the West have one regularity. They are all driven by Islamophobia, the impetus of which is the bigotry for Muslims, a sequence to the specious notion that Muslims endorse Terrorism.

Also, read Muslim OBC Reservation scrapped by BJP government of Karnataka

Appalling State of Muslims in post-colonial India- Partition

Talking about Islam and Muslims, then like in West the appalling state of Muslims is much the same in parts of South Asia explicitly in India, but for wholly different reasons. Though there have been incidents of religious violence in pre-colonial and British India, the history of modern India has seen a compelling surge in the estimate of both subjective and objective violence. But what accounts for this rise of violence against Muslims in independent India? Is it Islamophobia that drives this hatred, just like it does in the West.

Inasmuch these crimes are a result of anti-Muslim sentiments in both the West and in India, the causes of these crimes are primitively much different. Benchmarking the nature of these crimes and the disparity in the claims of the perpetrators, one finds out that there is significantly a historical aspect to the nature of violence against Muslims in India. The partition of British India into two different countries, now called India and Pakistan, was originally borne out of a religious divide amongst Hindus and Muslims. As history claims, different people were for and against partition, as each had a different vision in mind.

There are many theories that explain the reasons for the establishment of Pakistan. One of the most agreed upon consensus of the pro-partition leaders for the formation of Pakistan was the subject of safety of the Muslim minority in the otherwise Hindu majority India. The earlier incidents of religious violence in India had taken a toll on both the Hindus and Muslims. The Muslims being the minority were now more insecure about their safety while living amongst Hindus. Because the safety of Muslims had been in question, ultimately the demand for a separate country for Muslims by the pro-partition leaders was unanimously supported by most Muslims. The Muslims who were not able to migrate then to the land given to Pakistan were left in India, and thus were even less in number, making them an even smaller minority than before.

Read here, India- The Killing of Gangster-Turned-Politician Atiq Ahmad

Commencement of the Appalling State of Muslims in post-colonial India

What marked the commencement of the violence against Muslims in Independent India was the demolition of Babri Masjid, a 430 year old mosque in Ayodhya by extremist Hindus and members of Vishwa Hindu Parishad(VHP) and Bajrang Dal. What followed was a sequel of incidents feuled by the religious animosity stirred between Hindus and Muslims. There has been a continuing rise in the manifestation of hate crimes and incidents of religious prejudice against Muslims in India ever since. However, with the emergence of the current government in India, the last few years have seen an enormous and noticeable amount of hate driven crimes including rape, public flogging and lynching. The motives of the perpetrators for committing such heinous crimes are as bizarre as they are abominable. Concepts like cow vigilantism and theories like “Ghar Wapsi” have been doing rounds in the air and have accounted for most of these crimes if not all.

Also, read UN Defender Demands End to Crackdown on Kashmiri Activists

The idea of “Ghar Wapsi” in the appalling state of Muslims in post-colonial India

The idea of “Ghar Wapsi” has also been endorsed and publicized by the right-wing extremists in India, including the leaders of the current government. It is a concept that propagates religious conservation of non-hindus to Hinduism. The reason behind the ideology of these people is their belief that all the people living in pre-colonial and ancient India were originally Hindus. They believe that the emergence and presence of non-hindus in India is only because of the forced conversions by missionaries and invaders that came to India from outside, who were by and large Muslims. This ideology is linked to the pre-colonial past of India. It refers to the period when Islam first emerged in India in 711, when Mohammad Bin Qasim, who was a general in the Umayyad -empire conquered the area of the Southern Pakistan. This was the initial interaction of Islam with South Asia.

Afterwards in the 13^th century, the Mongol Invasion uprooted a large number of Persian Turks from Iran and Central-Asia driving them to India where they settled in. And so gradually the tradition and practices of these people started to blend in the syncretic culture of India. Subsequently in the late 13^th century with the establishment of the Empire of Timur, began the era of the rise Muslim rulers in India.

Later on in 1526, Babur, a direct descendant of Timur, founded the Mughal Empire, which then ruled almost all of the Indian subcontinent for more than 200 years. During the growth of the Mughal Empire under Babar’s son Akbar (1526-1605) there was an essential blending of Hindu-Muslim cultures. Akbar married a Hindu princess of a pure Hindu Rajput blood-line. This made Akbar’s son Jehangir half Rajput and half-Hindu. After Akbar, his son also married a Hindu woman, and therefore Jehangir’s son Shahjahan was three-quarters Rajput. With the rise of the Mughal Empire, biologically each successor of the dynasty became less and less Turkic and more and more Indian. They adapted the culture of India and also the Indian culture was insinuated by the Islamic traditions, resulting in the concoction of two separate cultures and religions.

Read here, Festival turns bloody after Hindutva Mob Burnt Centennial Mosque

Historic Bias as a reason for the Appalling State of Muslims in Post-Colonial India

These religious and cultural adaptations are, however, still seen as unethical and blameworthy by many Hindus in India, as they see Islam as a threat to their own culture and identity, as a foreign concept brought to India from outside. They consider the presence of Muslims in India as a result of the historic invasions and forceful conversions by Muslim outlanders and conquerors, and not the gradual amalgamation of two different cultures and religions over the course of time. Crimes like lunching and theories like “ghar wapsi” are not mere co-incidents but are borne out of such historic beliefs. They are a corollary of a historic hurt that these people carry. The violence in the west or bread out of islamophobia is sporadic in nature and often spontaneous while in India violence is structured. Unlike the west, the primeval and ever-growing intolerance towards the practices and culture of Muslims in modern day India is not because of the nature of these practices. On the contrary, in India Islam as a religion is not seen as much of a threat but Muslims are.

Also, read Dehumanizing Representation of Tribals and Muslims in the Oscar fame RRR

Post Views: 5,200

Related Topics:India Islam islamophobia USA

Up Next

G20 Summit in J&K: China, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia opted out

Don't Miss

Pakistan Establishment’s Move Against Imran Khan and PTI

Click to comment

Featured

Where Is Gaza’s International Stabilization Force and What Happened to the Ceasefire

Published

1 day ago

June 15, 2026

Syed M Sarmad Kazmi

Where-Is-Gazas-International-Stabilization-Force-and-What-Happened-to-the-Ceasefire

When Gaza’s ceasefire was announced, it was presented as more than a triumph. As a result, it was supposed to usher in a new phase of peace, prosperity, and stability. However, nothing like that happened. The Board of Peace and the International Stabilization Force remained unmaterialized ideas. Even months later, those promises look thin on the ground.

A Ceasefire That Still Leaves People Dead

What about a ceasefire that remains unable to stop brutality and killings? A ceasefire means safer movement, sufficient aid, and complete elimination of fear. Unfortunately, the people of Gaza haven’t seen that even after the announcement of a so-called “20-point plan” and the “ceasefire”.

Recently, Israeli strikes killed three Palestinians on June 11 while Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey were trying to advance the fragile truce. Days earlier, another Israeli airstrike on a large tent encampment in Gaza City killed at least seven innocent Palestinians, including two women, and injured 15 others, some of them children.

Moreover, more than 950 Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire began. These numbers show why the word “ceasefire” sounds hollow to many families. A truce that cannot stop repeated deaths is not functioning as protection.

The Force That Has Not Protected Gaza

The International Stabilization Force was supposed to be a central part of Gaza’s next phase. The ceasefire plan, later tied to a UN mandate, imagined an international force that could support security, help stabilize the territory, assist transitional arrangements, and give the ceasefire practical weight.

Unfortunately, the force has not become a meaningful presence yet.

Numerous credible reports state that plans for the Gaza International Stabilization Force were in question because troop pledges had stalled. Countries expected to contribute had not made the commitments needed to turn a political idea into an operational force.

This delay matters a lot as Gaza now needs a mechanism that can protect displacement sites, secure aid routes, support safe movement, and help prevent violations. Without that, the stabilization force becomes another promise Palestinians hear about but do not feel.

Why Governments Are Hesitating

The hesitation is partly political and partly practical. Sending troops into Gaza would mean entering one of the most obliterated and contested places in the world. Foreign soldiers could be caught between Israel, armed factions, displaced civilians, and a population deeply suspicious of outside arrangements.

There are also unresolved questions about the mandate. Would the force protect civilians from all attacks, or mainly focus on disarmament? Would it monitor Israeli actions as well as Palestinian armed groups? Would Palestinians have a real voice in how it operates?

A force without legitimacy could fail quickly. But delay also has a huge cost. While governments hesitate, civilians live without a credible protection system against the genocidal acts of Israel.

Monitoring Without Enforcement

The United States was expected to close its Civil-Military Coordination Centre near Gaza as the broader Gaza plan stalled. The Centre was designed to monitor the ceasefire and help improve aid flows. This is because most people observed that it failed to deliver meaningful results.

That failure exposes the problem with symbolic mechanisms. A coordination Centre can collect information, but it cannot protect civilians unless it has authority, access, and consequences behind it. Monitoring may record violations only, but it cannot stop them adequately.

Aid Crossings Reveal the Truth

Humanitarian access is the clearest test of the ceasefire. If food, medicine, fuel, water, and shelter materials cannot enter Gaza reliably, then the truce is failing at the most basic level.

OCHA reported on June 5 that Israel had kept Zikim Crossing in northern Gaza closed for two weeks. Aid convoys were being rerouted to Kerem Shalom, as the last remaining cargo crossing. That rerouting created congestion and slowed the collection of critical supplies.

In genocide-affected Gaza, a delayed truck can mean empty kitchens, untreated wounds, missing medicine, and another night in unsafe shelter. UN Secretary-General António Guterres also urged Israel to reopen closed crossings so aid could move rapidly, safely and at scale.

How can a ceasefire that leaves aid trapped at crossings restore civilian life?

The Deadlock Behind the Crisis

Talks on Gaza’s next phase remain stuck on the issue of Hamas disarmament and complete Israeli military withdrawal. Palestinian factions had agreed to most points in the peace blueprint, but Israel is reluctant to keep its military in Palestine.

Israel is trying to hide their heinous plan of genocide advancement in the name of Hamas disarmament. While Hamas completely denies the allegations of Israel and links their efforts to a political process toward Palestinian statehood and an end to illegal occupation.

Gaza needs fewer promises and more enforceable guarantees from the international community now. Civilian shelters must be protected, aid crossings must remain open, medical evacuations must move quickly, and ceasefire violations must be reported quickly. Any stabilization force must have a clear civilian-protection mandate. Israeli withdrawal lines must be transparent, and reconstruction must be tied to Palestinian governance.

Above all, there must be consequences when civilians are killed after a ceasefire has supposedly begun.

Final Thought

Gaza’s crisis shows the danger of genocidal diplomacy without delivery. A ceasefire without enforcement is not peace. Monitoring without consequences cannot protect innocent civilians. Aid promises mean little when crossings remain highly restricted.

Palestinians were promised stability and peace. What they received is continued death, delayed protection, and a plan stronger on paper than in Gaza.

Post Views: 8

Featured

Gaza’s Cancer Patients Waiting for a Way Out

Published

1 day ago

June 15, 2026

Syed M Sarmad Kazmi

Gazas-Cancer-Patients-Waiting-for-a-Way-Out

Cancer is undoubtedly a race against time. In Gaza, that race is being lost not only inside hospital rooms but at closed crossings and stalled evacuation lists. Innocent patients who need chemotherapy, radiotherapy, surgery, or specialist scans are being left to wait in a genocidal system that no longer has the tools to treat them adequately.

Rather than asking for comfort, they are unfortunately asking for access to treatment that exists elsewhere but remains out of reach. For all of them, survival now depends on something painfully simple: permission to leave the genocidal trap.

More Than 16500 Patients Blocked From Treatment

Gaza’s Health Ministry has revealed that Israel is preventing more than 16,500 Palestinians who need urgent medical treatment abroad from leaving the besieged enclave. These figures include patients with cancer and other serious health conditions that cannot be treated properly inside Gaza.

It is a deliberate health crisis made by Israel that is not limited to a few exceptional cases. Thousands of people have referrals, diagnoses, or urgent needs, yet remain trapped between a collapsed health sector and a completely restricted evacuation process.

For cancer patients, a missed chemotherapy cycle can weaken the chance of recovery. Likewise, a delayed surgery can allow the heinous disease to spread, and a postponed scan can leave doctors unable to know whether treatment is working. In normal circumstances, cancer care depends on timing, but in Gaza, it has become another casualty.

Why Cancer Patients Are Especially Vulnerable

Since cancer treatment is not a single injection or one hospital visit, it is a long process of extensive care. Patients need laboratory tests, biopsies, CT or MRI scans, blood transfusions, pain medicine, infection control, and repeated follow-up.

So, if one part of this chain breaks, the whole treatment plan can fail abruptly. This is why these patients are facing a severe life danger. They are intentionally dragged towards death by Israel’s hostilities.

More specifically, the World Health Organization highlighted that around 18,500 patients still urgently need medical treatment that is not available in Gaza. Unfortunately, most of the hospitals in Gaza are completely obliterated by Israeli airstrikes. The hospitals that are left are overwhelmed by trauma injuries, amputations, burns, infections, childbirth, chronic illness, and emergency surgery.

Gaza Patients Are Becoming Public Appeals

This is the case of human survival, as the crisis is now forcing patients and families to make public appeals. For example, the case of Amal al-Yazji, a school director and novelist in Gaza, who needs urgent life-saving cancer surgery that she cannot access inside the Strip after chemotherapy stopped working.

Her case is a powerful reflection of what many patients are facing. Roads and transportation systems have also collapsed in Gaza. Resultantly, the chances of treatment inside Gaza have reached near zero.

Recently, the United States’ lawmakers also pressed the Trump administration to help facilitate medical evacuations for cancer patients from Gaza. Their June 11 official letter warned of cancer patients being severely trapped without appropriate treatment and urged a medical pathway to at least East Jerusalem or the West Bank.

Waiting Has Become a Life Threat

For many patients, hospitals in Egypt, East Jerusalem, the West Bank, or other countries are not a preference but only a possible route to survival. This is why medical evacuations should not be treated as a favour but a humanitarian necessity.

There are other patients as well in Gaza whose waiting could lead to death. Several patients are suffering from Tuberculosis, heart, and kidney diseases. It can mean a child becoming too weak for treatment, a family watching a loved one decline while knowing care exists somewhere beyond the border.

What Must Change

Gaza’s patients, especially cancer patients, need urgent and predictable medical evacuation routes. Crossings must function for all the people who want to study or treat themselves, not only for political announcements. Referral approvals must move quickly. Eventually, hospitals in other countries must be accessible to those who need specialist care.

Moreover, inside Gaza, cancer services need medicines, diagnostic equipment, fuel, electricity, surgical supplies, and protection for health workers. But all of this comes under the banner of “peace”, which is not permissible by Israel at any cost. Rebuilding specialist care might take time, but these critical cancer patients do not have that anymore.

They are desperately waiting for a way out because they want their life to be protected. In an environment where even aid and water are stopped from entering the Strip, allowing patients to leave the besieged area seems impossible.

However, the international community must stand against this insanity and cruelty. Innocent people are dying every single day while those in power are not even paying any attention to them. In a nutshell, it’s time to stand against one of the greatest genocides of the century.

Post Views: 9

Featured

Gaza’s Broken Daily Life: Weddings, Tents and Hospitals Under Fire and Siege

Published

1 week ago

June 7, 2026

Syed M Sarmad Kazmi

Gazas-Broken-Daily-Life-Weddings-Tents-and-Hospitals-Under-Fire-and-Siege

Gaza’s heinous genocide is no longer confined to moments of direct attack. It is now visible in the complete breakdown of daily life itself. Families are still being butchered vehemently in places where they had sought shelter. To worsen these matters, shortages of fuel, engine oil, gas, and spare parts are crippling hospitals, bakeries, rescue vehicles, water systems, and ordinary transport.

A Tent Camp Hit in Gaza City

On June 6, despite the so-called “ceasefire,” an Israeli air attack hit a tent camp in Gaza City where displaced Palestinians were sheltering. Resultantly, at least seven people were killed, while at least 15 others were injured, many of them treated in intensive care. Women and children were believed to be among the casualties. The strike hit a United Nations school compound that had become a shelter for displaced families.

These were displaced people already living with the consequences of bombardment, evacuation, and loss. A tent camp is meant to be a temporary refuge for families with nowhere else to go. When such a place is hit, it deepens the fear that no civilian space is beyond danger.

A Wedding Turned Into Mourning

Moreover, the Gaza City strike by Israel targeted a tent next to another tent where a wedding appeared to be taking place. Unfortunately, earlier the same day, a strike in Khan Younis killed a man who was scheduled to be married later that day. His cousin said the family had prepared for the wedding but was instead attending his funeral.

This detail shows how deeply the genocide has entered private life. A wedding in Gaza is not just a celebration but an attempt to preserve social life despite displacement, hunger, and fear. When a groom is killed on the day of his wedding, even brief moments of normality remain exposed to violence.

The Ceasefire Gap

The attacks came amid discussions over the Gaza ceasefire process. Specifically, Hamas was preparing for meetings in Egypt on the implementation of the ceasefire agreement, while several Israeli attacks across Gaza that day killed at least nine people. Gaza remains under Israeli military control, and the second phase of the agreement has been stalled for months.

For people, the real meaning of a ceasefire depends on whether people can sleep safely, gather without fear, reach hospitals, and rebuild some predictable rhythm of life. If strikes continue and basic services keep failing, the gap between imaginative political claims and reality remains painfully wide.

The Shortages Freezing Daily Life

Alongside these unprovoked attacks, Gaza is facing another severe pressure due to a shortage of gas, engine oil, and spare parts. Undoubtedly, these shortages are affecting emergency services, bakeries, water supplies, and hospitals. Items that may sound technical outside Gaza now decide whether a generator runs, a vehicle moves, bread is baked, and whether water can be pumped.

These shortages are damaging daily life in connected ways:

Hospitals need generators and spare parts to keep operating rooms functioning
Bakeries need power and maintenance materials to continue producing bread
Water systems need energy supplies, chemicals and parts to keep desalination and pumping services running.

Hospitals and Rescue Services Under Pressure

Hospitals have been among the most vulnerable since October 2023. Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in central Gaza warned of an imminent health disaster after extreme power failures affected surgical operating rooms. Moreover, all of its generators have stopped working while summer heat is expected to place more pressure on the remaining equipment.

This is not a minor operational issue as Gaza’s remaining hospitals are already treating genocidal injuries, malnutrition, infections and chronic illness in overcrowded conditions. If generators fail, surgical care, emergency treatment, refrigeration, lighting, and essential equipment are all affected. Gaza’s authorities have also warned that fire and rescue operations risk coming to a halt as vehicles break down due to shortages of spare parts, fuel and engine oil.

Bread, Water and Survival

Food and water systems are also largely affected. Bakeries depend on fuel, generators, and maintenance materials, while water systems need energy supplies, chemicals, and spare parts. UNICEF data showed that seawater desalination output had fallen to about 16,000 cubic metres per day, compared with 20,000 in March, due to the restrictions on essential supplies. In a densely displaced population, any reduction in water production quickly becomes a public health concern.

This is why Gaza’s broken daily life must be understood as a connected genocidal crisis. The strike on a tent camp, the killing of a groom, the failure of hospital generators, the collapse of rescue vehicles and the shortage of water-production supplies are not separate stories. Together, they show how civilian life is being attacked directly and indirectly at the same time.

In a nutshell, until these conditions change, daily life in Gaza will remain trapped between immediate violence and the gradual destruction of everything needed to survive.

Post Views: 28