There are massive fissures between Hindus and Muslims in India and Pakistan. It is foolish to deny this. It is also foolish to deny that the fundamental issue of what the subcontinent's Hindu-Muslim relationship is to look like is unsettled. I sometimes also feel that Indians seriously underestimate the Muslim presence in desi culture, once they are done with their usual platitudes about how awesome everyone's contribution has been to the nation. Approximately, one-third of all desis are Muslim. Long term, there are only two routes for the subcontinent - "secularism" (which is another word for democracy, in my opinion) or holocaust/annihilation. In other words, the Indian model will swallow Pakistan and Bangladesh, if we're to make it over the next two centuries or so. This does *not* mean reintegration of the two smaller states into India. This does *not* mean I consider the murderers and mutilators of our soldiers as my brothers (they are vicious non-humans to be hunted). It means the expansion of inclusive democracy to Pakistan and Bangladesh. As a kid growing up, I was taught in school about the villians and heroes of Muslims community of the past. Villians in the forefront were Aurangzeb and Chenghiz Khan. Heroes amounted to Maulana Azad and Iqbal, the poet and thinker. Both had their major shares during the quest for India's independence. I accepted them then.

Now, having grown-up (a little) and read and been around a bit, I do not agree with those chapters of my books anymore. Although villians remain more or less the same, but my roster of Muslim heroes has changed extensively. Maulana Azad was no doubt a good man, but somehow he leaves me quite unimpressed and uninspired. Rumors that he agreed with the Deobandi school of Islamic thought when he opposed partition, his efforts to secure a pedestal position for Muslims in India (instead of bringing about true unity) leave me cold. His vision of the Muslim role in India is basically flawed and *non-democratic*. Same is the case with Allama Iqbal, having opted to go to Pakistan after penning down such marvelous patriotic writings, leaves some questions unanswered.

Luckily, I now have different Muslim heroes that I look up to and honor with my heart and these are there to remain forever. Their names are conjured-up only when convenient to the politicians. They do not really help in the construction of vote-banks, however, and so are mostly left unremembered (except Abdul Kalam). It is worth reciting some names here. Do you have additions?

Colonel Shahnawaz: Of the INA. Ferociously fought against the British for his motherland in Manipur and elsewhere. When the Japanese were crushed, he along with his comrades Dhillon and Sehgal were subjected to a trial at the Red Fort whose outcome could easily have been hanging. Jinnah brokered a deal with the British, where Shahnawaz would recant his support to the INA and support the cause of Pakistan. When Jinnah went to Shahnawaz with this plan, legend says Shahnawaz ridiculed him for asking for a separate country on the lines of religion. He stood with his comrades and faced prospective death. When he died a few years ago in UP, no politician thought it worth their while to even call for a day of mourning. Not the BJP, not the Congress.

Abdul Kalam: India's nuke czar. Yeah, but more importantly it is stirring to read his vision for India's future as a developed nation. He has passion and he has fire for India.

Abdul Hamid: 1965 war hero. You'll weep when you read the story of his fearless conduct in that war. He is the one who strapped grenades to his belt and jumped under the onslaught of Pakistani tanks which effectively stopped and contained their onward march till re-enforcements arrived from the Indian side.

Capt. Haneefuddin: It's only been a year since the Kargil conflict died-out and we're already letting cobwebs grow on his sacred name. 

Ansar Hussain Khan: Pakistani diplomat to the UN, who had been dragged to Pakistan willy-nilly by his folks after partition. A Punjabi from Jhelum, born in Calcutta. One day in 1986, he finally snapped and applied for an Indian passport. His attempts were bitterly opposed by the Muslim "leadership" in India but he succeeded (I think a year later). Pakistan continued to deny him permission to visit his parents graves till the day he died.

Having said this, I would also like to delve into a more touchy subject and that is of 'Tolerance' in present day version of Hinduism. Tell a lie a 1000 times and it becomes the truth. This was claimed by none other than Josef Goebbels, minister for propaganda in Hitler's cabinet. Except that he was wrong. Tell a lie a 1000 times and people believe you easily, often thinking it is the truth. But it is not the truth.

Today, there is a certain myth prevailing that Hindus are a very tolerant people and that Hinduism is a very tolerant religion. That it is the tolerance of Hinduism and the Hindu people which allowed and allows other faiths, sects and beliefs to exist in this country in perfect harmony. That because India is a Hindu majority country it is secular (clearly implying that if Hindus are not in a majority, India would not have been secular).

Alas, it is very easy to believe flattering things about ones own self. Tell a man he is intelligent and handsome, he'll nod approvingly; say he's not and you could end up in a fight! On what basis are these premises made? It must be very ego satisfying for Hindus nurturing delusions of grandeur to hold such beliefs about their great faith, but it is not very true.

Despite its many social flaws, there is no doubt good reason to believe that Hinduism, as a religion and philosophy, is very tolerant. The reason is because Hinduism means different things to different people.

However, are Hindus really tolerant, or do we simply believe that we are and then propagate this lie so much that we end up believing it. Reams have been written, scores of scholars, theologians, and intellectuals of different persuasions quoted in seeking to prove the tolerance of Hindus. Nothing is more satisfying that quoting some white-skinned Westerner who chooses to attack Christianity and Islam and praise Hinduism and Hindus. Yet when some brown-skinned Indian chooses to find fault with Hinduism, he is called Macaulay's child, brown sahib, a person who has never understood India, and so on. Praise Hindus and you have understood India (and Hinduism); criticize certain aspects of Hinduism and be damned! Is this not an Inquisition?

How do you measure tolerance? Muslims today are called intolerant. Yet history shows that for centuries, Jews were safest in Muslim lands while being hounded in Christian lands, until the creation of Israel changed that. Today, Christian-majority nations and states are pushing the frontiers of liberty, equality, fraternity and justice, ideas that India imported and Indians (mostly Hindus) today seek proudly to defend because these ideas are for the benefit of all citizens. Ideas cannot to be condemned simply because they come from another land or from people of a different faith. Had Muslim rulers if India been intolerant to the levels as portrayed, Believe me! there would have been no Hindus around, at least, not in such a huge majority. Remember, that was the Middle Ages and autocrats ruled with no Human Rights orgs or UNO. That was the age, when Spanish Christians washed off their hands of all the Muslims. An example of ethnic cleansing at it's best. Yugoslavia tried to repeat the same recently in Bosnia and Kosova, but didn't realize, it's no more the Middle Ages. The outcome of Israeli's efforts on the Gaza strip, is worth the wait. If Israel too fails, (which is very likely), they have failed to learn lessons from their own history, when Hitler tried to cleanse the world of Jews but still, Jews remain. They still have the audacity to call themselves as 'God's chosen people' amongst the whole humanity.

While there is no doubt about Hinduism per se being tolerant, all Hindus cannot claim that privilege. Every society and religion has its outsiders. The Jews had their gentile, Christians their pagan, Muslims their kaafirs. Hindus had their malechha (the impure outsiders and lower castes). But while other faiths only targeted outsiders, Hindus also targeted people within their faith: the so-called untouchables and lower castes. A great amount of energy and effort was expended by the so-called upper castes in keeping down the lower castes by creating a maze of laws that were inhuman to say the least.

There is much boasting about how other faiths could flourish in India, the inference being about how Hindus were tolerant. Yet what kind of tolerance is it that is kind to some while cruel to others? Is it to do with fear? Christianity and Islam both first came to India along the Malabar coast (ironic, but the great Shankaracharya, who revived Hinduism in India and ousted Buddhism, also came from the region now known as Kerala), but then they were small settlements with a limited impact. The major impact of both came with the conquerors. The fact is that Hindus were tolerant to both Muslims and Christians because being conquerors and rulers, to not tolerate them and their faith meant instant death! And their intolerance to their own lower caste brethren drove the latter into the arms of other faiths. The fact is that no Hindu would dare have treated a Muslim the way he did an untouchable: the Muslim rulers/kings/warriors would have chopped off his head. Ditto when the Europeans came. Would any Hindu have dared prevent a Muslim or Christian from entering his house or his locality? On the contrary, some of the Hindus forged close alliances with the rulers of the day to improve their positions in society and became part of the élite. Hindus were tolerant towards Muslims and Christians because the latter had swords and guns; but the same Hindus were intolerant of their own lower-caste Hindus who came with their hands folded, seeking to pray in the temple and live with dignity in the village. Both of which were denied to them!

Today, both the Muslim and Christian conquerors and rulers are no longer in our midst. And the result is an upsurge of Hindu intolerance lead by the likes of RSS-Sena combine, whether it is in the massacres in Bihar (remember, dalits are hardly ever treated as equal Hindus), in the killing of Stains, in the communal violence that so pervades our society. Tolerance is how the ruling class and society treats its people of all kinds, and our record is no great shakes. What is mentioned above can be said of all peoples of all communities. Christians, exhorted to love their neighbors, have perpetuated the worst crimes in history against native people across the globe. For centuries, the Church supported apartheid and racism, and the imperialism of the West. History was created when Pope John Paul II issued a public apology on March 1999, for the sins committed in the past, all in the name of the church. A very positive and a bold step, signifying the end of the era when religion was exploited by the rulers or dictators for blanket massacres. 

The killings in the name of Islam (despite Prophet Mohammed's message never to convert by force or harm civilians of the community) are also endless and gory.

Certainly, Hinduism has never been involved in a clash with Buddhism (like how Christian and Islam fought through the crusades) and this is due to the accepting and open philosophies of both. Yet, all religions preach certain values of love, brotherhood, service, etc. Humans have failed to understand them. When some of us (of any religious denomination) criticize the actions of some Hindu bigots (as we do that of Muslim and Christian fanatics), it is only because our religions teach us better.