I see all this is new to you. It is worse, Mr. Diggs, it is worse! Muslims have their own educational institutions with government subsidies, they have top jobs in the bureaucracy, they have even managed special status for the only Muslim-majority state we have, Kashmir. Do you know a Hindu from anywhere else in the country cannot buy a piece of land in Kashmir?! And worst of all, these Muslims are outbreeding the Hindus. They claim the right to four wives, and they keep them constantly pregnant, I tell you. While Indira Gandhi forcibly dragged our young men away to be vasectomized during her emergency rule a dozen years ago, these Muslims resist even voluntary family planning, saying it is against their religion. They all have dozens of children, Mr. Diggs! You only have to look at the population figures to know what I am talking 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 tell you. Why is it that no Muslim country anywhere in the world is a democracy? Look around you, anywhere on the map, they are all dictatorships, monarchies, tyrannies, military regimes. Take my word for it, it’s the only way they know. Muslims are fanatics and terrorists; they only understand the language of force. Where are Muslims in power where they are not oppressing other people? And wherever these Muslims are, they fight with others. Violence against non-Muslims is in their blood, Mr. Diggs! Look at what Muslims are doing in the Middle East, Indonesia, the Philippines. Only in Yugoslavia do Muslims live in peace with non-Muslims. But that is because the Muslims there are the only Muslims in the world who are not fanatic about their faith. Unlike the ones we have here.
But I digress. You asked me about the background to the riot. Our Ram Sila Poojan procession. As I was saying, these Muslims are evil people, Mr. Diggs. They could not abide the thought of us Hindus reasserting our pride. We were peacefully minding our own business — what did it have to do with them? We did not have any great love for these Muslims, it is true, but we would not have attacked them. Why spoil a sacred event with an unnecessary fight? No, it was they who started it. As they always do.
I will tell you what happened. How it happened. It was the eve of the day of the great procession — Friday the twenty-ninth. Yes, yes, Friday is their holy day, but their big prayers were long over and we had not disturbed them. Our volunteers, good Hindu boys, stalwarts of the Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, were doing their work in the evening, preparing for the great day the next day, Saturday the thirtieth. They were putting up posters, tying flags to lampposts, stringing the bunting and the pennants across the road. My own son Raghav was amongst them.
The work took time, it became dark, but everyone was in good spirits. Some were singing. It was late, but though they were tired, they were looking forward to the next day. Suddenly, they heard the noise of a motorcycle engine. Out of the darkness it came, two men on a motorcycle, with no light on.
Muslims.
Muslims! Their evil faces were masked with burqas, the black robes their women wear so that no one can see them. The motorcycle slowed down. Some of our boys were standing and working quite far from the road. But two boys, Amit Kumar from Bahraich, and Arup, Makhan Singh’s son, good boys from decent families, were painting slogans on a wall near the pavement. The motorcycle neared them. Still the rest of the group didn’t realize anything was wrong. Then those burqa-clad cowards raised their arms. Dull steel flashed in the moonlight.