Dear Mr. President,
First and foremost, I take this opportunity to compliment you for initiating a dialogue with the “Muslim World” in a bid to restore peace across the world. But after reading the text of your speech at the Al Azhar University, Cairo, on 4th June 2009, I was greatly disappointed because it contained no reference, absolutely none, to the rampant discrimination practiced in Islamic countries and Muslim societies against non-Muslims, especially the one billion strong Hindu community and millions of Buddhists – the so-called “kaffirs”, uniformly considered as children of a lesser God by Islamic societies. In every Muslim country, they are denied the freedom to practice and preach their religious beliefs. There is no tolerance for the religious beliefs and sacred shrines of Hindus in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia and most other Muslim countries. In sharp contrast, the Muslims have always enjoyed complete religious freedom in India and most Buddhist countries, nay, in almost all non-Muslim countries. Mr. President, during the last 50 years, there has been a systematic ethnic cleansing of Hindus and Buddhists from two Islamic countries, namely, Pakistan and Bangladesh. While the international community slumbered, Islamists continued to kill, convert and drive out millions of hapless Hindus. Their share in the population has come down to barely 2 percent in Pakistan from 23 percent in 1947, while in Bangladesh their proportion is now down to 8 percent from nearly 27 percent in 1947. This ethnic cleansing of millions of innocent Hindus and Buddhists is far worse than the suffering of the people of Darfur! Unfortunately, the world leaders took no notice of it ! On top of it, in most Muslim countries no temple or place of worship for Hindus and Buddhists is allowed. One is left wondering how such diabolical discrimination has been ignored in your Cairo speech?
May I remind you, Mr. President, that it was in the same historic city of Cairo, where you decided to launch your overture to woo the Muslim world , that the Organization of Islamic Countries unveiled in the year 1990 their version of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, known as the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam, categorically stipulating in Article 24 that in Islamic countries, “All the rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration” will be subject to the Islamic Shari’ah. Article 25 of that Declaration further asserted that “The Islamic Shariah is the only source of reference for the explanation or clarification of any of the articles of this Declaration”. The Preamble of that Declaration stated that its objective was to reaffirm “the civilizing and historical role of Islamic Ummah which God made the best nation” for guiding the humanity.
Mr. President, you cannot be unaware of the fact that Islam has very little tolerance even for the Christians and the Jews with the result that their proportion in population is dwindling fast across the Middle East and most other Muslim countries, a fact to which the present Pope, Cardinal Ratzinger, drew pointed attention during his recent visit to the Middle East. It would have surely enhanced your prestige if you had called upon the Islamic world to respect the religious beliefs of non-Muslims and grant equal rights to them in the same measure and on the same scale in which Muslims have been enjoying civil rights in secular societies like India and other non-Muslim countries.
One is left wondering at your polemical pronouncement that America is not at war with Islam. The ongoing war against civil society was declared first by the Islamists on February 23, 1998, by making a declaration in the London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi calling upon all Muslims worldwide to kill the Americans and the Jews. That historic call for global jihad against the crusaders and the Jews was signed among others by the Al Qaeda ideologue Ayman al-Zawahiri, Sheikh Amir Hamza, Secretary of Jamiat-ul-Ulema, Pakistan, and Fazlur Rehman of the Jihad Movement of Bangladesh. It was followed by the 9 /11 carnage which gave a rude shock to the Americans and compelled George Bush to join the war against radical Islam. Soon thereafter in October, 2001, Al Qaeda added the name of “Hindu India” to the list of enemies of Islam. In a video-taped message released through Al Jazeera television channel in October 2001, an Al Qaeda spokesman blamed the Hindu India for oppressing the Muslims of Kashmir with the help of the USA. Fairly soon, the two Pakistan sponsored jihadi outfits, Lashkar-e- Tayyeba and Jaish-e Muhammad, brazenly attacked the Indian Parliament on December 13, 2001. And since then innumerable jihadi attacks on India have continued with impunity. Please understand that the global jihad today is being waged against three important civilizations, namely, the Christians, the Jews and the Hindus. Kashmir is only an excuse. Pakistan sponsored Islamists have made that clear more than once.
While seeking peace with radical Islam, you should not forget that peace is not, repeat not, a one-way street. The USA must avoid following the appeasement policy of Neville Chamberlain (the then Prime Minister of U.K), who signed the Munich agreement in 1938 with Germany in the vain hope of securing peace. That notorious treaty further whetted the ambitions of Hitler and ultimately led to the second World War. No wonder, Chamberlain was forced to resign after Germany invaded the Netherlands, France and Belgium on May 10, 1940.
Mr. President, your speech has completely ignored the aspirations and geopolitical concerns of the one billion strong peace-loving Hindus - an iconic civilization, perhaps the oldest one in the world. As a statesman, you cannot be ignorant of the fact that the Islamists operating through Pakistan have a global design of establishing a ‘seamless caliphate’ from Indonesia to the Balkans by overrunning and subjugating India, which is the only bulwark of democracy and secularism in this part of the world. Pakistan has been waging a gory jihad against India now for more than 50 long years the most morbid instance of which was the notorious Mumbai Massacre of November 26, 2008. Unfortunately, the USA and international community have singularly failed to take cognizance of Pakistan’s perfidy by failing to force Pakistan to punish the perpetrators of Mumbai 26/11. You are aware that the mastermind of Mumbai carnage, Pakistan-based Hafeez Saeed has been let off by Pakistan. The release of Saeed will surely lead to many more dastardly attacks on India, which threat perception is shared by more than one strategic thinktank and security analyst! Meanwhile, after being let off by the Pakistani establishment, Hafeezz Saeed made an inflammatory speech at Lahore in a compound owned by Jamaat-ul-Dawa calling upon the USA to withdraw from Afghanistan and stop drone attacks on jihadis. He had the gall to advise you and the American people to embrace Islam!
And to rub salt into India’s wounds, your government appears to be trying to pressurize India for starting peace talks with Pakistan. William Burns, the visiting U S Under Secretary of State and Hillary Clinton are actively working towards that goal, just to placate the Pakistani establishment. It is a classic instance of rewarding the criminal at the cost of the victim!
We Indians are truly amazed that while Americans have not forgotten the bloodbath of 9/11, you want Indians to forget Mumbai 26/11 as if it was some sort of a petty picnic organized by the ISI of Pakistan? On behalf of all right thinking Indians, I implore you to stop pampering Pakistan at the cost of India. Prima facie, Hillary Clinton’s message conveyed through William Burns that “India was a priority nation” sounds hollow and unconvincing!
Mr. President, I must remind you of the glorious tribute paid by the celebrated American thinker and historian, Will Durant, to the Indian civilization (read Hindus). He candidly admitted that “India was the mother of our race and Sanskrit the mother of Europe’s languages. She was the mother of our philosophy, through Arabs much of our mathematics, through Buddha, of the ideals embodied in Christianity, mother through village communities of self-government and democracy. Mother India is in many ways the mother of us all.” You may also recall what another American historian hailed as the greatest historian of the twentieth century Arnold Toynbee has said, “It is already becoming clear that a chapter which had a Western beginning will have to have an Indian ending if it is not to end in the self– destruction of the human race.... At this supremely dangerous moment in human history, the only way of salvation for mankind is the Indian way – Emperor Ashoka's and Mahatma Gandhi's principle of non–violence and Sri Ramakrishna's testimony to the harmony of religions. Here we have an attitude and spirit that can make it possible for the human race to grow together into a single family - and, in the Atomic Age, this is the only alternative to destroying ourselves.”
It is indeed extraordinary that while trying to please the ‘Muslim world”, you have completely ignored the Hindus.
Please don’t forget that the Hindus of India can and will surely play a pivotal role in the maintenance of peace in South Asia. In this part of the world, they are a force to reckon with. Here is a community whose members possess a high Intelligence Quotient, a very high Knowledge Quotient and whose civilizational ethos are guided by their superb Spiritual Quotient. Additionally, Hindus hold a centuries old world record of tolerance and multiculturalism despite India’s blood-soaked history of fighting against the jihadi onslaught for nearly one thousand years. Mr. President, the voice of Hindus needs to be heard more attentively by you and the American people for addressing their geopolitical concerns, if peace is to be restored in this part of the world.
Thanking you for your attention and with regards,
Yours sincerely,
(R.K. Ohri)
Secretary General , Patriots' Forum
New Delhi; June 20, 2009
Copy to:
Mr. Timothy J. Roemer,
U.S. Ambassador to India, U.S. EmbassyShantipath, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi – 110021, Tel: 011-2419-8000, Fax: +91-11-2419-0017
