Indian Muslims on Trial Again

According to press reports, Yoga guru and Patanjali founder Ramdev, while participating in a TV show (September 30, 2017), said cow urine should be acceptable to Muslims too as something used for treatment. He went to the extent of claiming: “It is written in the Quran that cow urine can be used for treatment.â€

Without going into the debate whether Ramdev was honest in his reference to the Quran or not, one thing is sure. This Hindutva flag-post, Ramdev, a billionaire baba, believes that by adding Muslim/Islamic angle in anything he can be in the news and fulfil his design of Muslim-bashing. His latest gimmick is asking Muslims to use cow urine therapy. Do all Hindus agree to this hawkish project of cow urine therapy advocated by him? Why should he not get it recommended by the Dharam Sansad and Ayurvedic Council of India? Why does he not ask the RSS/BJP Health Minister of India to make it compulsory in government hospitals? Can he suggest it to the Sikhs/Christians/Jains/Buddhists of India? Why is it that he does not supply cow urine to his friend, Adityanath, another sanyasi and the CM of UP, so that hundreds of children do not die for want of oxygen and medicines? The Baba is not asked whether cow urine is going to be provided free of charge as ‘seva’ or going to be another item for minting money.

Such inconvenient questions are never asked by channels like India TV, owned by Rajat Sharma, an ABVP alumni.

He told Rajat Sharma, a Hindutva co-traveller: “I never think small. I think big. I think about our nation 500 years hence.†The issue is: with him around as the Raj Purohit of the RSS/BJP can we be sure of democratic-secular India surviving for even a decade? He thinks big like PM Modi: Bullet Trains, not bothering about hundreds losing their lives on regular Indian railway network. Ramdev has no bank account but is one of the richest in India owning businesses worth

Ten thousand crores of rupees.

Nobody knows what the value of his assets abroad is.

This business tycoon Baba is also the brand ambassador of Haryana but was missing when Haryana burnt for two weeks in February 2016; and not long ago, during the Chandigarh molestation of a Hindu girl by the ward of a senior RSS/BJP leader of Haryana; and also at the time of the violence by the followers of Baba Gurmeet Singh who was facilitated and financed by the RSS/BJP leaders of Haryana.

Ramdev, like his RSS mentors, must know that Muslim/Islam-bashing has its limits.

(Courtesy: The Indian Express)

Shamsul Islam, a well-known theatre personality, is a former Associate Professor (now retired), Department of Political Science, Satyawati College, University of Delhi. For some of the author’s writings in English, Hindi, Malayalam, Kannada, Bengali, Punjabi, Urdu and Gujarati use the following link: http/du-in.academia.edu/Shamsullslam