Why Hindu Protest against Mosque at Ground Zero?

An article that appeared on www.haindavakeralam.com. It struck me as a sign of the times.


There has been a lot of discussion over the past few days about Indian American Intellectual Forum lead Hindu participation against the construction of a mega Mosque at Ground Zero. Several patriotic Hindus have made comments about our participation at the protest rally. Several Hindus have praised us. Many phony secular Indians find our participation in the protest rally unpalatable.One patriotic Indian wrote “USA and its Christian organizations always claim that every Christian has the right to build any Church complex in India and to convert any Hindu into Christianity. Then keeping this same logic, any Muslim has the right to build a Mosque at any place in the USA. Why Hindus protesting against this Mosque?Many Americans—whether they are Hindus, Jews, Christians, Buddhists or Sikhs hope and wish for peace, harmony, freedom, and prosperity. I am a peace loving, very optimistic American Hindu. I have seen-wholly unnecessary conflicts, violence and terrorism created by Jihadis in India and around the world. Jihadists who follow the totalitarian, rigid, reductionist, non-compromising Islam want to dominate the world for Allah. I saw evil intentions of Islamists in India and around the world.Members of the Indian American Intellectuals Forum and American Hindus share an eagerness for achieving world peace with compassion, love, and justice. As followers of Hindu Dharma, we have to be active to achieve peace and harmony and co-existence. But conflict created by Jihadis in India and America cannot be ignored. The division of people into separate groups (Muslim and Kafir) is visible in every Islamic counties. Learning to recognize the effects of conflict, violence, and terrorism created by Islam allows us to recognize why they are committing terrorism against infidels.By participating the protest rally against the Mosque at Ground Zero reduced the potential misunderstanding about Islamic atrocities committed against Hindus. The observations Americans make on India-Pakistan relations can be profoundly misleading. A striking example of this was many Americans are not aware that India lost half of its territory to Muslims and Islamists have killed more than 80 million Hindus. A similar kind of faulty assumption is on Kashmir. Americans fail to understand that Muslims in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Kashmir have malicious motives. As participants in the protest rally, we had a chance to talk directly with American Jews and Christians about Islamic slaughter of Hindus for the last hundreds of years.As a result of our interaction, they become deeply passionate in their commitment against Islamic terrorism. They displayed a deep gratitude in our successful efforts to reduce Jihadi terrorism against infidels. They are convinced that it would be a big mistake to try to understand Islam by listening the words of Islamists. Islamists are required to follow Taquiea and say “Islam is a religion of Peace”. We were able to spread the message based on Hindu experience with Muslims that Islam is associated with violence and offers peace in the desert.Few phony Indian secularists say that Christianity-a religion that teaches peace and tolerance would look like Islam. They have cited violence committed by Christians (Coercive Religious Conversion, Holocaust, the use of Atomic Bomb, Crusades etc) to justify Jihadi terrorism and the destruction of the World Trade Center.Irrespective of the past, American constitution guarantees religious freedom, freedom of speech, freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other. The development of a broad variety of rights is a prominent feature of social and political life in America. The establishment of political rights in the U.S constitution allows much opportunity for individual growth and personal freedom. In Islamic countries Hindus, Christians, Jews and all non Muslims face Islamic tyranny. Infidels have no freedom and their life is dangerous when their values contradict Islamic bigotry. Human right is anathema to Islamic nations.Hindus have no country of their own. Even in India Hindus are discriminated. As Hindus, we should not buckle, bend or collapse behind the violent forces of Islam. We have participated the protest rally against the Mosque to let Americans know that the tragedy of India, the world’s largest democracy, not repeat itself in the U.S., the world’s strongest democracy.A Chinese proverb says “It is good to strike the serpent’s head with your enemy’s hands”. Kautilya wrote in his Arthashatra “never tolerate your enemy and disease”. And “The enemy of my enemy is my friend”. Sun Zi, the 6th century Chinese Philosopher in his “The Art of War” wrote “If you know your enemies, and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one. If you do not know your enemies not yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle.”In order to survive amidst the evils of this world and to fight evil-we need to cooperate with all affected people. The exposure of Islamic evil and the act of giving evil a name in public forums is half the battle. As good citizens of America, we Hindus should use public forums to identify Islamist’s hidden agendas, explain why Islam is evil and say no to it. It takes courage to say no to the mega Mosque at Ground Zero. We know pseudo secularist Indians and Jihadis will turn their vengeful malice on Hindus who say no to the Mosque at public podium. Albert Einstein once said “The world is a dangerous place not because there are bad people doing evil things, but it because good people who do nothing about it.”We are proud of our participation in the protest rally. It is an attempt to preserve our liberty, so that our children and grand children can practice their Hindu religion. We have participated the protest rally against the Mosque to protect our freedom bequeathed to us.
If not now when?If not us who?