Mind over Madrasa

Which war is the ideal war? – The war that is won without stepping on to the battlefield.

It is very easy to misinterpret the above statement; for modern day “peacekeepers”, the statement is akin to not going to war at all – ever! For fanatic extremists, the statement is an excuse given by the weak. For students of Chanakya, Shivaji and Krishna, it is the principle of minimal casualties. For these students, the statement is all about understanding that the mind is the all-encompassing superlative battlefield made up of tiny zones of conflict – physical and/or emotional - this is modern warfare! The Abrahamics understood this very well and hence you can seen a transition in Christian conquests – from overt Goa inquisition style torture or brutal British subjugation to the silent dagger mechanisms perfected by the Vatican Church, based on the combination of smart economics and emotional appeal executed brilliantly by scores of missionaries particularly along the eastern belt of India. Islam too evolved to understand that wars needn’t be won on the might of the sword alone and hence came the advanced weapon of demographics as explained by Muammar Al Gaddafi - something they have successfully employed in Europe and will deliver them the continent in a few decades. However, does the Hindu understand his own legacy?

Social Psychology has an interesting concept to offer, called framing. Why do we use a photo-frame? A photo frame holds a picture within and communicates to the observer what the object of focus should be. Effectively, the frame asks the observer to ignore the content beyond its boundaries and “see only that which the frame has to show”. While the purpose of this frame is too genuine, social psychology uses it to demonstrate an important human tendency – the mind is designed to look inside the frame only. The fact that the frame is not limited by size, shape or form as demonstrated by the basketball experiment underlines the vast potential of the mind. Is the Hindu, like zillion times in the past, falling a victim to framing forgetting the adage of the ideal war?

The Indian Government came up with a policy change few days back where it will take up the modernization of madrasas, bring in geo-tagging and embrace a digital infrastructure set-up for these institutions. The move will also entail scholarships for Muslim girls and introduction of a wide range of subjects (like Maths, Science, Humanities etc) in a bid to connect the huge chunk of citizens to the economic mainstream. Does the Hindu understand what is happening?

In a democracy, vote of the majority is everything, literally so. Through time immemorial and across nations/cultures, it is observed that nothing binds the majority together as the fear of external threat. Psychologists in the political domain exploited this well right since the days of Khilafat by maintaining a separate “Muslim identity” in the electoral space of India with civic laws different from the nation’s, with criminal laws more lenient than the nation’s, with doles more prominent as compared to the wider nation’s and with organized inter-community crime under the veil of Hindutva radicals. That created the Muslim vote bank while the fickle Hindu identity was systemically dismembered through countless fault lines within. Thus, the Mullahs/Maulvis could continue to influence Muslim masses in the name of Allah, "one man-four wives chugged" along unhindered, the population proportion skew kept up its acceleration and Ghazwa-e-Hind was truly on track. The political clients of these Mullahs/Maulvis continued to purchase these masses for a small sum of money and everything was hunky dory till late 2017; polity took an interesting turn of events when the legislation on Triple Talaq was introduced in Dec 2017. If all goes well, consider the madrasa modernization drive to be the next step in upsetting the Islamist apple cart:

Firstly, Geo-tagging and digitization of Wakf, if executed properly, has only one logical outcome - greater accountability & transparency. Across the globe, madrasas & masjids have been used as terrorist havens and fund conduits using state grants and masked donors. No politically correct leader was willing to tackle the menace, that changes. If terror funding operations are happening, India’s watchdogs will know about it. This is the power of accountability – it traces illicit flows and deters future crimes; this simple principle was found validated during the high value note de-legitimization exercise with thousands of crores in monetary recoveries, naming & stamping of shell firms & tax evaders and a verifiable trail established till the doorstep of economic offenders. Something similar can be expected from now.

Secondly, formal mainstreamed education (especially mathematics and science) will increase the student’s ability of logical thinking. It is human tendency to ask questions and to seek answers; this tendency will receive a fillip. Rational thought can possibly lead to overriding the militant teachings of Islam and give these prospective students something to cherish – their thoughts, their values, their education, their prospective careers etc. We don’t need an expert to tell us now that what any living being cherishes, it is willing to preserve and protect as well. The Colonial Brits had a darker but more appealing way to put it, "Give a man something to lose and the man will fear losing it; this fear will give you the leverage over him." The cynical Hindu has a counter here though, “There are educated terrorists as well who are engineers or doctors”; though valid in principle, there is a subtle yet stark difference here – the so called engineering or medical education came, more often than not, after the indoctrination conducted in madrasas. A child’s mind was already shaped when the mud was wet so the education that followed was simply a tool to enhance the hardened mud, not to remold it.

“Give me the child for seven years and then, neither the devil nor the angel can take him away."

-Socrates

The economic mainstreaming backed with formal education has a much higher probability of saving the average Muslim kid in his/her formative years from the clutches of the Maulvis/Mullahs. By persisting with Triple Talaq (and possibly with Nikah Halala later on), Modi is already on the path of reducing the Mullah’s hold on a married Muslim woman’s life; with modernization of madrasas, Modi will slacken the Mullah’s hold over a Muslim kid’s life. The Maulvis derived their strength through numbers (the single focal point of Islamic conquests, numbers!) and Modi is reversing that with a unique blend of smart economics and tough discipline. A young Muslim kid that grows up to benefit economically from these measures will be predisposed towards not squandering the material gains made and a life well built against some god-forsaken Jannat promised by the Islamist preachers. A young Muslim girl taught well & capable of independent thought would have a lesser propensity to be bullied by patriarchy and allow herself to turn into a baby-producing machine that delivers foot soldiers for Ghazwa-e-Hind. This is the systematic dismantling of the Muslim vote bank, not for some pervert gains but for the greater good. Imagine a clenched fist: Triple Talaq was the thumb pried open, madrasa modernization is the index finger released and more moves will follow ultimately leading to the Uniform Civil Code – one of the top most demands of the Hindu voter and one that will hopefully halt further demographic disparity.

Down to the very core of our existence as Bhaaratiyas, we truly need to grasp simple mathematics – we just can’t outbreed, outgrow and outnumber Islamists, they are much more capable to do that. It will also be foolish and unjust to mother nature as well to burden her with further uncontrolled population spurt. It will also be wise to avoid physical confrontation to the extent possible - they don't care about their lives and you do about yours! Let us reduce the people we end up losing - Danda comes last, Bheda before. Prudence lies in accepting the ground realities – we are not a country with 95% Hindu population but a nation with 70% Hindus. We are not fighting at our borders but within them inside our homes and in our localities. With 30%+ population, Islamists are wreaking havoc in West Bengal and that can be easily replicated on a national scale. Where strength lies in numbers, Modi will be utterly and completely useless if he loses power - remember democracy & numbers? Hence the need for unconventional and less gory solutions. I have always maintained that Muslims need to be saved from Islam, the Islamic State and the Mullah/Maulvi-Mia combination and the answer to this menace lies in the concepts of economics. Modi demonstrated that as the CM of Gujarat where he pushed Islamists to the fringe – by freeing more & more Gujaratis and bringing them into the economic mainstream while cracking down on the anti-social elements that did the bidding of these Islamists. We witnessed communal harmony in Gujarat like never before due to such policies and hopefully a similar template with much wider and deeper effect can take shape at a national level. The strategy does not mean appeasing Islamists or turning “secular” or "dhimmi"; terrorists and anti-social elements will continue to be gunned down but a complementary measure will be put in operation that attacks at the very root of terrorism. If Modi meets success through these endeavors, we will witness much lesser dominance of Islamists in electoral politics effectively forcing all political parties to not pander to Islamists but cater to each and every citizen’s needs. This will directly mean a fairly peaceful social existence, more receptivity to communo-social concerns (yes, including Raam Mandir and temple deregulation) and restoration of dignity to the average Hindu voter. What are the costs we pay for this? A few thousand crore? Is that too heavy a burden to bear? Yes, the scholarship regimes are unfair towards Hindus and so are the secular laws (I am aware of that as a person who reads comparative religion, the Indian constitution and government orders) but then the fact can't be lost out that we have been set back by decades of Islamic pandering which had become a norm - a norm that needs to be slowly shifted out of polity.

Hindus have to choose – do you wish to die by the sword outnumbered by Islamists or do you want a shot at a peaceful life? Do you want to minimize casualties – that of our soldiers, our homes, our brethren, our resources or are you more interested in demonstrating so called neutrality so that fiberals don't tease you "Bhakt"? Swatantryaveer Savarkar had once remarked in a sabha he was addressing in the late 1930s, in response to one organizer disagreeing with one of his comments in the speech, "It took you 3 decades to accept what I was stating then, it will take you 3 decades from now maybe to understand what I am stating now." Can Bhaarat afford to accord the same fate to Narendra Modi? He washed off the Hindu terror tag off your back, he rebranded Yog as an international phenomena, he cultivated Hindu cultural tourism, he has reduced Islamic terrorism based casualties and he has reconnected the value of the Vedas & Upanishads into public discourse. Still you doubt him without a single reason to do so? Is your faith so weak that it breaks down the moment you fail to understand something?  Faith is what makes us persevere even when we are unable to understand something. I had said before and say so again, "I will stand by Modi as long as he stands by Maa Bhaarti; he has no intent to leave her, I have no intent to leave him."

Once again: which war is the ideal war? – The war that is won without stepping on to the battlefield.

Jai Hind!