MARCH 16 A Silent Revolution

India as a “problem country”; unrealistically, they looked beyond its borders for a solution to their problems. This rationale did, however, crumble when, in 1971, Pakistan itself was dismembered as the result of a bloody war. Even this cataclysm brought about only a fifty percent shift in Muslim perspectives. Since that time, it has taken repeated acts of violence in Karachi and other Pakistani cities—in the course of which emigrant Muslims were ruthlessly looted and murdered—to bring them to the realization that, except in India, there was no alternative place for them. It took all these years, all these dastardly events and all the dashing of their hopes to make them emerge from the state of ignorance into which they had been plunged by yellow journalism and the fulminations of unwise leaders. Only then, after all this, did they discover that by seizing the golden opportunities offered them by India, and by working hard, they could be as resoundingly successful there as in former times in Kashmir. That is why, wherever one goes, one finds them prospering in business and acquiring the material symbols of wealth. The same is also true, but in greater measure, of the Hindus. For the last fifty years, ill-informed and unwise Hindu leaders have been impressing it upon members of their community that Muslims pose a threat to them, and that so long as they tolerate their presence, avenues of Hindu progress will remain blocked. They insist, moreover, that Hindus erase all traces of the Muslim period, and that all possible steps be taken to ensure that Muslims remain as backward as possible. These leaders have even gone so far as to argue that unless the Muslims are crushed, Hindus will never make progress in their own country. However, the fifty years of baneful activity, which culminated in the demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992, brought the Hindus a different kind of reward from what they had expected. After the Babri Masjid had been torn down, the riots that took place in different parts of the country caused losses amounting to ten thousand crore rupees— all these were losses which were borne by the Hindus. Where they had expected the automatic opening of doors to economic progress, they now found that this backlash had placed obstacles in their path. These events, paradoxically, had the effect of causing both communities to arrive at the same conclusion. That is, both realized the futility of negativism, and, setting aside such thinking, re-engaged themselves in business and allied activities. The Hindus, too, found that not only did the presence of Muslims in the country do them no harm, but it actually proved to be a positive advantage.