political future of Muslims in India.

Background

• India was ruled by Muslims for 1000 years before Britishers took over.
• British takeover also marked the end of medieval period in India and ushered Industrial/modern period in India
• With modernism came a class which wanted India to become an Independent country from a British colony.
• In the process of Industrialization, Muslims lost political power and were not trusted by the British. Britishers created a new class of Brown English men, primarily from Brahmin and Kayastha caste.
  
• In 1947, India was partitioned into India and Pakistan based on religion. Later, pakistan was divided into Pakistan and Bangladesh based on language.

Basic Facts

• Total population is 1.1 Billion. 14% of population is Muslim; i.e. 154 Million people.
• India is a poor country. Most of the people live day-by-day. Those who don't are generally landlords, corrupt officials(policement, development officers etc) and politicians who are both the cause of poverty and beneficiary of the present system.
  
• Most of the population lives in rural India. Population increase forced people to move from rural India to few mega cities like Mumbai, Calcutta. This causes rural-urban rift.
• India has social division based on caste. Most of the marriages take place inside caste. This institution affects every facet of economic and political life.

Feelings ( or Divisions )

• Since the partition was done based on religion, Hindus in India feel that any special treatment of Muslims is unwarranted. On the other hand, because of large numbers of Muslim population, It is impossible for politicians to not cater to their constituent's demand. ( Political strength of Muslims )
  
• Since the economic pie is really small, and growth has been small, and population has increased, there has been folks from UP/Bihar to Big cities to make a living. This causes animosity and in Mumbai, these people were targeted. ( Rural - Urban divide )
  
• India has more than 3000 spoken languages and 16 constitutionally recognized languages. These regional languages are bases of rich local culture. This also makes residents of different area heterogeneous and not awfully fond of each other. ( Cultural Divisions )
• India has four primary and may be twenty odd prominent castes. All castes intermarry and support each other politically and economically. Marwaris, Sindhis and Jains are in Trade and Finance. Yadavs, Reddys, Kappus, Kurmis, Kammas, Bhumihars, Patels, Marathas are farmers. Rajputs were landlords and princes and are now farmers. Brahmins are priests and educated class. Baniyas are also entrepreur classes. But, important thing to note is that these castes support themselves against other castes. ( Caste Divison )
  

Present Events

As Muslims demand political powers commensurate to their numbers, there are two political options being followed by leaders:

• Those who want muslim votes. They call themselves secular. But, they are not really secular because of any ideals. In fact, in Indian politics, decency and Idealism are impossible given poverty and uncertain economic status. When you are a step away from destitution, it is hard to be idealist. Politicians are in politics to better their lot rather than serve the nation.
• Those who don't want muslim votes. These call themselves patriotic Indian. They have lots of zeal and enthusiam and some warped sense of Nazi idealism. They are for some kind of Uber-India. They project social and cultural India which is based on 1000s of years old Indian heritage. But, they are also in politics to serve their interests not the populace. When there is a regiona rift in Maharashtra between Marathis and Biharis, some segment were eager participant in the mayhem.

Now given the background, in an abjectly poor nation, where rich are rich because they are shafting the poor or have created small patches of prosperity ( e.g. IT, BioTech ) surrounded by poverty, demands for government help is huze. Political leaders enrich themselves, their families and later their castes. Everyone else comes afterwards.

Narratives promoted by different sections to explain Terrorism

• Since Muslim has not benefitted from gowth of wealth in India, there are lot o f unstaisfied muslims to get recruited by jihadist. Truth is most of India is poor. Poverty cannot be the cause of violence. I only wish it was true because then we could move to western style of democracy where grave injustice often leads to violent rebellion( French revolution, American Revolution, Russian Revolution). Truth is that Terrorist can tap Indian Muslims for recruitment is because of religious affiliation. These folks are hateful bunch who truly believe in Islamic rule. Their world view is different from normal western one. ( Jawed Naqawi, Freed Zakaria adhere to this explanation of Indian Muslim alienation principle. Only thing is that there claim fails in the background of abysmal poverty prevalent in India. There is hardly any wealth generated and distributed. Child mortality rate, nutrition remains the very worst in the world.)
  
• Muslims are psychos and have persecution complex. They like to fight and dominate, they are Jihadists. That is not true in India. Those who wanted to dominate, divided India and gained a separate country for themselves, pakistan.( Adherents of these views are right wing Hindu Parties. These people generally bore brunt of partition and are very anti-muslims. They are concentrated in Muslim majority area and have been victims of Muslim rioters)
  
• Indian Muslims fates are decided by what happens in Kashmir. As long as India is occupying Kashmir, there is a cause for Jihad. ( This is another silly nonsense. Those who propose this arguments are Pakistanis and outsiders and they forget that Muslims are interspersed in whole of India. If Kashmir goes away because of religion, India will go through another partition and this time all muslims will be purged from India. Making Kashmir as focal point for political struggle is stupid for Muslims. It hinders them from making compromises and moving forward. )
  
• India is surrounded by external powers who have India's harm at there heart. Pakistan is defined based on religion and likes to make kashmir central issue for its existence. Muslims see a great stretch from India border in west to all the way to Turkey a green swath of land. They want India back as their colony and they think that it is achievable through terrorism. ( GOI believes in this narrative. This is also believed by Hindu Expatriates in US and Britain. )

All articles are written espousing one of the above arguments and always fall short of the complete truth because of the position that they take. Saddest part is that they have nothing to offer to poor Muslims or poor Indians. All their writings are such charade.

In my view, Muslims are like any other interest group in India who want to further their interests in any working democracy. BJP is the evil here since they challenge their basic right to do this. Regarding terrorism, there is no just explanation for them. It definitely doesn't come from abject poverty. Most of India is poor. I think it comes from educated class who identify themselves with Bigger Islamic cause and in turn, hurt normal political cause of bettering one's lot in democratic system.

As far as kashmir is suggested as the cause for the terrorist attack, I have already explained how untenable is that position. Kashmir cannot considered an occupation because majority is Muslim and they want to go to Pakistan. If they indeed believe in this, then the position of BJP becomes valid that all muslims should have been sent to Pakistan. Now, disturbing status quo in kashmir will become BIG booboo for rest of Muslim population in India. In short, cause of Muslims in rest of India is not congruent with demands for separate kashmir.