- Historic Pran Pratishtha in Ayodhya sparks optimism and unity among Hindus, marking the reclamation and rebuilding of a Hindu temple destroyed centuries ago.
- Looking beyond the immediate, Hindus civilization faces the looming challenge of the rapid Muslim population growth and its impact on the country’s demographic landscape.
- A rapidly growing Muslim minority in India could lead to political and social upheaval, similar to Lebanon’s transformation into a Muslim-majority country.
- Recent events like the Bengaluru riots suggest increasing sophistication in tactics used by certain groups, raising concerns about potential civil unrest emanating from the demographic shifts.
India is exuberant after the historic Pran Pratishtha of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya on January 22, 2024. For most Hindus, it is an iconic moment in their history as this is the first time in centuries that a Hindu temple destroyed by Islamic invaders has been reclaimed and rebuilt. Across the nation, there is an air of optimism and a belief that Hindu civilization is set to attain new heights. There is every right to be confident about the future because the Ram Temple has unified Hindus in an unprecedented manner. But this collective national excitement needs to be tempered with a reality check about the primary challenge staring Hindus in the face – demography.
Muslims, regardless of their economic status, tend to have more children than other groups. This demographic trend is attributed to the Quranic diktats to take over the world.
On a modern historical timescale, it doesn’t take long for a country with a substantial Muslim minority to be taken over by Islam. This isn’t rocket science – it’s the combined effect of population and time; Muslims outbreed their hosts by having more children. According to Pew Research, between 2015 and 2060, the global Muslim population is set to increase by 70 percent. In contrast, Christians will grow by 34 percent, Hindus by 27 percent, and Jews by just 15 percent.[1]
Muslims, regardless of their economic status, tend to have more children than other groups. This demographic trend is attributed to the Quranic diktats to take over the world. For instance, the Koranic “Verse of the Sword” is used by Islamic scholars to proclaim a universal and permanent jehad against all non-Muslims.[2]
In such a situation, over several decades, the Muslim minority overtakes the host and becomes the new majority. The process can never be reversed because once a country passes into Islam’s digestive tract, it can no longer switch back to democratic rule. Secular Lebanon was known as the Paris of the Middle East, but it became the most dangerous place on earth as soon as the Muslims became the majority.[3]
The takeaway for India is that a rapidly growing Muslim minority should never be taken lightly. Indeed, India looks like an excellent candidate to become the next Lebanon for the following reasons:
- A rapidly growing mass of more than 250 million Muslims are attracted by the myth of pan-Islamism.
- Certain Muslim groups are initiating deadly riots over trivial matters across the country at all too frequent intervals.
- Significant numbers of the Hindu majority are still oblivious to the looming threat of an Islamic takeover. This is despite ample evidence of Kashmiri Muslims expelling the tiny Hindu minority in India’s only Muslim-majority state.
Losing control of your country
Before looking at the civil war starting in India, it’s worth exploring how Lebanon got there first.
Lebanon is the historic home of the Phoenicians, the legendary ancient traders whose maritime culture flourished there for over 2,000 years. The modern democratic state of Lebanon was established in 1920 by the French as a homeland for Lebanese Christians following the genocide of 40 percent of the country’s Christian population by Turkey during World War I (1914-1918). At the time, Lebanese Christians comprised up to 75 percent of the country, the rest being Muslims.
By the 1932 census, the Muslim share of the population had skyrocketed from 25 percent to 45 percent. This massive demographic change in just 12 years was entirely due to Muslim couples having up to 10 children. The Christians, at 55 percent, still had political control, but the slender majority wasn’t going to last.
While Lebanon was still a secular democracy, it was the playground of the Arab world, with its famous nightclubs being the envy of Europe. Its financial power and stability through the 1950s and 1960s earned it the name of Switzerland of the East[4], while its capital, Beirut, attracted so many tourists that it was known as the Paris of the Middle East.[5]
Like India, Lebanon was multicultural, with as many as 18 religious groups – all coexisting peacefully. It was an open and multilingual society, with almost everyone speaking French alongside Arabic. It was the most prosperous country in the region after Israel.
By the 1970s, the Muslims had crossed the halfway mark. Their numbers were further bolstered by displaced Palestinians. Just like Indian Muslims are enthusiastically welcoming illegal Rohingya immigrants, the Lebanese Muslims forced the government in Beirut to allow the Palestinians to settle in the country.
The [Lebanese] Christians woke up too late to see their country swamped with Muslims
The Christians woke up too late to see their country swamped with Muslims who were now demanding more seats in Parliament and the presidency, which by law was reserved for Christians. The result was a civil war – and the end of the road for Lebanon. If you grew up in the 1980s, the evening news almost always had a clip of a bomb explosion in Beirut. The Palestine Liberation Organisation, the notorious terrorist outfit founded by Yasser Arafat, took over the country, and Beirut became a mini Stalingrad.
It is estimated that 600,000-900,000 citizens – nearly all Christian – fled the country during the initial years of the civil war, which started in 1975. The Christian exodus further boosted the percentage of Muslims in the country. As much as 7 percent of the population was killed during the civil war between 1975 and 1990. For all practical purposes, Lebanon is a dysfunctional entity – a country in name only.[6]
Sleepwalking to a disaster
Lebanon offers a glimpse into what India faces as the Muslim population grows unchecked. Like the Lebanese Christians, the Hindus of India may discover their fate sealed only when it is too late. First up, Hindus must not forget that Pakistan was created as the homeland for all Indian Muslims. The Muslims of undivided India had voted to create Pakistan. So, how come there are more Muslims in India than in Pakistan?
Indian Muslims belong to two large schools – the Deobandi and the Barelvi. In July 1946, the Muslim League won all but five Muslim seats. This makes it clear that all Muslims wanted to create Pakistan and take India back to the Mughal times. The Barelvi group pursued the Medina strategy: create a beachhead called Pakistan to come back to Delhi and reconquer India. The Deobandi strategy was to stay on in India and convert it from within.
The truth of the above is illustrated by the relentless population growth of Muslims and a corresponding decline of the Hindu, Sikh, and Jain populations[7]:
Census Year | Hindus+Sikhs+Jains, % | Muslims, % | Christians and others, % |
951 | 86.45 | 9.8 | 3.8 |
2001 | 82.8 | 13.4 | 3.8 |
2011 | 81.5 | 14.2 | 4.3 |
2050 Est. | 76.7 | 18.4 | 4.9 |
At first glance, these figures may not seem alarming; in fact, they may even appear reassuring – until you project the growth rate of Muslims into the 22nd century. And while projecting far into the future is highly unscientific as there are way too many variables, there is one variable that doesn’t vary – the mindset of the Indian Muslim.
Demography is destiny
In March 2020, a Kerala Muslim couple had their 13th child. The woman, Sharifa, is only 33 and delivered her first child at 18.
In March 2020, a Kerala Muslim couple had their 13th child. The woman, Sharifa, is only 33 and delivered her first child at 18. Her husband Hanifa said children are a blessing of Allah, and the couple will continue to produce children till their health permits.[8]
It’s not just poor Muslims who are outbreeding their Hindu neighbors; even the well-to-do ones are in favor of having as many children as possible. This is because the Muslim community in India understands that demography is destiny. They know democracy is a numbers game.
In my first job as a journalist, I had a colleague, Babar (name changed), who belonged to an upper-middle-class family from Uttar Pradesh. Babar was basically a Pakistani in everything but citizenship. He not only had family members who had migrated to Pakistan in 1947, but he would also boast how the Pakistani missiles Hatf (meaning “death” in Arabic) and Ghaznavi and Ghauri (named after brutal Islamic invaders from Afghanistan) would devastate India “if Hindus dared to attack Muslims.”
I will never forget what he told me the day Atal Bihari Vajpayee was sworn in as Prime Minister in May 1996, “You can finally have your Hindu PM, but we are ready. Our plan is to have as many children as possible to increase the Muslim population to such a level that even if you tried to kill us all using your state machinery and resources, you wouldn’t succeed.”
If you didn’t know this radical side of Babar, you’d easily label him a secular person. He was educated in a good school in Delhi, lived in a nearly 100 percent Hindu neighborhood, had Hindu friends, did not fast during Ramzan, did not pray, wore no visible Muslim symbols, and spoke everyday Delhi Hindi. But far from being secular, he was a proponent of population jehad to outbreed Hindus. Worse, he refused to acknowledge a democratically elected Prime Minister as his leader because Vajpayee spoke for Hindus.
This ghettoized mentality of the Indian Muslim is a mortal threat to India’s freewheeling democracy. Their collective desire to overtake Hindus, seize power, and re-establish the Mughal Empire (the wet dream of every jehadi in the Indian subcontinent) could eventually plunge the country into civil war.
Preparing for mayhem
The Bengaluru riots of August 2020, coming just six months after the highly coordinated Delhi riots, point to the increasing sophistication of the jihadis.
The Bengaluru riots of August 2020, coming just six months after the highly coordinated Delhi riots, point to the increasing sophistication of the jihadis. In earlier decades, nearly all riots were sparked by an incendiary speech by a mosque preacher, resulting in hundreds of Muslims going berserk post-prayers. It was like a fire spreading out of control until the paramilitary arrived and restored order. The brunt of the violence was always borne by innocent Hindus who were caught completely unprepared. In some cases where Hindus were organized, as in Mumbai under the Shiv Sena, there would often be a ferocious backlash, but this was rare.
The Delhi and Bengaluru riots revealed a new side of religious violence against Hindus – that the Muslims were preparing for riots before the spark. This is taking things to a new level of mayhem. Firstly, no community should resort to violence as it disturbs the peace of the entire country. If you want to burn down your own country, then it reveals a lot about you – primarily that you are anti-national. But preparing for riots in advance by stocking acid and firebomb-hurling catapults for a future clash is a disturbing new trend.[9]
The secular media can no longer deny the high level of coordination among Muslim mobs
The other takeaway from Bengaluru is the “guerrilla-style” tactics being used by Muslims.[10] The secular media can no longer deny the high level of coordination among Muslim mobs who locked up cops in two police stations, torched police vehicles, and tried to prevent reinforcements from rescuing their colleagues at the two stations by blocking roads with burning vehicles and firing a barrage of stones, bricks, bottles, and other objects at every step. A fire truck was attacked, and its occupants were nearly lynched by the rioters. When a country turns into a war zone because communities are clashing, that’s civil war. A magisterial report into the pogrom unleashed on innocent Hindus concluded that Islamists were behaving like a “terrorist gang.”[11]
Another worrying trend is the increasing radicalization of Muslim police officers. According to the National Investigation Agency, at least 873 officers of the Kerala Police have links with the now-banned Popular Front of India (PFI). These included Sub-Inspectors and Station Head Officers. The primary charge against them is that they leaked information, including the moves of the state police to the PFI. Police officers have been terminated from service for leaking details of Hindu activists to the PFI.[12]
Illusion of safety
Before the Partition of India in 1947, non-Muslims were either a majority or a substantial minority in the cities of the areas that today constitute Pakistan. Lahore’s 240,000 Hindus and Sikhs constituted about a third of the city’s population in 1947; today, Lahore is almost 100 percent Muslim.[13] Again, as per the 1931 census of India, all the five major cities of Sindh were Hindu majority; today, Hindus are around 1 percent. In Karachi alone, the Hindu population decreased from 51 percent in 1947 to only 2 percent in 1951.[14]
The Hindus and Sikhs who lived in these cities did not realize the danger they faced until the very last hour when frenzied Muslim mobs landed up outside their neighborhoods, ready to burn, loot, rape, and expel them. Almost a million Hindus and Sikhs were slaughtered by the Muslims. Most of them had to leave behind their extensive lands, businesses, homes, and much of their wealth. This was repeated in Kashmir in 1990 when the Hindu Pandits were expelled. It happened yet again in 2016 in Kairana, Uttar Pradesh, arguably India’s Hindu heartland.[15]
Closing Remarks
If India’s political and military leadership ignores the relentless invasion of the Hindu space by Muslims, the stage is set for a future civil war. The only way to stop this is by imposing President’s Rule across India for several decades. Such a move will be celebrated by the overwhelming majority of Indians, including Muslims, who will also be free to continue with their lives without being instigated by the left and liberals to bait Hindus. The central rule has worked brilliantly in Jammu & Kashmir, which has been transformed from India’s No.1 terror-affected state to a state of near normalcy, with billions of investment rupees and millions of tourists now pouring in. As many as 90 percent of Kashmiris say they are satisfied with the state of affairs.[16] And this was India’s most separatist and radicalized state. The only groups that will oppose central rule will be the jehadis – and their secular and leftist Hindu friends – who will find their Breaking India plans scuppered.
Citations
[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2017/03/PF_17.04.05_projectionsUpdate_change310px.png
[2] https://content.ucpress.edu/chapters/10213001.ch01.pdf
[3] Kreately: How Lebanon Became A Muslim Majority Country? https://kreately.in/how-lebanon-became-a-muslim-majority-country/
[4] Asia Times: Switzerland of the Middle East unravels; https://asiatimes.com/2020/02/switzerland-of-the-middle-east-unravels/
[5] Cultural Trip: Why Beirut Was Once Called ‘The Paris Of The Middle East’https://theculturetrip.com/middle-east/lebanon/articles/why-beirut-was-once-called-the-paris-of-the-middle-east/
[6] US State Department, https://2009-2017.state.gov/outofdate/bgn/lebanon/149912.htm
[7] Pew Research Center: By 2050, India to have world’s largest populations of Hindus and Muslims; https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/04/21/by-2050-india-to-have-worlds-largest-populations-of-hindus-and-muslims/
[8] Indus Scrolls: In 15 years, Sharifa delivers her 13th child; https://indusscrolls.com/in-15-years-sharifa-delivers-her-13th-child
[9] https://www.opindia.com/2020/02/delhi-riots-ground-report-muslim-women-acid-slingshots-petrol-bombs/
[10] OpIndia: Delhi riots ground report: Muslim women rained down acid from the terrace, slingshots were used to hurl petrol bombs; https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bengaluru/bengaluru-violence-how-rioters-launched-guerrilla-like-attack-against-cops/articleshow/77516069.cms
[11] Deccan Herald: Bengaluru Riots: SDPI Members acted like ‘Terrorist Gang’- says report; https://www.deccanherald.com/india/karnataka/bengaluru-riots-sdpi-members-acted-like-a-terrorist-gang-says-report-1177631.html
[12] https://www.onmanorama.com/content/mm/en/kerala/top-news/2022/10/04/popular-front-india-ban-pfi-kerala-police-links.html
[13] OnManorama: 873 Cops have PFI Links – NRI Report; https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=13329#:~:text=In%201947%20(the%20year%20of,Delhi%2C%20and%20elsewhere%20in%20India
[14] Hindu American Foundation, Hindus in South Asia and the Diaspora, 2007, page 52, https://www.hinduamerican.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/HAF-human-rights-report-2007.pdf
[15] Times of India: Exodus of Hindu families from Kairana a reality, finds NHRC probe report; https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/meerut/Exodus-of-Hindu-families-from-Kairana-a-reality-finds-NHRC-probe-report/articleshow/54451892.cms
[16] Greater Kashmir: 90% people of J&K satisfied over return to normalcy: LG ; https://www.greaterkashmir.com/front-page-2/90-people-of-jk-satisfied-over-return-to-normalcy-lg/