The National Commission for Minorities (NCM) will take a final view on Tuesday on an article written by Subramanian Swamy where he advocated disenfranchisement as a punishment for Muslims refusing to acknowledge their Hindu ancestry.
The NCM had taken suo moto notice of the article at its meeting on July 19. The article appeared in the Daily News and Analysis (DNA) on July 16 – three days after the serial bomb blasts in Mumbai. NCM chairperson Wajahat Habibullah told The Hindu that while the NCM found the article offensive in the extreme, a final decision on the commission's response would be taken when the full bench reconvened on Tuesday. He said the NCW will go by legal advice it had procured from within the government: “There are no two opinions that the article is highly offensive and violative of the law. I'm fairly clear about the course the NCM should follow, but the decision has to come from the full Bench.”
Since its publication, Dr. Swamy's article has been hotly debated on Twitter and Facebook, and last week it raised a storm in Harvard, where he taught Economics in the 1960s. In an online petition, students and faculty members demanded that Harvard end its association with him. The petition said: “While free expression and the vigorous contest of ideas are essential in any academic community, so too are respect and tolerance for human difference. By advocating measures that would grossly violate freedom of religion and the unqualified right to vote for different religious groups, and by aggressively vilifying an entire religious community, [Mr.] Swamy breaches the most basic standards of respect and tolerance.”
In the article titled, ‘How to wipe out Islamic terror' Dr. Swami, who is also president of the Janata Party said that by 2012, he expected Islam to confront Hindus to “complete unfinished business.” He said: “Fanatic Muslims consider Hindu-dominated India an unfinished chapter of Islamic conquests”. All other countries conquered by Islam 100 per cent converted to Islam within two decades of the Islamic invasion. Undivided India in 1947 was 75 per cent Hindu even after 800 years of brutal Islamic rule. That is jarring for the fanatics.”
Dr. Swami prescribed strategies to defeat the political goals of Islamic terrorism. Among them: “Implement the uniform civil code, make learning of Sanskrit and singing of Vande Mataram mandatory, and declare India a Hindu Rashtra in which non-Hindus can vote only if they proudly acknowledge that their ancestors were Hindus. Rename India Hindustan as a nation of Hindus and those whose ancestors were Hindus.”
“Enact a national law prohibiting conversion from Hinduism to any other religion. Re-conversion will not be banned. Declare that caste is not based on birth but on code or discipline. Welcome non-Hindus to re-convert to the caste of their choice provided they adhere to the code of discipline. Annex land from Bangladesh in proportion to the illegal migrants from that country staying in India. At present, the northern third from Sylhet to Khulna can be annexed to re-settle illegal migrants.”
