India: Muslim mobs continue to attack Hindu festivals

A frantic Muslim mob went on a rampage in the Howrah district of West Bengal on Sunday, October 13, destroying a Durga Puja pandal (a makeshift pavilion used as the venue for Durga Pujas) in Shyampur, an administrative division in Howrah, and desecrating the idol of the Hindu Goddess Durga during the Hindu celebrations. The rampaging mob set ablaze several shops and establishments in the area. They also threw stones at Hindu devotees nearby, and attacked the police.  Several Hindus were beaten and left bloodied, and there was a fire in the street.

A Rapid Action Force (RAF) contingent was deployed to the area to restore normalcy. The administrative bodies had to suspend Internet services temporarily in order to contain the flare-up. Police rounded up around 67 Muslims, who must appear before a court.

According to reports, the Muslims swarmed the Durga Puja pandal and tore it down in order to avenge an insult to “Prophet Muhammad.” How did the Durga Puja organizers dishonor the prophet of Islam? There is an interesting story that led to this outcome, and it offers great insight, if you are ready to accept it.

The Durga Pujas, also celebrated as Navaratris by Hindus worldwide, are unarguably the most significant festival for Bengali Hindus in West Bengal and scattered worldwide. The festival is rooted deeply in the Hindu religion. The Goddess evoked during this time is, of course, a Hindu Goddess, and every aspect of the Durga Puja stems from Hindu religious rituals and prayer processes. You might wonder why we are explaining the obvious here, as the spiritual nature of the Durga Pujas is self-explanatory by its very nomenclature – Durga (Supreme Hindu Goddess) Puja (worship). This is because recently, the liberal coterie of Bengali Hindus has hijacked the spirit of Durga Puja, and they are promoting it as a social event bereft of any religious significance. The liberals spread the message of “Dharma jar jar, Utsab sabar,” which translates from the Bengali as “Regardless of one’s religion, this rivalry is for all.”  The liberal-leftist clique in West Bengal has repeated and asserted this hollow statement enough times to manipulate malleable Hindus into believing that the Durga Pujas are indeed a non-religious social event for people of all religions. But they couldn’t fool the Muslims into giving in to their ultra-secular thoughts.

Many Muslims, through their speech and actions, have abundantly established that they don’t want to have anything to do with Durga Puja; that worshiping an “idol” is haram in Islam is common knowledge, and the chances of the Bengali Hindus (who have been trying to coexist with the Muslim Bengalis for centuries) not knowing this are nonexistent. Muslims have been attacking the Durga Puja celebration (as well as all kinds of Hindu festivals, for that matter), breaking idols, and stealing from Hindu temples on the other side of the Indo-Bangladesh border for decades; Muslims in India have not refrained from these activities, either, but the liberal Hindus resolutely ignore such violent episodes, and are preoccupied with wooing the Muslim community in the hope of a reciprocation of their good will.

A mob of around 60 Muslims stormed a Durga Puja pandal in Garden Reach, a Muslim-majority area in Kolkata, on Friday afternoon, October 11, demanding that the organizers stop playing Hindu devotional songs. They reportedly used foul language against Hindu women. They threatened to break the idol and stop the puja at that pandal for good if the Hindus didn’t immediately stop the devotional songs.

This incident was widely covered by the media and debated by political leaders. But the Hindus, intoxicated with the flawed idea of one-sided secularism, refused to see what was happening in Muslim areas. Just two days after the incident at Garden Reach, the Shyampur Bazaar Babasyayi Samiti held an art competition, encouraging participants to draw “eminent personalities of different religions” on the occasion of Durga Puja. Then it displayed pictures of prophets of all faiths at their Durga Puja venue, in order to “educate Hindu children about all religions.” One has to be unbearably naïve not to spot the agenda of hollowed-out secularism in this disastrous attempt, which backfired miserably, and the organizers of this event cannot complain. In their quest to appease Muslims, the organizers put up pictures of Muhammad in their venue. And we all know how Muslims respond to images of their prophet. It was only a matter of time until word got out, and enraged Muslims raided the venue and turned it upside down.

The story behind the attack on the Shyampur Bazaar Durga Puja pandal is not just intriguing; it carries an excellent lesson: you cannot change the Islamic psyche. All too many Muslims are not ready for 21st century secularism, multiculturism, and coexistence. They are incorrigibly steeped in Islam’s exclusivist and supremacist beliefs.  We may now learn from the Shyampur incident and react accordingly, or remain in secular delusion like the Hindu liberals, and invite the wrath of the mobs to our door.