Islam is alien to Indian lands, people, and culture.
That's all I said.
You like 500 million more of you have accepted and internalized it.
It still does not make it indigenous.
Never will.
Why does that make me a bigot?
I come from different racial stock to the rest of you guys.
I recognize my faith is alien to this land.
Yet I am comfortable with both, and it does not in any way make me feel a molecule less Indian than 1.2 billion more Indians.
Please take your bigotry comment back.
I do not take your faith as Alien to this land..
How are Parsis Alien to this land after having been here for ages..
In that manner.. even the Buddist faith.. or Hinduism is Alien..
All encompass elements taken from lands there were outside along with within.
Your definition of Alien would hold true if everything originated wholly and solely from within a section without even a hint of outside influence.
But if you wish to take origin as the concept of Alien.. then yes.. My faith is Alien.
But then so is my blood.. so are a hundred different things in India Alien.. which are not Alien anymore.
And my bigotry comment was directed at this sentence of yours stated in a different form directing Islam as the exception to this rule
Yet I am comfortable with both, and it does not in any way make me feel a molecule less Indian than 1.2 billion more Indians.
Do you pray as the Hindu Indian? or as the Muslim Indian.. ? Or do you dress as the Village Indian ?
You may not feel a molecule
less.. but you do have molecules that are
different from them.. and you have molecules that are common to them. Failing to acknowledge either.. is suppressing who you are as a person.
Your molecules are the result of a successful reaction between Alien molecules and local molecules.. something worked.
The same happened with Islam.. it did work.. people did convert.. now there were benign chemical reactions(Preachers,Sufi Saints)..and exothermic ones..destructive ones(Invaders).. but in the end.. a product was formed.. which has the characteristics of both the host and Alien entity...but it thrives in this environment called the subcontinent... it is natural to it.
Now.. if someone tries to forcibly remove a molecule.. or add a molecule to you... it may lead to bad consequences..You will resist..maybe even go nuclear.
I cannot be asked to remove the identity that my being a Muslim gives me and differentiates me from the rest of this worlds other inhabitants that practice other religions.. I will resist any attempts to be told to discard it in order to "blend in" more than I already do.
I am what I am.. a molecule of this subcontinent.. and I have a lot in common with you.. a lot of atoms.
but at the same time.. I am also different from you...because of other elements that went into my creation.. and I cannot be asked to ditch that identity either.
So the question now is.. just as you have adjusted to be packed in with the other 1.2 billion Molecules.. some heaving and shoving to find their best fit.. some that broke away for they could not fit as such ..others added and removed elements and did adjust ..
and created the macro molecules of India and Pakistan.. each with its own stable and unstable characteristics..
Should you consider anything alien.. or original?
After all.. there are over a hundred elements in the periodic table, each with differing characteristics.. not all react.. not all react to form stable compounds..
But the reaction is still ongoing....
to blame it on a single element.. when hundreds have come and gone before it even existed in the sub-continent.. and have had worse effects.. is unfair.
And when life did begin in the sea.. should the salamander start telling the elephant they are alien to the land because they were here first? Or does the Shark have greater right in telling the whale to get lost because its an outsider?
And I almost lost myself there..