Are all terrorists really Muslims?
Are maximum terrorists in India Muslims? I ensured the chance to look at this subsequent yet another avoidable incident this week. Nigeria’s ambassador to India has replied to a comment made by a Union minister. The comment was prepared by Giriraj Singh, who said: “If Rajiv Gandhi had married a Nigerian lady and not a white-skinned woman, would the Congress have accepted her leadership?”
The remark exposed the casual racism that is so commonplace in India. Nigeria’s ambassador O B Okongor was troubled enough to say: “I believe the prime minister will do right thing on this. I am not going to lodge a protest.” The prime minister flouted it once again as those who have observed his behaviour on such things will have saw, though the media was obviously outraged.
The website Rediff.com ran a commentary headlined “5 reasons why Giriraj Singh should shut up”. It included this declaration of his from last year: “Isn’t it true that all people gathered in terrorist actions belong to one community? I am not irritating to blame any one specific community. Why are all so-called secular gatherings silent on this?”
Probably he means Muslims. He is of course not right in presumptuous that all people trapped for terrorism are Muslims, but are Muslims in charge for most of the terrorism in India? Let’s look at the data. The South Asian Terrorism Gateway lists fatalities and incidents across India. Fairly carefully, it also does list them by battle theatre.
