A video has gone viral showing some Hindus protesting namaz being offered on public land in Gurugram, Haryana. The incident appears to be from Sector 47 of Gurugram. In it, people are seen protesting with police and administration officials.

A second man with folded hands says, “We read Hanuman chalisa and pray in temples. Do they (Muslims) find only these public places? They misbehave and harass our girls who are passing by. We are afraid of them. Some of them come from Mewat…”

“They have a mosque on the highway just 2 km from here. This sir (pointing at a police officer) doesn’t have the courage to tell them to go and offer namaz there. I don’t have a temple here, but if I start doing worship on this ground they (police) will catch me by the neck. But they are unable to move even one Muslim,” the blue-shirt man tells the reporter.

Another man says “Namaz is also being offered in front of Devi Lal park.”

“You have arrested 3 of our boys, have you arrested even one of theirs? And on what charge did you arrest our boy? I say you hang him, but first tell us on what charge have you arrested that boy?,” asks the blue-shirt man of a policeman.

“Whoever disturbs law & order will be arrested,” the policeman says, oblivious to how disconnected from reality his statement sounds to Hindus who have seen law & order being taken for a ride from Delhi-NCR to Bengal.

“Who is disturbing law & order – us or them?” the crowd demands to know. “Arrest us all!” says the man as others chant “Bharat Mata ki jai.”

As per reports, one resident stated, “Ever since this namaz on public land has started, incidents of chain snatching, eve teasing have increased. This illegal namaz should be stopped.” Other stated that public namaz leads to encroachment of land by eventually constructing dargahs or other Islamic religious structure.

Soon, Gurugram Police tweeted a reply (now deleted) on the issue from their official Twitter handle, while copying the official PM, Haryana CM and Haryana Police handles –

The ‘Namaz’ spots at public places have been decided by both Hindu and Muslim communities after mutual understanding and this place is one among them. Maintaining communal harmony and peace is our utmost responsibility and we will ensure that. @PMOIndia @cmohry @police_haryana

So here we have a police force openly admitting that one community has been given the right to appropriate a public space for their religious prayers, on the basis of an unofficial ‘mutual understanding’ between unknown Hindu and Muslim representatives. Who, pray, gave the right to anyone to make this decision on behalf of all Hindus? Was it an elected representative like local councilor, MLA, MP? One lady who lives in that area requested names of the people who had given said ‘consent’. 

Actually, this issue of namaz being offered in public spaces had come up in 2018 too in Gurugram. Several Hindu groups and even the Gurugram Bar Association had protested on the streets demanding a ban on offering Namaz on open spaces and government land.

Back then, CM Khattar had stated that namaz should ideally be offered in mosques, idgahs, and private spaces, and it is ok in public spaces only if no one objects. Some time later, after facing flak from liberal media even for his reasonable comment, he backtracked to say that the issue of Muslims offering prayers at open places was being “politicised” by some people. Eventually, namaz was read in public spaces at 76 locations in Gurugram under heavy police arrangement despite protests.

However, even Khattar’s bland comments were enough to spark a furious article by ‘journalist’ Ajaz Ashraf who spewed venom on the annual Hindu fesivities where pandals are erected (after permission from authorities) and claimed that public namaz is an important tool to build a ‘sense of community’ among Muslims. He chided Hindus to learn from Muslims stating, “Savarna Hindus’ –  with their ideas of segregation based on the principle of purity and pollution, ought to imbibe”.

Bigots like St. Stephen history graduate Ajaz Ashraf want their liberal-secular readers to believe that Hindus don’t congregate in temples irrespective of class or jaati. They also want to hide the harsh social realities of Muslim society and how the Ashraf (high class, with foreign blood) – Ajlaf (low class, Indian converts) divide plays out, or how Ahmadis are persecuted and about the bloody Sunni-Shia conflict.

Netizens slam Gurugram Police’s “explanation”

Reactions poured in from netizens at the double standards and abject surrender of our secular state once again, in the name of ‘maintaining communal harmony’.

It was pointed out that when the locals of the area themselves are objecting to the hijack of a public space, why is police ignoring those voices? One user directed the Gurugram police’s attention to what the PM said at UN recently, when he quoted Acharya Chanakya – “when the right action is not taken at the right time, then it is time itself that causes the action to fail.”

Some other reactions –

This is a terrible cop out plus this has no basis in constitution. Cops can not make municipal rules. Not to mention select arbitrary community members to create laws.

“Namaz spots” waah the price we are paying for Gandhi’s communal harmony.

Can we have public ‘bhajan kirtan’ spots across the city, decided by mutual understanding and without taking permission from authorities

Communal Harmony is simply a word for tacit admission of “if we/you don’t allow them, they may riot and there will be dead people”.

An Islamist journalist who writes for The Wire, Quint etc as per his bio pinned the blame for the ‘controversy’ on one Dinesh Thakur, founder of the “Bharat Mata Vahini”. This is another standard tactic – reduce ordinary Hindus protesting for a just cause as members of some ‘fringe/radical’ organization to lull other Hindus into thinking that it is a made-up controversy.

This creeping sharia method of salami slicing public and temple land has been used for decades by Islamists and the results are there for all to see from TN to Assam. Doing namaz on roads and other public land is a well-established method of area domination, exercised all over the world. The message is “See our power, see our numbers, see our faith…don’t mess with us.”

Idea Of India ideologues often rant about keeping religion private, confined to one’s home and not bringing it into public life. They even demand a right to decide how Hindus will worship inside their temples, and weigh our diverse traditions and practices against their sense of Western Liberal/Constitutional morality. But they go missing when the time comes to advise Muslims to confine their religion to mosques and homes.

This episode also shows how police and bureaucracy consider it their role to ‘safeguard secularism’ whenever a BJP government is in power, rather than enforce government policy. It is only CMs with conviction like we have in UP or Assam who are able to ensure that the state machinery becomes more responsive to elected representatives.

The current system is not working for Hindus and all right-thinking citizens who want a safe, prosperous and harmonious Bharat. The Dhimmification of the Indian Republic is too deep-rooted. Only a fundamental reform of the Constitution and our electoral system, and decolonization of our institutions will yield the desired result.