Muslim clerics and political leaders are in a race to threaten Hindus with genocide and civil war, it seems. The latest one to join the ranks of Maulana Tauqeer Raza, Asaduddin Owaisi and a host of others is Jharkhand minister Hafizul Hasan Ansari.

Ansari is a cabinet minister in the Hemant Soren led Jharkhand government, holding portfolios of Tourism, Arts, Culture, Sports & Youth Affairs and Minority Welfare. He is the JMM (Jharkhand Mukti Morcha) MLA from Madhupur, a seat that he inherited after his late father Haji Hussain Ansari passed away last year.

In a clip that has gone viral, Ansari is seen addressing some journalists, and says, “What is happening…what the central government is doing with a particular community (Muslims), that will hurt everyone. If we (Muslims) are 20%, then you are 80..70%. But if there is too much disturbance, if my 20% house are closed, your 70% houses will also be closed.”

Such open threats of civil war, of ‘Hindus not finding a place to hide if Muslim youth are radicalized’ are being heard with increasing frequency these days. But for what?

The Islamists who control the discourse of the Indian Muslim community have created this hysteria by distorting and linking disparate issues like the Ram Mandir judgement, Article 370 abrogation, CAA-NRC, UCC into one simple thread of “Muslims under attack”.

This is a time-tested tactic used by Islamists. They first whip ordinary Muslims into a frenzy based on a potent mix of supremacist rhetoric (we are chosen ones of Allah, fated to rule over kafirs) and victimhood peddling (Muslims and Islam are hated because we are Allah-fearing and pure) which is based on the same religious literature that clerics teach their youth from an early age.

The latest round of violence directed at Hindu festival processions is nothing new, and it has been twisted to fuel the Muslim victimhood narrative. Such violence has been recorded for well over a century across the sub-continent, and before that Hindus were persecuted in the Muslim kingdoms that existed in the medieval era.

But even these recent attacks on Hindus have been twisted by the Islamist propaganda machine that claimed Muslim mobs were ‘provoked’ by Hindu festival processions passing in front of mosques while playing ‘loud’ music.

Why is Indian Islamist religious-political leadership issuing such threats?

The Islamist religious-political leadership in India has deep experience in making veiled threats and masking their genocidal intentions behind emotional language like ‘human rights, justice, peace, compassion’ etc. When an Islamist says, ‘humanity above all else’, the real meaning is ‘Muslims above all else’ because the non-believers, especially ‘polytheist/idol-worshippers’ like Hindus are considered sub-human, jahil (backward).

When Jinnah grew impatient that his demands for Pakistan were not being met, he announced ‘Direct Action Day’ on August 16, 1946. What did this ‘direct action’ entail? The mass murder and mass rape of Hindus in Kolkata, an event that came to be known as the ‘Great Calcutta killings‘. Likewise, although the present crop of Islamist leaders claim they are only ‘warning BJP-RSS and Hindutvawadis’, their threats are directed at all Hindus. Even HINOs (Hindus in Name Only) will ultimately come on the Islamist radar despite the former’s desperate attempts to appease the latter, because ultimately there is no distinction between kafirs in the Islamist worldview.

The repeated utterance of population split – 20-70, or 25 crores vs 100 crores, or 30-70 – shows what is uppermost in the Islamist mind. Democracy and elections are just temporary hindrances for them – they are waiting for the day when the demography tip-over happens across the country. Until then, they want to hold the Indian State and Hindus hostage by threatening complete destruction if their demands are not met and if their hold on Indian Muslims is challenged in any way.

In many ways, it is the same approach that Pakistan has taken all these years – threatening Bharat incessantly with 1000-year wars, endless jihad, and then with nuclear war. The propaganda too is the same: 1 Muslim man is the equal of 10 Hindus teaches Pakistan to its children, and ‘Muslim youth are born fighters, battle is in their blood‘ screeches Maulana Tauqeer Raza in Bareilly.

Just like Pakistan’s bluff has been repeatedly called out in multiple wars, and off late by surgical strikes and the Balakot air strike, so must this Indian Islamist habit of threatening Hindus with genocide and nation with civil war be handled.

Yes, it is true that Islamists have the capacity to unleash street violence at will. But that is only because the Secular State has given them the license to do so. UP under CM Yogi Adityanath clearly shows that for all the rabble-rousing rhetoric about Muslim machismo, a no-nonsense leader can keep a tight lid on things even with our ramshackle law & order machinery.

The lessons for Hindus from all these threats and hate speech is clear. Drop the obsession with secularism, of trying to prove what ‘true secularism’ means, right this very moment. We have every right, indeed an obligation to our ancestors who toiled to create this great civilization, to demand a Hindu Dharmic rashtra.

This new civilizational nation-state will grant explicit protections and privileges to all Dharmic religions, and be duty-bound to preserve and promote our Dharmic civilizational values. In all other aspects, it will be like any modern nation-state. This model has already been adopted by countries like UK, Norway, Spain, Malaysia, Turkey etc, so we should put to rest all the doubt and scaremongering created by the opponents to this idea of Hindu Rashtra.

A Dharmic State in the homeland of Dharma – it’s just common sense.

Bringing this change in our anti-Hindu and cumbersome secular State apparatus will not be easy. But it can and must be done through a sustained campaign, maybe even a referendum, to bring much-needed Constitutional reforms.

Till the time this new rashtra comes into being, Hindu society should organize itself, take refuge under Dharma and Dharma alone, and be prepared for any challenge. We must not depend solely on the secular State for our safety and dignity. Educate, agitate, organise and resist.