Recently a video surfaced that showed the Bharatiya cricket team, wearing national colours, being welcomed at their hotel (presumably after arriving from some flight). The welcome by the hotel was traditional: a lady was applying Tilak to all the team members as they emerged from the doorway that was the entrance to the hotel. The video can be seen here.

While most (not all) of the Hindu cricketers and support staff were happy to let the Tilak be applied, both Mohd. Siraj and Umran Malik refused. Siraj waved away the lady who was about to apply Tilak on him, while Umran seemed to do a “body dodge” and kept away from the lady.

Although two of the Hindu staff (Vikram Rathod, and Hari Mohan Prasad) also did not apply Tilak, it should be borne in mind that the other cricketers in the video did, with the said exceptions of Siraj and Umran.

Now, it is very hard to imagine this as having a reason other than religion. Both of them refused the Tilak, because they felt it was “un-Islamic” in their mind. Is this reasonable? In any country, a minority tries to accommodate majority culture. Or at least Hindus do, whenever they are in a minority. But Muslims never do: here are other instances from the world of Cricket:

1. UK: Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid refuse to participate in the traditional (British) celebration of spraying champagne. I’m not talking of drinking it, I’m just talking of being present when others are uncorking the bottle. So now, the English team, DEFERS TO THEM and does not resort to their traditional way of celebrating (like in the recent T20 WC, which England won)
2. Australia: Usman Khwaja also is the same as above
3. South Africa: Dawah expert Hashim Amla, who it seems has converted an entire Hindu family to Islam, refused to wear the team’s sponsor’s logo on his T-shirt while playing. Reason: the sponsor is in the alchohol business. Again, we are not talking about Amla drinking, but merely putting on the logo that sponsors his team (and presumably some of his salary).

And by now, the world expects Muslims to behave this way: religion is a non-negotiable for them. They simply will not accommodate any other religion even 1%.

Of course, there are exceptions. Mohammed Shami is known to send out wishes on Diwali. Sara Ali Khan is known to take pictures doing Poojas and visiting mandirs. But these are by far the exceptions, and the mainstream Muslims do not take kindly to their acts, and respond with vitriolic comments on social media.

We should also note that both Siraj and Umran are from very modest backgrounds (Siraj’s father was a rickshaw driver, Umran’s is a fruit seller) and both have made it very big and have become very rich, due to their talent but also because of Bharat’s booming economy. Who is almost entirely responsible for this booming economy? It is the Hindus of Bharat.

It is they whose industriousness, devotion to education, thrift, and a “let’s not get into any trouble, let’s work for a brighter future” attitude have made us a rising economic powerhouse. These are the defining features of Bharat’s Hindu middle class which is responsible for so much of our wealth creation. One would think some gratitude would lead these players to not insult a Hindu tradition that is so dear to Hindus.

Now, lets turn to Hindus. Our “fascist” (if leftists are to be believed) party leaders like Gautam Gambhir visit rape capital Ajmer dargah (I use my words carefully: this is the dargah where hundreds of Hindu girls were trapped by a rape-blackmail ring in 1992, many of them committed suicide) and hold the tazia and place chadars. Ditto for so-called “nationalist films” maker Akshay Kumar. And what to speak of Amitabh Bachchan. Gambhir has also placed chadar on Nizamuddin dargah (pic below).

Even our PM sends a chadar every year to the Ajmer dargah!

So my question is this: why do some Hindus feel the need to act so secular?  To make sure their secularism is well displayed? To have their photos taken while doing said secular acts? Why have we forgotten the simple concept of mutual respect – if someone doesn’t respect our Dharma and traditions, why should we respect theirs? This is not ‘spreading hate’ but showing self-respect.

It is this sadgun vikriti (perversion of virtues/goodness) or weakness of Hindus that has often led to our downfall. 

Remember, Prithviraj Chauhan also allowed Chishti to set up his dargah in Ajmer. What did Chishti do? It is believed Chishti gave Ghori valuable information of the ways of fighting of the Hindus, which Ghori exploited to win sneakily at the second battle of Tarain in 1192 CE, after being defeated and pardoned by Prithviraj Chauhan the first time around.