Brainstorming for Muslims in India

This is Shahid Pulsar, and welcome to the Middle Nation. We were talking in the chat, in the discussion group for this channel on Telegram about the situation in India because a brother shared a video of, Yasir Qadi, talking about that India is on the road to genocide against the Muslims. I don't personally believe that that's the case. However, from a PR standpoint, I think it is probably useful to, talk about it in that context, to say that we believe that India is on the road to genocide against Muslims because that's a tactic for applying pressure to the government of India. In in some cases, being alarmist is useful for propaganda purposes when you want to achieve something.

If you want India to you want the government of Modi to stop the rhetoric, the hateful rhetoric, the anti Muslim rhetoric, the demagoguery I mean, Modi has been a demagogue his entire career. He's based his entire career on being anti Muslim and inciting hatred and violence against Muslims. So if you take as a tactic, as a strategy for public relations or for propaganda purposes, the position that India is on the road to committing genocide against Muslims that can be useful for pressuring the government to change their policies and their trajectory. What we were talking about in the discussion group was what practically can be done. If we're if we want to genuinely believe that, India is on the road to genocide, committing genocide against Muslims, what can be done about it?

What can we practically do? As normal average people, what can we practically do about that? Because if there's nothing we can do, then we're not answerable. If we don't have any power to change the situation, if we don't have any power to intervene, then we're not going to be questioned about it. We're not accountable for that.

Which then raises the question of what's the point of us even talking about it? What's the point of us trying to raise awareness about the issue in India, if actually no one can do anything about it? Because if the power to, influence the situation rests exclusively with the leaders of Muslim countries, well, they know the situation. They have better intel about what's going on in India than we do. So we don't have to raise their awareness.

So what can we do, if anything? And that's what we wanted to sort of brainstorm about in the discussion group. So thinking about practical options for activism or organizing that Muslims could engage in potentially to help affect the situation in India for Muslims. We can look at things like cancel culture and the Me Too movement and these, phenomenon across social media that have had real political social impact in the real world And see what can we learn from that and how can we utilize those same types of phenomena for a cause like this. Now when I was working on the campaign for the Rohingya, we were able to get the CEO of Unilever, Paul Pullman at the time, I'm not sure if he's still the CEO, to issue a public statement condemning the violence against Rohingya, which was by itself a pretty major step to get Paul Polman to actually make a public statement about it, naming the Rohingya.

Because in Myanmar, they don't even call the Rohingya Rohingya. They call them Bengalis. And when I was working on the situation in Egypt several years ago, one of the pillars of the strategy, one of the main strategies that we focused on was the idea of influencing the influencers, influencing the influential people. We don't have power necessarily, but we do have potentially some power to influence the people who have power, and we have to think about ways that we could potentially apply that in India. Here's a list of eight of the biggest multinationals currently operating in India.

Now potentially, could lobby the CEOs of those companies to take a stance on this issue and to, express alarm about the trajectory of India and the idea that India is moving towards genocide against the Muslim population. Force them to take a stance publicly. That would resonate. That would have some power. That would have some impact.

So practically speaking, the steps that you would wanna take would be maybe to, form an organization, write an open letter, addressed to these CEOs, addressed to these corporate leaders, these business leaders about the situation in India and calling on them to use their influence and their public platform to condemn anti Muslim hate and anti Muslim violence in India and the policies and the statements of the Modi government that encourage that. Write an open letter. Take out an a a full page ad in the newspaper wherever in whatever country you're talking about, whatever national newspaper you're talking about, New York Times, Times of London, The Guardian, The Independent, whatever. First, try to get as many people to sign onto that letter as possible From hundreds if not thousands of normal average regular people to sign it, and also celebrities, leaders, business leaders, thinkers, intellectual leaders, academics and so on. Leading figures in NGOs, human rights organizations and so on.

To get them to sign the letter as well as thousands of other signatures of regular ordinary people, and publish the letter. And of course send it to the CEOs. And then make a press release about it to the media that we have this organization and we have sponsored this letter, and we're waiting for a reply from the CEOs. That's one thing you could do. That's one thing any number of people could do.

Now, steps that you would need, you would need a press pack. You'd need a pack of information to, deliver to the media and also to the CEOs and to anyone else that you wanna lobby. A press pack detailing the crimes being committed against Muslims over the last three, four, five, ten years, including, inflammatory statements by government officials. You would also want probably an initial step if you form an organization, and it should be formed by Indian Muslims who live abroad. An organization formed by Indian Muslims who live abroad should immediately get in contact and communication with NGOs, civil society, imams in India to ensure that you have a coordinated approach with the domestic population because diaspora communities tend to be a bit more extreme, tend to be a bit more radical, tend to be exaggerative in their responses to situations back home.

So you want to make sure that you're going to take an approach and a strategy that the domestic population approves of and believes will help them and not hurt them and make their lives harder. So you form an organization, get in contact with, Muslim Indians in India for Shura, make Shura with them, consultation to determine what strategies they deem to be most helpful, and then pursue those strategies. And given the fact that India's stance on Russia and the war in Ukraine has put them more or less on some thin ice in Washington, in London, in The UK, in Europe, in the West. They're on somewhat of thin ice right now because of their stance on Russia. So bringing up the issue of potential genocide and anti Muslim hate in India could potentially get some play in the media and could get some There there may be some receptivity to a message like that among political leaders in Washington, in London, and so on in Europe.

For their own political reasons, not because they care about Muslims, but because they disapprove of India's stance on Russia and Ukraine. So they will use whatever they can as leverage against India, to apply pressure to them to get them to throw the line. So there's potential there for a movement like this being useful and effective and successful. I'm just making this video because I feel like we have a tendency to share videos, articles, news, information, about things that are disturbing, about things that are upsetting, about atrocities, about crimes and whatnot committed against Muslims around the world. And we do that, I don't even know why.

If it's not for a purpose, if it's not for some sort of call to action, if there's not a plan behind that of how we are supposed to respond, we tend to just sort of rest on the idea that our duty is exclusively to raise awareness. But if we're raising awareness among people who don't have the power to do anything and to intervene, then what's the point of raising the awareness? They're not answerable. They're not accountable for whatever happens if they have no power. I don't believe that people have no power.

I believe that there's always something that we can do. I believe that there's always some action we can take that can make a difference. So if you're going to raise awareness, it should immediately be followed up with suggestions, with brainstorming, with ideas of what can potentially be done about it. So consider this maybe a call to Muslims abroad, Indian Muslims abroad, to think about these types of steps. There is something you could actually potentially do about this.

If you are genuinely concerned about the situation in India, you can form an organization, and Muslims are very much alarmed about the situation in India. Mus Muslims internationally are alarmed about the situation in India. They will fund an organization, and that organization can use those funds to, for example, pay for full page ads in newspapers. They can pay for, airtime on television, and they can pay a staff, small staff, to continuously lobby corporate executives, people in the in the in the business community, and politicians to take a stance on the issue of Muslims in India. Always follow through on the next step.

Don't just raise awareness. Raise awareness of what can be done, and then start doing it. I mean, is I'm just thinking out loud here. These are some steps that could potentially be taken and could be useful, InshaAllah.