This is an uneven fight that Hindus are fighting. Think of it as going into a sword fight with a pencil. When Islamists like Rana Ayyub, Mohammad Zubair etc dog-whistle, they get Qatar, Iran, Saudi Arabia etc to support them, even Pakistan and other Muslim nations, along with the global left. When Hindus need to outrage, they are stuck with writers like me.

While the hounds continued to bark, Nupur Sharma’s actual comment was brushed under the carpet. So too was dismissed that in her interview with me, she had categorically said that she did not even give an opinion on their Prophet, all she did, was mention what was already mentioned in their own Hadits. After being angered by comments on the Shivling, she had merely asked if she should start mocking their faith as well, like they mock ours. She had also said that she would be happy to take her comments back if any established Islamic scholar would come forward to correct her – “If I am factually wrong, I will be happy to take my statements back” she had told me.

None of this mattered.

Islamists, the world over, don’t particularly rely on facts and proof. All they need is the word “blasphemy” whispered in their ear and they suddenly turn into those mindless zombies who walk around with their arms extended looking for fresh flesh to chew on and blood to quench their thirst. One recalls the incident in Bangladesh where Hindus were one Iqbal Hussain had placed a Quran in a Durga Puja pandal and it led to widespread violence against Hindus and their places of worship.

In another incident in Sialkot, Pakistan, where a man from Sri Lanka was lynched to death and burnt. Eyewitnesses denied that he had committed any blasphemy, but all it took for a mob of walkers to Lynch and burn a man alive was the mere allegation of blasphemy. There is just no winning with a cult that gets murderously enraged even if they “feel” like the Kafirs have breathed wrong. Frankly, I believe that blasphemy is a mere excuse. They want to murder Kafirs and even a false whisper is considered a good enough excuse to put their murderous dreams in motion.

Nupur Sharma today is dealing with this frenzied mob. She has been declared a blasphemer by the Islamists, by the zombies baying for blood. The last thing she needed was for the institutional support to be taken away from her and for her to be declared guilty by the very party that was supposed to protect her. Those who would like to defend the BJP may say that the party ‘had to act’ given the statements from Gulf countries and that they have not “officially removed her” but “suspended her pending inquiry”, but there mere fact that an inquiry has been ordered and she has been suspended for the duration of that inquiry declares her guilty.

The Islamists demanding her head now know that the BJP is, in its official capacity, considering a statement worth investigating. That it COULD HAVE been an insult to Islam and that if it was, she does not get support from the party. Essentially, the BJP, with one swift move, has declared all commentary against Islam or even the mere quoting from the Quran and Hadit as a blasphemous act, much like the Islamists, that is not to be condoned. Therefore, when critics today say that Nupur Sharma was thrown under the bus, they are not very far off the mark.

Personally, as someone who has been at the receiving end of threats and intimidation when I was in Bengal (where I got immense support from the BJP leadership), I was sad, angry and disgusted by the conduct of the BJP in disassociating itself from one of their own, who frankly, did not even say anything wrong. They threw her to the wolves, to fend for herself and emboldened the barbarians multifold, not just against her, but all of us.

That said, this issue now needs to lead to a far greater realisation than “what BJP did was wrong”. This incident where Islamic nations came together under the Ummah, aided by Indian Muslims, only proves to us how powerless we truly are when up against the global Ummah. The Islamic community has over 50 nations to rally behind their cause and ensure that every slight, every comment, and every incident that they perceive as an affront to their regimental faith is challenged.

Hindus are no match and right now, it almost seems impossible that we would ever reach a stage where we can challenge their propaganda. One has to realise that the Islamists have several avenues to build alliances. They have their Ummah, which essentially deems all Muslims as one separate nation incapable of existing with Kafirs and then they have the global Left that is all too happy to ally with Islamists against any civilisational state that they think needs to be broken up. Hindus, on the other hand, have to fend for themselves. Hindus can’t possibly ally, not as completely, at least, with the Christian Right of the West because the Abrahamic perspective they come from is wildly different from the Indic perspective that Hindus rely on.

Therefore, this is an uneven fight that Hindus are fighting. Think of it as going into a sword fight with a pencil. When Islamists like Rana Ayyub, Mohammad Zubair etc dog-whistle, they get Qatar, Iran, Saudi Arabia etc to support them, even Pakistan and other Muslim nations, along with the global left. When Hindus need to outrage, they are stuck with writers like me. The plain is not even. The fight is woefully unequal.

In the run-up to the partition, what saved Hindus at least to some extent is the fact that the civilisational battle was geographically confined to India. Even when Muslims were fighting for the Turkish Caliphate, their fight was geographically confined. They massacred Hindus within our borders and while we can safely blame our leaders from then, like MK Gandhi, for allowing Hindus to die, it was still a battle that India was fighting at home.

Today, that has changed. We are no longer fighting the rabid Islamists like the Moplah Muslims or those Muslims who massacred Hindus during Direct Action Day, we are today up against an unseen enemy. The alliance between the global Left, the Islamists, the Periyarists, the Ambedkarites, the Church, and so on and so forth.

What is needed for a vast majority of people, is to hear me be an optimist. “We will not go quietly into the night”, I should say. While we won’t go down without a fight, it almost feels like “going down” is an eventuality that seems hard to escape. I often say I feel like every day, I am documenting our end. End of a grand, ancient civilisation as we know it.

Out of this abyss of dismay, my Wishlist is rather simple. Hindus need to wake up and realise that they are not in a battle of narratives for the benefit of a political party, but in a fight for their lives, for their existence, for their survival. While we have shifted the Overton Window to a level previously thought impossible, in the real world, one still hears deracinated and uninformed Hindus saying that Nupur Sharma should not have “unnecessarily insulted their Prophet”. I wish they understood that they will take a mile if you cede an inch.

Today, you might say it is unnecessary to comment on Islam and “provoke them”. Once you stop Hindus from doing that, tomorrow they will say your “idol worship is unnecessary” because it provokes Muslims who are theologically and ardently against idol worship. Our temples, our rituals, our customs, our traditions, and our entire existence would be deemed as an unnecessary provocation. This attitude is defeatist. With this attitude, we are bound to lose this war and the price we would pay for that loss would be our civilisational demise. It is an attitude that would lead us to our end, and an attitude, that was, unfortunately, also reflected in the plight of Nupur Sharma today.