Muslims have Become Marginalized and under Hindu Extremist BJP Party Rule

Muslims have never gained that real freedom in India that Congress, Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru along with Muslim leaders of the same part claimed. The genocide, mass rape and kidnapping and stealing of assets of 1947 is part of documented history. The statement doesn’t end here as there was always a class difference while dealing with Muslims of higher ranks in India. The results of the subjugation is visible in Arundhithi Roy’s novel under discussion named “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness”. 

It is not a writing by a Muslim otherwise the fundamental Hindus must have labeled it as a biased opinion. She is Half Hind and half Syrian Christian, and she is depicting a clear picture of suburbs of red Fort and Jama Masjid of Dehli. It was an ancient walled city built be Mughal Emperor Shahjahan. So, the name is still chanting there as Shajahanabad and Roy has used it as the same.

 Here we meet Mulaqat Ali, his wife Saeeda begum, their transgender son Aftab/Anjum, the teacher, musician and the other characters. They are the predecessors of Mughal Royal family but they live a marginal life. They live in smelly, dirty and filthy old small alleys. They do not enjoy the luxuries of modern life and they are offered with little of what a capital of a multi-community country like India must have offered.

The recent CAB law by Modi government has proved that Hindus either want to do a complete genocide andethnic cleansing of Muslims or want to convert them into Hindus like Queen Isabelle and Emperor Ferdinand did in Muslim Spai (Andlusia). Whole India is on riots and even the positive minded Hindus and Sikhs have stood with Muslims, and the attacks of Jamia Delhi or Aligarh University are highly condemned by world community.  There is light and sound show on regular basis, and the state activities are performed in Red Fort as well but the surrounding area and people are marginalized, not by white colonial rulers as Gayatri Spivak keeps on pointing. But the colored ruling elites who either belong from the same city or at least from the same country.

Urdu – A Diminishing Language Only as it Represents Mughal and Muslim Presence in the Sub-Continent

Urdu is vulnerable to get diminished as people have stopped using it, considering it a language of Muslims of India. In Mughal era it was a public, educational and literary language of whole Sub-Continent that includes India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Now the language spoken by Anjum in the novel and the great heritage of Mir Taqi Mir, Mirza Ghalib and rest of Urdu poets will no longer be cherished by Indians, being a language of Muslims. Narrative of extremist Hindus whose representative is the present government in India. Roy has shown her own grief of the situation in her current novel.