A Single Issue Voter

I don’t believe most people quite grasp the value of Hindu Vote. Hindus all over the world vote for politicians that they believe will move the agenda forward towards Education, Infrastructure, Healthcare, Economy etc. Many in India will vote along caste lines too. The belief is that those representatives will make policies more favorable to those specific Jaatis or Issues. Sometimes they do also. 

Muslim people all over the world, do not do that. They may be broadly divided into five categories. Liberal Muslims, Somewhat Liberal Muslims, Mainstream Muslims, Hardcore Muslims and Fundamentalists. Aside from being Muslim, they have one more thing in common. They all want a little bit more Islam in their lives. 

A liberal muslim, perhaps a doctor or technology specialist, who has provided modern education to their kids just wants a bigger Mosque in the area where he lives. He will donate and collect funds for the same. A “somewhat liberal muslim”who has a big Mosque already behind his house  wants to make sure that all his family goes there and keeps Ramadaan. A “mainstream muslim” who has the Mosque, keeps Ramadaan would like his daughters to wear a Hijab at-least and will do representations in schools for them to have that right. A hardcore muslim wants Burqua on his women and Azaan on loudspeakers and Sharia. to be implemented. A fundamentalist would like to force Sharia on everyone else. 

In all cases they seek a little more Islam than they have. So they vote with the number one priority of a little bit more Islam in their lives and for any politician who will deliver that. Rest of the issues like traffic, roads, bridges, education, healthcare, economy are secondary. 

Now one could argue that adherents of any faith, spiritual persuasion or ideology would want progression of the same. However here Islam has a unique characterstic. It allows no other persuasion to survive, not even the more liberal versions of Islam itself. So once population dynamics change in it’s favor the swords come out and nothing except the most fundamentalist of it’s versions are allowed as in Afganistan, Iran, Lebnan etc. All liberal thought and people are either sidelined, coerced away or destroyed. 

In order to respond to it, everyone else especially Hindus who are not people of the book and are the biggest targets, must also vote to first and foremost push back against this social, political and judicial encroachment. Then come other issues. They must become a Single Issue Voter. 

All progress is subject to a free and open society and security of it’s people like people in Lebanon, Iran, now Bangladesh and Pakistan are finding out. Over-run with poverty and violence, these societies were once rich prosperous and free lands. Not any more. Step by step encroachment of Islam have rendered them to medieval ages in terms of human rights, women’s rights and material prosperity. Even if the Earth temperature increases by one tenth of a degree a day, soon enough it will not be able to sustain life. In a similar way, even with modest  encroachment of Islam in public life in each step, it eventually reaches it’s fundamentalist disposition and coerces or destroys all other ways of life. 

Here is something more to think about. In Burma on one side of violence is Budhists, other side Muslims. In India and Bangladesh, on one side is Hindus and other side muslims. In Israel on one side is Jews and other side is Muslims. In China on one side is Communists and other side is Muslims. In Europe now, on one side Christians or Secularists or Liberals and other side is Muslims. 

Why? 

If the Hindu vote is not consolidated behind those who can push back against this agenda of global expansion of Islam, all the technology, all the roads, bridges, tunnels and hospitals you build will one day get controlled by people who own the political landscape. Lebanan was a Christian Majority country once with fabulous economy and European level infrastructure. Now it’s not. Eighty percent people live under poverty line, but all of them still vote for just a little bit more Islam. Same in Pakistan. Same in Bangladesh.

You choose.