Almost four and half years back, former governor of Louisiana and candidate for 2016 US presidential election, Bobby Jindal, in a speech prepared for delivery at a British think tank, had said that Muslims have a tendency of establishing ‘no-go zones’ in some countries. Jindal had said that some immigrants were seeking “to colonize Western countries, because setting up your own enclave and demanding recognition of a no-go zone are exactly that.” Needless to say, the statement created controversy in the left-liberal media establishment and long editorials were published by intellectual elites which criticized the ‘politically incorrect’ statement by Jindal.
However, that doesn’t change the fact that there are Islamic ‘no-go zones’ across the world. Many cities in the western world are being ‘Islamized’ and the areas with a Muslim majority population have a trend of wanting to implement ‘Sharia Law’ while refusing to follow the state laws. “There are actual cities like Birmingham that are totally Muslim, where non-Muslims just simply don’t go in,” said American author Steven Emerson.
In India, there are Muslim ghettos in almost every big city. In Mumbai, the financial capital of India, Muslim ghettos like Dongri and Bhendi Bazar have been a breeding ground for organized criminal activities. Dongri had been home to some of the biggest names like Karim Lala, Dilip Aziz, Haji Mastan, Yusuf Batla, Mamu Langda, Tariq Takla, Moin Totla and Dawood Ibrahim involved in organized crime.
These ‘no go zones’ are areas where police officials fear to go and common middle-class families instruct their wards not to visit. These areas are a hub of criminal activities like drug cartels, child trafficking, arms trade, extortion, contract killing soon and so forth. These areas are breeding ground for the people and ‘leaders’ who do not follow the law of the land and are hell-bent in changing the administration of the area according to their will.
Almost every city in northern and western India has areas where only the people from a particular community live. These areas become ‘no-go zones’ over a period of time as law enforcement in these areas become a very tough job.
Ram Ohri, a retired IPS officer wrote about ‘no-go zones’ in West Bengal in an article in IndiaFacts. As per the article, “Over a period of time a number of ‘No-Go’ zones were created in West Bengal by the illegal infiltrators from Bangladesh duly aided by hundreds of ISI-embedded spy-modules nurtured by the radical outfits operating from Bangladesh like Jamaat- e- Islami Bangladesh , Chhatra Shibir, Jamat-ul- Mujahideen Bangladesh, etc.”
In an article in The Wire titled ‘Inside Ahmedabad’s Juhapura: What It’s Like for Muslims to Live in a Ghetto’, political scientist Christophe Jaffrelot And Sharik Laliwala wrote about the schooling in these areas, “These schools are heavily influenced by the religious idiom, impose moral restrictions on inter-mingling of different genders, prescribe an ‘Islamic’ dressing for students and promote religious virtues such as doing namaz five times a day and fasting during the month of Ramzan.”
The ‘no-go zones’ are places of lawlessness and anarchy. One can see high population density, low quality of life in these areas. The local representatives are involved in rampant corruption and gulp all the money the local government gives for public goods, amenities and infrastructure. The overhead hanging wires, filth, poor and malnourished children, stray animals, heap of garbage on roads are the hallmark of these areas.
The public properties are also not safe in these areas with shopkeepers encroaching on roads could be seen in any Muslim ghettos. According to The Wire article cited above, “Hindus mostly stay away from the locality as ghettoes often invoke the image of an underclass, uncivilized and criminal Muslim locality.”
The Indian government should ‘redevelop’ these ghettos. The organized crime in these areas should be dealt with an iron hand and crackdown on ‘illegal activities’ should be the priority.
