The ‘scholarly’ Aatish Taseer who called PM Modi ‘divider-in-chief’ says Muslims don’t need peace

The gruesome murder of Kamlesh Tiwari brought the ugly side of social media to the forefront and how radical Islamists organised on social media to plot the murder of Kamlesh Tiwari. Tiwari’s statement on the Prophet enraged the radical Islamists with various Imams and Asaduddin Owaisi calling for his head. Lakhs of Muslims had taken to the streets not so long ago to demand the death penalty for Tiwari and few years down the lane, the radical Islamists were successful in killing him in a Jihadi manner. Tiwari’s death saw Twitter get extremely polarised as hashtags showing the Prophet in poor light trended. According to the liberal logic, right to freedom of expression is a luxury only the minorities can afford and as if offended by slurs against the Prophet, radical Islamists pretending to be atheist came out of their closet with Umar Khalid and Aatish Taseer leading the charge. However, Taseer has gone a step further and asked the Muslims on Twitter to ‘organise’ themselves and claimed that the Muslims do not need ‘peace’ in a highly deplorable series of tweets.

Taseer when not spreading Jihadi agenda on Twitter, regularly writes for The New York Times who in turn, has nowadays become the mouthpiece of the Imran Khan government. Taseer crossed all limits when he tweeted in response to Salman Soz’s call to peace: “I have to say: I don’t agree. I don’t care one iota about the Prophet, or Ram for that matter. But this is not about the Prophet; it is about intimidating ordinary Muslims. And when that happens, what you need is not peace: you need to organise. Do not be caught off guard.”

It puzzles me what exactly what Taseer meant by intimidating the ordinary Muslims especially in the aftermath of the gruesome murder of Kamlesh Tiwari. His calls to organise sound dangerously similar to the calls of Jihad by the likes of Hafiz Saeed and ilk. People like Taseer who say that they don’t care about the Prophet are the most dangerous as they attempt to disguise the opponent through such statements. Taseer’s tweet is nothing but a ‘call-to-action’ for Muslims to start an uprising against whoever dares to question the Holy Prophet.

Taseer sitting in his comfortable New York office is openly calling for Muslims to riot. Ironically, this radical Islamic ideology led to the unfortunate death of his father. His father, Salman Taseer was a Pakistani politician who was assassinated by a Radical Muslim, his bodyguard, for opposing Pakistan’s blasphemy law in light of his father’s protests against the death penalty awarded to Asia Bibi for an alleged act of blasphemy. When Taseer was severely criticised for his tweet, toed the line of ISIS and claimed that his tweet has the ‘saffron knickers in a twist’ as he yet again called the Muslims to organize as if unfazed by the severe implications of his tweet.

Taseer has proved that he’s nothing but an Islamist Jihadi impersonating as a journalist and his calls to organize mirrors the call for ‘Direct Action Day’. Expectedly, many gullible Muslims have reacted positively to his callous tweet by claiming that they ‘completely agree’ with his views. This is an alarming development which can have serious repercussions and Taseer will be the one who has stoked the fires of communal tension.

Taseer who is (in)famous for writing the Time magazine article ‘Divider in Chief’ as an ode to PM Modi is ironically openly dividing Muslims and Hindus. Perhaps, there’s a different angle to Taseer’s tweet. Taseer realizes that the biggest threat he faces is not by the Hindutva brigade but the radical Islamists who have butchered anyone who has dared to speak a word against their religion. While Hindus have been extremely tolerant despite their deities being shown in poor light, radical Islamists don’t mind killing their own if they are to stand against them as was the case with his father.

Taseer is married to a man and as is the case in many Islamic countries, homosexuality is punishable by death. This might be Taseer’s attempt to extend an olive branch to the radical Islamists as he has realized their potential as they ‘organised’ to kill Kamlesh Tiwari as the autopsy report has revealed that Tiwari was stabbed at least 15 times and shot once as he was brutally murdered.

These are worrying times and Taseer had harnessed his inner radical Islamist to escape from a death sentence since he’s gone ‘against Islam’ by marrying a man. It remains to be seen till what end can Taseer go to placate the radical Islamists and I won’t be surprised if he becomes the spokesperson of ISIS in the near future and the NYT lauding Taseer for his ‘brave and stunning’ views.