Tag: Communal Hatred

‘Are You Playing Into The Hands Of Pahalgam Terrorists By Spilling Hatred Online?’

By LokMarg

Vistasp Hodiwala, an advert professional in Mumbai, shares a toolkit to fight back hatred and bring back Kashmiris into mainstream. Read on:

The first couple of sentiments the Pahalgam tragedy triggered was a deep sense of dread, followed by deja vu. Think! We have been here before, again, and again, and again; so many times since 2014.

Earlier, any such tragedy evoked a healthy debate on policy issues, the whys, wherefores and hows. There were voices clamouring for accountability. But for the past decade and more, the questioning has literally gone extinct. In its place we have hyper-nationalist homilies from our ministers, dog-whistles from the highest posts in the land, and the media openly and monstrously baying for the blood of Muslim community. The courts do not even bother.

When a tragedy like Pahalgam takes place, it’s natural for the citizens to first and foremost empathise with the victims, and feel anger against the perpetrators. A revulsion for terrorists is entirely expected. What is inexcusable though is to hold every innocent Muslim across the country responsible for the dastardly acts of a few who wish to sow such divisions.

This is a territorial war we were mistakenly made to believe we had already won, by a government that thrives on false bravado and typical hubris. A policy failure, essentially. Finding easy targets within one community helps sidetrack this failure in more ways than one. For our rulers and their supporters, this has now become SOP 101.

As we have known since long, the BJP machinery operates 24×7 through thousands of Facebook pages, countless X handles and WhatsApp groups. The idea is to drown out dissent, incisive analysis and alternative views in an ocean of schizophrenic commentary that allows no room for logic, nuance or tough questions.

When the entire ecosystem has been so elaborately designed to protect the higher-ups, it’s not the question of WHO but HOW we will question the government.

Ordinary Kashmiris didn’t drop off from Mars or Jupiter. They have the same human emotions we do. They hurt just as badly.

When an average citizen sees something so utterly ghastly unfold in front of him or her, it is inevitably their best side comes to the fore. It is no surprise therefore to find Kashmiris react in the same way as any decent, normal individual would. The fact that we have to actually make a big deal of this speaks more about the times we are in, than about them.

The relationship between tourists and locals anywhere in the world is essentially a symbiotic one, and while they may not become friends for life, there is a sense of bonhomie that binds such ephemeral relationships. Muslim or Hindu, no one can revel in senseless killing when they happen at a frightfully close range.

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On one hand, Kashmiris have to grapple with the guilt (that some of their own were responsible for the carnage), and, on the other, they had to live with the palpable fear of all-consuming hatred that would follow. They did everything they could; one even gave up his life to save a Hindu family. Survivors were all praise for them. But that narrative won’t suit our chronic hate-mongers whose very raison d’être rests on fuelling divisions.

When institutions fail, citizens must rise. Very few of us, even after a decade, have the guts to challenge hate-mongers within our own circle of friends and family. Our social media handles are yet ‘private’. We are either too polite, too fearful, or too indifferent. This is not an easy battle. When ‘speaking out’ comes with a cost and starts affecting jobs and relationships, the choice is never easy.

But it’s not all dark. We see so many sensible people around us, we must keep faith and plod on. There are no easy solutions here but there is hope.

We must separate the online behaviour of the mob from the offline existence of upright citizens who don’t even have a social media account. Social media has a tendency to amplify hatred much faster than sensibility. But talk to your regular shopkeeper, talk to your students, talk to your friends, security guards, talk to everyone who holds you in good stead, and push back the hate narrative. Go out and share positive stories of communal harmony. Even when they don’t ‘like’ your post, remember that you have created a small dent in the narrative already.

Yes, that’s the only way to fight the unrecognisable beast that has been foisted upon us by our ruling elite.

We consider Kashmir to be our own, but what about Kashmiris who have suffered indiscriminately at the hands of militants as well as our security forces? How many people remember or even know about the alleged story that an English magazine has done about the unimaginable treatment a section of own army has reportedly meted out to innocent Kashmiris

Just as the Gaza crisis did not start on October 7, 2023, the Kashmir crisis too does not find its origin on the date this terrible tragedy happened. Many citizens in mainland India literally cheered when J&K’s statehood was taken away. If we are serious about this land and its beautiful people, we can start by recognising them as human beings first and foremost.

Help Kashmiris feel one of our own, restore their dignity, make them feel an equal voice, give them uninterrupted public services (including the Internet), and see them as people of flesh and blood, not a chunk of land that defines your national ego. Once you do that, you will earn the right to say Kashmir is an indivisible part of India, not before that.

As told to Amit Sengupta

Babri Demolition Will Remain A Dark Spot

‘Babri Demolition Will Remain A Dark Spot in India’s History’

By LokMarg

Shakeel Qureshi, a seasoned theatre personality based in Delhi, says if we turn all historical events into a vicious negative with violence, our future will be grotesque. His views:

Unity in Diversity: it’s intrinsic beauty and bonding, the manner in which the entire country of India – Hindustan – wears it like an ornament, is not only a precious childhood inheritance. It is a stream which is eternally flowing in our veins. I agree that some of us, that people who are like us – they have tried to rip apart the painstakingly stitched social fabric of India. They are still at it, and Haldwani is the latest example of the communal hatred which is affecting our social collective. There is a fear simmering in the air, and there is certainly a tangible sense of hatred stalking the land.

These people who are spreading fear and hate, they are not aware that once you start assaulting a helpless citizen in a closed room, he is forced to withdraw. But how long can he withdraw in a closed space? He is pushed to the wall, and when he has no recourse left, and when he just can’t manage with non-violence or a rational argument to save his body and soul, he has to retaliate. He has no option left.

Are we, indeed, trying to create such a pessimistic scenario, especially in the Hindi heartland?

Those who are relentlessly spreading hate and divisions in our secular society, they will not only bear the consequences in their own lifetime, but they will also bestow it on their future generations. This is a food which would always be unpalatable, but people will be forced to swallow it.

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I would reiterate, that humanity seems to be dying in contemporary India, but it can never be murdered. It will always remain alive, pulsating. I am certain, where ever they are spreading this poison, the collective chorus against this polarization, for a secular democracy, will emerge from there itself.

We are all dependent on each other as social creatures. We cannot do without each other, whatever be our identities, caste, religion, class. A person who dyes clothes, he does not look at clothes in black and white. In his tin of miracles there are many colours. He makes a kaleidoscope of colours which makes the world look beautiful, and we too feel beautiful wearing those vibrant colours!

As far as aesthetic beauty is concerned, we were once upon a time trained in the idea and praxis of beauty in our social life, in our arts and culture, in our dance, theatre, cinema and music. Now, a stagnant stasis seems to have arrived. We seemed to have hit a tragic crossroad whereby all that was pristine seems to have become dead and sterile.

People seem to have lost the capability to mingle with each other; find a shared synthesis in love and compassion. There seems to be a collective loss of belonging to each other. Everyone seem to be looking at each other with doubt and disbelief.  

This contemporary era of India needs brotherhood and sharing, and we have to work hard for it – with honesty and commitment.

The demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992, is a black spot on India’s conscience. Even then, almost the entire media and nation called it a black day. As a young person, we saw the violence. In campuses and colleges, debates, cultural programmes, theatre and film-screenings were disrupted routinely by the rowdy followers of polarization who were brazenly undemocratic. This pattern has been going on since then.

Coincidentally, I had passed the entrance exam of FTII, Pune. When I went for the interview, I was asked: “As a Muslim citizen of India, how do you look at the demolition of Babri Masjid?”

I had responded by saying that in FTII there is a studio of legendary filmmaker V. Shantaram, which is a ‘monument’ and it must be eternally preserved. However, if some people want to damage it, will you allow that?

That is, if you don’t like such an act, then how can any Muslim or Indian citizen appreciate the demolition of a mosque which has been there since so long? History gives birth to the present, and without our history, we have no present. If we choose to turn all historical events into a vicious negative with violence, then our future too would turn grotesque

In this context, please allow me to share a poem which I have written recently.

‘Distance and Relationships’

From my house, my ‘babu’s’ shop was not distant, at the corner of the Harphool Singh Basti… the ‘jungle-waali masjid’ would smile, once we zigzagged from one lane to another, we would say hi, hello!
The bells of the Arya mandir would create ripples in the body, and the sublime shabad in the Gurudwara would create sweet sensations, healing our soul…
If you cross the Sadar Thana Road, you would discover a stone coloured with saffron under a tree, which would protect the Bajrangbali, Hanuman…
They were all so dear to me…Like a beloved….

(The narrator has worked with the doyen of Indian theatre, Ebrahim Alkazi, film producer Anand Mahendroo and filmmaker Tigmanshu Dhulia. He also dabbles in wood carving and photography)

As told to Amit Sengupta

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Communal Hatred In The Classroom

By Mahendra Ved

India, it is said, is where extremes and contradictions are colliding all the time. One thought one was shock-proof, but it was not enough, to witness in the wake of the successful Chandrayan-3 landing on the moon, a school teacher asking students to slap a seven-year-old boy. And, after his tear-filled face went red with multiple hits, on his bare behind.

A fact-check journalist has been arrested for revealing the boy’s name. Given a clue, the authorities in Khubbapur village, district Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh, may well get hold of the person who shot the damning video or for naming the school and its owner-teacher.

Her defence of the act is ingenious: she asks other students to take turns slapping the boy because she is handicapped. No remorse. There is not even a defence for enforcing corporal punishment which is, anyway, illegal. The ‘Mohammedan’ students were incapable of learning, she said exhorting her proxy perpetrators.

The victim is a member of the largest minority community that has of late become fair game for anyone in authority, as well as the groups of vigilantes who enforce their street power. The law, if there is an outcry, takes its own slow, tedious course. In this case, the communal angle is excluded and she has been charged with non-cognizable offences. Familiar, again, are pressures on the family of the victim to reach a ‘compromise’ – in short let the lady off the hook in this case – or else, threats follow.

The outcry is because someone has filmed the crime and when it goes viral, it reduces its deniability. Salute to social media, despite its million faults. Almost always, the perpetrators/accused say the film is tampered. The action, the reaction and the remedy run on a familiar course. Regrettably, the political course is also getting increasingly normal.

Familiar, yet again, is caste and political considerations. They have brought the ruling BJP on the same page with many of the opposition bunch with stakes in Western UP, keen to garner votes of the lady’s powerful caste. Where does this caravan of crime and consensual compromise end?

The incident is set against a larger backdrop. A Delhi school teacher is also accused of hate rants against Muslims in her classroom. A constable kills four on a running train and delivers a hate speech stomping the body of one of the victims. An increasing political polarisation is steadily trickling into public and private spaces across India.

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One would have thought that lessons might be learnt from a non-issue like Muslim girls wearing hijab to school contributing to the electoral outcome in Karnataka where it played out. Obviously, one was being naïve. It has only radicalised and polarised the situation further, far and wide. This is evident in Nuh, Haryana, where people have been killed and maimed and their homes bulldozed, prompting the country’s apex court to question the objective and the objectivity that guided the latter action of clearing illegal encroachment.

The scene is becoming murkier and is giving forthcoming electoral contests a new edge. It circumscribes debates in between elections and in media where cacophony has come to rule. With few exceptions, media houses, small and big, are involved, for political favours, ad revenue and the TRPs.

Boosted by social media (the seamy side of the same coin), there are many more incentives for promoting views that veer to the extremes and stay firmly there, than for positions that reflect reason and sobriety, much less openness and tolerance. Sadly, the elections and 24×7 electioneering have come to mean little else in this world’s largest democracy.

The slap-the-boy incident is a new phenomenon in that what was confined to political issues, faith, caste and region, has now come down to the children and their schooling. A classroom, one thought, is sacrosanct and we still remember the school and the teachers who educated us. What is taught and what is learnt in it stretches into the future.

Sadly, the experience of punishment and the open airing of prejudices have become normal, even socially and politically correct these days. This sends out troubling signals for future citizens.  A troubled childhood could be the recipe for future actions that may not be conducive to society. The present may be sowing poisonous seeds that can only grow poisonous fruits.

Media reports another incident in Kathua that also occurred last week, in which a Muslim teacher in a government school reportedly beat up a student for writing “Jai Shri Ram” on the blackboard. This cannot be justified either. But it does not cancel out the Muzaffarnagar outrage — it only adds to it, and to a series of such incidents that betray, not mindless violence prompted by the social volatility, but one that also conforms to a political agenda.

To return to the terrain that wreaks of unnerving familiarity, it is likely that such incidents may get cancelled out by compromises that competing political forces may strike. It is also likely that after initial indignation, the episode, like numerous others before, may be forgotten.

The media have this thing about causing ‘fatigue’ to its readers/ viewers over an unpleasant incident, and move on, happily lapping up the seemingly delicious distractions that the people in power dish out. The “khao-piyo-aish-karo” is a convenient recipe for a media that entertains more than informs or educates. This may be the end for the Muzaffarnagar and Kathua incidents, like others that have happened before, to fade out or the public memory – which is short, anyway.

The responsibility to counter the brutalisation of the classroom must be owned by civil society, of course, but the onus is primarily on the political leadership, and especially the government that seeks to educate the whole world. This is essential because, God forbid, more such incidents could take place as India goes for multiple elections in the next nine or ten months.

Such incidents recur in the silence and ambivalence that settles around them, after a perfunctory show of indignation. They repeat themselves in the spaces vacated by a political system that ignores them to seek short-term gains.

The basic worry persists. What type of future citizens are we nurturing today when hatred and ‘othering’ of a region, caste or faith are promoted?

The writer can be contacted at mahendraved07@gmail.com