India has been the target of terrorist attacks in the form of bomb blasts in crowded markets like the ones in Jaipur, Ahmedabad, New Delhi, Varanasi, Faizabad or Mumbai, attacks on establishments like the Ram Janma Bhoomi / Babri Masjid in Faizabad or the Akshardham Temple in Ahmedabad, attacks on places of worship like temples, churches or congregations of people for some festivity, attacks on symbols of nationhood like the Parliament or monuments like the Red Fort and the vicarious personal attacks on scientists and dignitaries to thwart a particular program or the other.
But no attack can be as devastating as the one on India’s secular credentials. The very notion that a group of fundamentalists can destroy the mosaic of India’s multi-cultural ethos by a few wanton acts of destruction of life and property shows how little these groups or their masters, wherever they may be based, know India and the Indian people. This lack of understanding and awareness on the part of these outfits would have been laughable but for the fact that their unpardonable acts destroy so many families.
I like a majority of Indians have believed that faith is a personal matter and is just one of the roads chosen towards the same destination. It would be a gross error on the part of anyone to believe that any religion can preach hatred and encourage violence against another section of mankind. Killing innocent people in dastardly bomb attacks by a group of Indian Mujahideen (or SIMI if you please) youth, trained across the border as per Government agencies, is despicable but so is the heinous crime of Bajrang Dal activists attacking churches in Orissa, claiming to represent the Hindu majority’s ire against ‘forcible conversions’.
The problem with the silent majority is that it is silent. Majority communities everywhere become so complacent in their numerical superiority that they unwittingly allow the extremist fringe elements to hijack the social agenda and those who don’t know better start believing that the fringe is actually the core.
Having spent nearly five decades breathing the Indian air and soaking in the Indian spirit, I feel my India is not the India that these radicals, whether Hindu or Muslim, claim to represent. I have friends who practice different faiths. I have spent many years living in Muslim, Christian or Tribal dominant areas in the course of the last thirty years of cross-country travels across India and made many friends who helped form my secular values.
In 1979, I was barely twenty-two and posted in Ranchi. Around Ram Navmi, Hindu-Muslim clashes broke out over the route of the Ram Navmi and the Muharram processions. I was at that time staying in a small lodge, owned by a Muslim gentleman, in the Hindpiri area of the town. The riots lasted nearly three weeks. Initially there were twenty odd boarders but after three days of rioting when curfew was relaxed all but six Hindus departed to the safety of their homes. I distinctly remember the lodge owner and his two sons standing between the agitating mobs and the Hindu boarders. We were certain that death awaited us in the coming days at the hands of the mobs thirsting for Hindu blood. We had we run out of money and food stocks of the lodge had been exhausted. These three guardian angels and their families must have gone hungry for a few days to provide us with an uninterrupted supply of all food that we desired without any certainty of payment. I feel that was the time of my rebirth.
Similarly in 1988, I was around 32 and posted in Guwahati when the ULFA agitation against non-Assamese persons reached a boiling point. At that time when the agitationists demanded that our landlord evict us, he stood firm his ground. That gentleman admonished the student leaders for harassing innocent people and told them that they would have to go over his dead body. I also saw Bijoy, my assistant and a famous Assamese film lyricist stick his neck out and bring back two traders, who were abducted by the rebels and held hostage, unharmed and without any ransom having to be paid.
When these fanatics and their agents claim to speak for their communities they make a mockery of such valiant individuals. I firmly believe India is a mosaic of many such brave people in every town, in every faith and race. It is time these courageous soldiers of ‘Mother India’ became vocal and wage a battle to preserve the secular, multi-cultural and multi-racial fabric of India, as we have known it.
But no attack can be as devastating as the one on India’s secular credentials. The very notion that a group of fundamentalists can destroy the mosaic of India’s multi-cultural ethos by a few wanton acts of destruction of life and property shows how little these groups or their masters, wherever they may be based, know India and the Indian people. This lack of understanding and awareness on the part of these outfits would have been laughable but for the fact that their unpardonable acts destroy so many families.
I like a majority of Indians have believed that faith is a personal matter and is just one of the roads chosen towards the same destination. It would be a gross error on the part of anyone to believe that any religion can preach hatred and encourage violence against another section of mankind. Killing innocent people in dastardly bomb attacks by a group of Indian Mujahideen (or SIMI if you please) youth, trained across the border as per Government agencies, is despicable but so is the heinous crime of Bajrang Dal activists attacking churches in Orissa, claiming to represent the Hindu majority’s ire against ‘forcible conversions’.
The problem with the silent majority is that it is silent. Majority communities everywhere become so complacent in their numerical superiority that they unwittingly allow the extremist fringe elements to hijack the social agenda and those who don’t know better start believing that the fringe is actually the core.
Having spent nearly five decades breathing the Indian air and soaking in the Indian spirit, I feel my India is not the India that these radicals, whether Hindu or Muslim, claim to represent. I have friends who practice different faiths. I have spent many years living in Muslim, Christian or Tribal dominant areas in the course of the last thirty years of cross-country travels across India and made many friends who helped form my secular values.
In 1979, I was barely twenty-two and posted in Ranchi. Around Ram Navmi, Hindu-Muslim clashes broke out over the route of the Ram Navmi and the Muharram processions. I was at that time staying in a small lodge, owned by a Muslim gentleman, in the Hindpiri area of the town. The riots lasted nearly three weeks. Initially there were twenty odd boarders but after three days of rioting when curfew was relaxed all but six Hindus departed to the safety of their homes. I distinctly remember the lodge owner and his two sons standing between the agitating mobs and the Hindu boarders. We were certain that death awaited us in the coming days at the hands of the mobs thirsting for Hindu blood. We had we run out of money and food stocks of the lodge had been exhausted. These three guardian angels and their families must have gone hungry for a few days to provide us with an uninterrupted supply of all food that we desired without any certainty of payment. I feel that was the time of my rebirth.
Similarly in 1988, I was around 32 and posted in Guwahati when the ULFA agitation against non-Assamese persons reached a boiling point. At that time when the agitationists demanded that our landlord evict us, he stood firm his ground. That gentleman admonished the student leaders for harassing innocent people and told them that they would have to go over his dead body. I also saw Bijoy, my assistant and a famous Assamese film lyricist stick his neck out and bring back two traders, who were abducted by the rebels and held hostage, unharmed and without any ransom having to be paid.
When these fanatics and their agents claim to speak for their communities they make a mockery of such valiant individuals. I firmly believe India is a mosaic of many such brave people in every town, in every faith and race. It is time these courageous soldiers of ‘Mother India’ became vocal and wage a battle to preserve the secular, multi-cultural and multi-racial fabric of India, as we have known it.
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