We got company

I woke up and saw a lot of hype on electronic and print media about the blasphemous act carried out at a morning show of a renowned TV channel of the country. My facebook’s and twitter’s news feed flooded with hostile content against them and demanded shutting down the channel.

Calm down people, there is a lot more going on across the border that we need to care about. Power of our neighboring country and one of the world’s largest democracy is en route 11 Ashoka Road, New Delhi 110001. That right BJP is back in power, after ousting the Gandhi dynasty in a humiliating defeat for the first time in 128 years and former Gujraat CM (Feb 2002, rings any bell?) is all set to become 14^th Prime Minister of India.

The infamous Hindutva, Hindu Nationalism, movement is in power again and we have heard every now and then that BJP won’t be that ‘tolerant’ to Pakistan as its predecessor had been. Nehru’s secular India is now in the hands of the likes of L.K Advani and A.B Vajpayee, with the prime aim of cleansing Mother India of ‘impurity’ and cleanse its soil. This may take the cold war going on between India and Pakistan to a new level.

It was the morning of February 27^th 2002, Sabarmati Express pulled into the train station of Godhra, a small town in the Western Indian state of Gujarat, ruled by a Hindu nationalist government since 1995. The train was going back from Ayodhya taking the cadres of Hindu right where they had been to demonstrate their demands of bringing down the Baburi mosque and build the temple dedicate to Hindu deity Ram. The train was burned resulting in death of 58 passengers including many women and children.

Retaliation soon followed, street of Gujarat and Ahmedabad bathed in blood as enraged Hindu activists took on streets, torched Muslim properties, killed Muslim men, women and children. Women were raped and children were butchered, while the then Gujarati government played a role of spectator. Instead of punishing the perpetrators of the train incident, something a civilized government would have done, the state government allowed revenge killings. Apart from massive killings, reports say that about 100,000 Muslims were displaced to state’s ramshackle refugee camps where basic amenities were minimal and living conditions abysmal.

Dionne Bunsha, an award-winning journalist from Mumbai, while writing on the Gulbarg Society massacre and murder of a resident named Ehsan Jafri, has said that Jafri begged the crowd to spare the women, he was dragged into street and forced to parade naked yet he refused to say ‘Jai Shri Ram’. He was then beheaded and thrown onto a fire, following this the rioters returned and burned Jafri’s family including two small boys to death. It is estimated that at least 250 girls and women had been gang raped and then burned to death, according to Kalpana Kannabiran the rapes were part of well-organized deliberate and pre-planned strategy and that puts the violence in the area of a political pogrom and genocide. According to Vandana Shiva “young boys have been taught to burn, rape and kill in the name of Hindutva.”

Narendra Modi was the then CM of Gujarat, and now he is all set to become next PM of India. The Muslims of India seems to have forgotten of the past and they seem to have trusted BJP over INC since most of the Muslim clerics have exercised their trust. According to a report in Economic Times the Muslims too have voted for the BJP in large numbers especially in the main political battleground of Uttar Pradesh. Maulana Mehmood Madni, the powerful head of Deoband sect, Maulana Tauqeer Raza of the Bareillvy sect and Maulana Kalbe Jawad, the most influential Shia cleric of UP seemed disappointed from the Congress side, according to them Congress leaders have disappointed their Muslim supporters and they exhorted Prime Minister-elect Modi to fulfill the promises he has made to the community and the country.

But as is the nature of typical Sub-continent politicians, promises are forgotten as soon as power rest in their hands. BJP has been a Hindu nationalist party, ideologies of both BJP’s and those of Shiv Sena’s (Shiv’s Army) are identical. Shiv Sena never accepted Pakistan, the sheer Muslim presence on Sub-continent soil is totally unacceptable to them let alone a Muslim state. All though Modi have said it that minorities are to be treated with justice but a recent Tweet by Mr. Modi speaks Bal Thackeray’s language with the same old ideology of ‘cleansing’.

I now fear the fate of my Muslim brothers and sisters across the border, diplomatic ties with India may take a dip and peace talks may get turbulent. This is all we’ve got for now, our govt should deal well with the stern language of Modi, Mr. Chaudry Shujaat’s statement was quite a brave one when he said ‘ties with Modi depends on his attitude’ too bad he is way too impotent to say that. I wish our PM to say the same thing. For if we kept on staying low then GOD knows what would happen, the beating of a Pakistan student in an Indian university is just the beginning.