Protest outraged by Dadri Lynching has reached its
culmination with the open letter of Ex-Navy chief Admiral Laxminarayan Ramdas
to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Pranab Mukherjee. In his letter he writes "Today,
as a veteran in my eighties, I am forced to hang my head in shame. Today, a
Muslim has to prove his or her loyalty, and they are being repeatedly put in a
situation where their places of worship are under attack, as indeed their
eating habits, and other basic freedoms,"
I do not want to
create a controversy by digging the past of Mr. Ramdass. We all know his
association with Aam Aadmi Party as internal ombudsman. I simply want to raise
the issue why such type of feeling is erupting inside an Indian?
Before
Ramdass, prominent poet and Bollywood personality Gulzar has openly supported
the ‘way of protest’ of literature personalities to which leaders of Bhartiya
Janta Party had criticised as “manufactured Protest”. Yesterday president of
Bahrtiya Janta Party Amit Shah in an interview to a prominent Hindi Daily has
said the “protest of poets and writers is restricted to Lutyens Delhi only.”
Surely flag bearers of right wing philosophy do not want to
give much importance to Dadri and Muzaffarnagar incidences. But to a common
men, loss of life hurts from inside. Whether it is life of Hindu or of Muslim.
With minor differences from here and there physical anatomy of all human being
are same. No matter he prayer Hindu Gods in Temples or pay respect in the form
of “Namaz” in “Masjids”
I remember a friend of My Grand Father who was Muslim and
use to live in old city of Allahabad. He used to visit our house daily in the
morning and we (I along with my father, brother and sister) gave as much
respect to him as to our grandfather. My mother always come in veil in front of
him as she used to come to any other elders of our family. By giving this
example I just want to emphasise the ethos and eidos of our society.
It is true incidence of clashes
which are recurring in these days is the result of bad policies of past UPA
government. To some extent they followed the policies of minority appeasement
to save their seat of power at Centre. But it does not mean that members of
majority lynch a man only because of rumours’ of beef eating. I have a faint
memory of curfew being clamped in our locality owing to Hindu-Muslim riots in
old part of Allahabad. As a child I along with friends used to visit non curfew
bound areas to purchase daily house hold items, that too on double or triple
time price. I could feel the pain of affected families in the clash bound
areas.
The question which hound my
mind is “will members of right wing thinking group will mend their way and
allow to live members of other religions peacefully in our plural society.” As
journalist I know this ideal situation will never ever come in reality but even
then I have a dream that a day will come when evil forces of society will
understand the values of life and will follow the path of coexistence.
