Dadri shame

Amit Kushari IAS (retd)
India had almost forgotten the shame of Babri when suddenly the shame of Dadri erupted. Dadri is a village in Noida UP, hardly 50 kms away from the National capital, Delhi. Muhammad Akhlaq, a common peace loving citizen of India, was slaughtered in cold blood by a gang of hooligans who “imagined” that he might have eaten beef after slaughtering a cow. Not only was he killed, his house was ransacked, his family members grievously injured, his fridge was even searched for beef.
Does an Indian citizen deserve to be insulted and harmed in this way, even if he had eaten beef? Eating beef is not a crime in India although slaughtering of the cow is an offence in some states of India, like UP, for ensuring that Hindu sentiments are not hurt. Hindus of medieval India revered the cow as a mother( ostensibly because we drink cows’ milk and buffalo milk). Now India is rapidly progressing and Hindus are also getting emancipated from their ancient, medieval mind set . Modern Hindus have started questioning the old theories. They are learning to be more tolerant towards people with different food habits. However, still abhorrence for cow’s meat is a big unifying factor for 90% of the Hindus. This is just like the anti Pakistan feeling among Hindus. Hindus feel very strongly about Pakistan’s border violations, terrorist attacks like ,26/11, 7/11 and Mumbai serial blasts of 1990. Hindus also have extremely hurt feelings about the exodus of Hindus by force from Kashmir in 1990/91.
When I talk to modern Hindus I find that even if they are not violently anti beef, like traditional Hindus, they have great misgivings about Pakistan, Indian Muslims in general and Kashmiri Muslims in particular. Most Hindus feel that the Muslims had betrayed the nation in 1947 and they look at Indian Muslims as stranded Pakistanis who could not relocate themselves in Pakistan due to their property interests. When the BJP MP from Bihar, Giriraj Singh, thundered, “ Send these traitors to Pakistan if they oppose the BJP,” he was only echoing the sentiments of 90% of Hindus. Most Hindus would actually be happy to see off the Muslims if they leave for Pakistan. When Azam Kham, the Minister of UP, threatened that he would take the Dadri issue to United Nations to expose India he was actually exposing himself as a stranded Pakistani. He actually said in his speech, and I am not joking, “ Humein kis baat ki sazaa di jaa rahi hai? Hum Pakistan nahin chaley gaye thei, is baat ki?” Indian Muslims always have a lurking fear in their minds that in future secularism may become weak in India, the Congress party which promised to look after them after the partition of India could be wiped out in general elections, and a Hindu brand of Emperor Aurangzeb may come to power in Delhi and their safety and liberty could be severely compromised.
If incidents like Babri and Dadri occur and reoccur, if riots like Muzaffarnagar and Gujrat rip open our social fabric, nobody in the world would believe that India could be a progressive and secular modern state and the world would believe that Muhammad Ali Jinnah was a better leader with a better foresight than Nehru. Jinnah had apprehended that Muslims may not be fully secure in India because assurances given by Nehru to Muslims could weaken with the passage of time.
It is a very sad fact, indeed, that our political leaders are now realising that to win elections votes of different communities have to be polarised, i.e these votes have to go to separate ballot boxes and the slogan of “Sab ka saath, sab ka vikas”, may not be an effective slogan. More popular slogans would be , “Humara vikas ,unka vinash.” In elections nothing succeeds more than competitive hatred and jealousy. In a direct fight love always loses, hatred wins. This a very dangerous philosophy which we should all shun, but unfortunately our political leaders are following and benefitting from these devilish philosophies.
It is a coincidence that the fallout of the Dadri incident is happening at a time when the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, is visiting India. I feel so ashamed. What would she be thinking about us? She may be horrified to know that Indians kill each other on such petty issues like who should eat what type of meat. Will she now agree to sit with us on the G4 meeting? Will she back India for a permanent seat in the UN? My only hope is that her tight and busy schedule in India may not allow her to go through the newspapers carefully.
The Central Government has sent advisories to state governments that incidents like Dadri should never recur. That is something very good and the credit for that goes to the Prime Minister. I hope he will come on the television also to reprimand and warn all such people who commit such heinous crimes. By doing that he could salvage the situation to some extent, even if that means losing a few seats here and there in Bihar and UP.
(The author is former Financial Commissioner, J&K)
Feedback to the author at 09748635185 or
amitkus@hotmail.com or tweet@amitkushari

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