A few days back, when I was scanning through the news channels, which actually forms a part of my daily routine, I got to see this "breaking news" of a young political leader, from a very prominent political party of the republic of India, barfing out his venomous hatred for the Muslims. More disappointing and distressing was the fact that this hatred was poured out before a considerably large crowd and that the speaker, who obviously was not just sharing his aversion towards the people of the community, sounded to have clear intentions to inflict others with and instill in them, the same aversion as his.
All that I could have was pity - not just on the very lad whose political aspirations, or whatsoever, had provoked him to speak that way, but also (in fact, more) on the secular set-up and demotic mind-set of our nation that has evolved not just over past 60 years of independence, but over nearly 500 years of Hindu-Muslim co-existence. Though assured of the possibility that the applause and cheers I could hear in response to the remarks made by this budding political aspirant, who has the descent of some of the most influential political figures our nation has ever produced, were made by a select-few factotums and flatterers who accompanied the leader on the stage and who were made to sit in the front-rows so as to give a false appearance of the speaker's ideas being welcomed, I still feel worried as to how could such a speech be thought possible to be delivered in the first place.
In the sequence of events that followed, I was a lot ashamed to hear the term "Divide and Rule". This is one term that we have always associated with the tyrants from foreign lands who thought the Indians to be fool enough to acquiesce to the ideology of seeing diversity as a divide. Unfortunately, we did allow enough scope for their cruel ambitions to be castled upon basic human bonding that Indians had had with one another. And to ridicule the wisdom that we think ourselves to have developed in all these years, came this recent incident that forms the background of this text. It has brought with it, at least for me, a lot of shame, concern and apprehension. In a democratic country that proclaims itself to be secular and receptive of all religions, castes and creeds - that has maintained, since the early agitations for independence, that India belongs to those who belong to her irrespective of which caste or religion they're born in - even the slightest possibility of people paying heed to any divisive intentions has to be non-existent. United we stand, divided we don't even exist.
I am not anti-any political organization or establishment, nor even have a choice to be pro-any. It's just that some people practicing polity are so crass to make the divisive incisions openly and directly, while others are shrewd enough to do so under the covers. No matter which side of the divide they stand, the very fact that they intend to broaden the gap in order to reap political benefits out of it disqualifies them for any kind of concession from my side.
What is indeed needed in our country is for everyone to disassociate themselves not only with the divisive ideas, but also with the divisive practices and institutions. Not to mention, we have, since our independence, had many such institutions, facilities, laws and services that make distinction - of some kind or the other - based on caste or creed, majority or minority. Although, such institutions, facilities, laws and services could be absolutely inevitable in an India that had just started walking on her feet, dreaming of India flying high with all of them still in place in the same magnitude (in fact, with few recent advancements like increase in reservation-quota, I should say, a bigger magnitude) is being overly complacent. India has to be a secular nation in every respect, in all aspects. So, aren't we secular yet? Not in every sense. The governments have to impose oneness and make merit and financial status the bases of any decision they make. At the same time, they have to ensure that anybody not being compliant to this idea (in action, because compliance in thoughts may require few more generations that are capable of thinking justly and liberally) is treated as an offender of law. Once such things are initiated and, more than that, get percolated to the very roots of people across the country, nobody will ever find an excuse of talking of partiality and biases and using them as tools to spread hatred, misguide people and gloat on the vote-banks they get out of all this.
We, as citizens of world's biggest democracy, have to answer the believers of religion-ism and caste-ism that we stand neither for a so-called "Hindu-nation" nor for a so-called "pro-minority nation", but we stand for ourselves, for our people, for humans and for the very idea of India.
