I don’t know for how long the ghosts of subcontinent’s partition in 1947 will continue to haunt the poor and left out sections of the Indian society. Whether it’s the human tragedy of Bhagalpur of 80s, Bombay of 90s, Gujarat of 2002 or Muzaffarnagar of 2013; one would find same energy filled with hatred to systematically attack, and physically and economically destroy the Muslims. I wonder where the liberals, intellectuals and media are who earlier had joined hands to protest against gang rapes last December in Delhi. Can’t they see what’s happening in the so-called relief camps set up around Muzaffarnagar after the worst riots UP state has witnessed in decades. Thousands of families are staying in tents under open sky fighting the biting cold winter.
Crude behavior of political leaders and meaningful ignorance of media towards these unfortunate souls have played a major role in ensuing no effective effort to settle the homeless people in their villages. Every other day some politician or bureaucrat comes up with his theory, just to score point or to salt the wounds.
Latest in this race is the UP’s Principal Home Secretary, denying that 34 children died in camps due to bitter cold. He retorted the criticism on his government that had cold been responsible for children death, then no one could have survived in Siberia. Such an insensitivity shown by the UP top official doesn’t stop here; latest insult came from the UP ruling party itself claiming there are no riot victims in the camps but few conspirators from the Congress and the BJP. Earlier the Congress’s Supermo Rahul Ghandi has claimed that relatives of some of those Muslims killed in the riots had contacts with Pakistan’s ISI. One wonders where this insensitivity and hatred will take the India.
It’s time to bury the ghosts of partition still haunting and targeting the Muslims of India. Pakistan, which separated from British India citing the two nation theory couldn’t hold as one country and soon got further divided based on ethnicity. This further division of Pakistan proved that no country can ever survive just on religious hatred – the sooner this message is understood by the ruling elites of today’s India, the better.
MASOOD KHAN
Jubail, Saudi Arabia
