A heaven on earth in the making?

• India should learn from Bangladesh

Every human life is precious, be it Muslim, Hindu, Christian, or someone from the Sikh or the Buddhist communities. No philosophy, political, social or religious, ever encourages bloodshed and massacre of human beings. People in the present day don’t support even killing of animals and birds in the name of hunting. Things are changing really fast; brutality and cruelty against any living things is not appreciated anywhere, but still in some societies things are otherwise. Aljazeera published an analytical article of Pavan Malreddy and Ashok Kumbamu recently on 30^th August 2018 with the title ‘Why are the Indian authorities afraid of a ‘half-Maoist?’

This article is about the atrocities of the Indian government against the Maoists. It also refers to the arrest and life imprisonment of a wheelchair-bound professor, GN Saibaba who was pushed behind the bars by the brutally blind courts of India just because at the time of his arrest some material in favour of the Maoist movement was recovered from his home in form of a few hard disks, CDs, DVDs and pen drives. This recovery ‘proved’ professor’s connections with Maoist revolutionaries, said the investigators. How ironic that a person who is so helpless that he could not even move his body freely became a threat to the existence of shining India ; a country well-known for its advocacy of freedom and liberty of expression. The article says, ‘Since the Bharatiya Janata Party took the reins of power in New Delhi in 2014, assaults on public intellectuals, humanists, rationalists and secular forces have reached a feverish pitch. By the time the BJP completed its fourth year in office, prominent public figures such as scholar Govind Pansare, academic MM Kalburgi and journalist Gauri Lankesh were murdered by unidentified assailants.’

According to another report, only in June 2018, five Dalit rights activists were arrested under the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act commonly known as UAPA. It is an irony that they were blamed of inciting violence against their own Dalit community which they are fighting for. UAPA is simply a merciless law which enables the prosecution of Indian citizens merely on the basis of their thoughts and ideology, not necessarily for any actual crimes they might have committed. The report says that every month dozens of Muslims and Dalits have to face live burnings and public lynchings by the so-called cow-protection vigilant groups, most notably in the BJP-ruled states of Maharashtra, Haryana and Gujarat. The Maoists are being treated as terrorists though legally they all are Indian nationals. It seems that the BJP government has issued orders of ‘see and shoot’ every Maoist. Time and again fake encounters are staged and innocent Maoists are mercilessly murdered. Last April Indian security forces staged a fake-encounter of the same type in district Gadchiroli in which 39 Maoists were killed brutally.

The Maoists and the Naxalites represent the same philosophy. They all are in fact the members of the Communist Party of India which is the actual brain behind the Naxalite Movement in India. The term Naxal is derived from the name of the village Naxalbari in West Bengal, where the Naxalite movement had its origin. Naxalites are considered far-left radical communists, supportive of Maoist political sentiment and ideology. It has become almost impossible for the BJP government to crush this communist movement and the only option it is left with is a large-scale genocide of the Maoists or Naxalites. The BJP government is applying the same method in the Occupied Jammu and Kashmir also. In the present day, where issues are being settled through table-talks and negotiations, guns and bullets are becoming powerless. Today arguments have become more powerful than weapons. Intelligent are those who are willing to play such a role which could make this world a safe, secure and peaceful place. Settling matters through diplomacy is becoming priority; recently the prime minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina Wajid also set an example in the same context.

In spite of all her past hostility against Pakistan, Sheikh Hasina has tried to step into a new arena of cordial relations

It is a fact that Sheik Hasina has always been very hostile to Pakistan. Experts say that the hostility expressed by Sheikh Hasina against Pakistan is based on her personal grudges and this hostility has nothing to do with the people of Bangladesh and Pakistan. She wrote down a letter of congratulations to the newly elected prime minister of Pakistan in which she expressed her hopes for friendly relations between the two countries. She said in her letter addressing Imran Khan, “I would like to convey our best wishes for your good health. We wish that the benefits of economic progress and development under your leadership permeate all the strata of society and touch the everyday lives of the people of Pakistan. We always remain ready to work together with the countries in the region to usher in an era of continued peace, progress and prosperity and ensuring collective welfare of its people.”

In spite of all her past hostility against Pakistan, Sheikh Hasina has tried to step into a new arena of cordial relations. It seems she has realised, though late, the need and importance of peace and the insignificance of hostility as well but any step heading to a positive direction is never too late. Hope our closest neighbour India would also learn a lesson from Sheikh Hasina Wajid.