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ALL IS NOT LOST IN GUJRAT
Asghar Ali Engineer, csss@vsnl.com
Secular Perspective, May 1-15, 2002
No one should lose hope for Gujrat. It is true the Gujrat carnage is heart-breaking. The tragedy is soul searing indeed. Violence is still continuing in that unfortunate state. And the Sangh Parivar is continuing its job of spreading hatred against minorities, both Muslims and Christians. Thousands of leaflets are being distributed by them to spread poison against them.
One of these tracts has surfaced in the Gujrat town of Kalol in North Gujrat. This leaflet, according to Asian Age asks Hindus to train their children in karate, keep them away from Christian educational institutions and go in for complete boycott of films featuring Muslim film stars.
One of such Gujrati leaflet even accuses Muslims of inciting labour unrest in various business enterprises run by Hindus and of running illegal liquor dens. The leaflet under question also calls for boycott of those business establishments in which Hindus and Muslims are partners. “Recognise them and isolate them and do not buy any thing from their shops, because, indirectly, Muslim partners also benefit from their profits.” It goes on to say “If you stop buying goods from their shops then the Hindu partners will learn a lesson and break away from Muslim partners”.
The leaflet also attacks educational institutions run by Christians. “With the intention of giving them (the children) the best of education you get them admitted in schools such as St. Xavier and St. Anne’s and consider it prestigious. In fact this is the biggest mistake of your life. In order to make the Hindus forget their religion, the Christian schools inject the tenets of Christian religion into tender minds of the students right from their childhood..
Even Hitler can learn a lesson or two from such propaganda against the targeted communities. Thousands of such and other leaflets are circulating in Gujrat today. But the Sangh Parivar is not the total reality of Gujrat. There are lakhs of Hindus who have good will for Muslims and there are as many Muslims who bear no ill will towards Hindus. In fact when the Sangh Parivar elements are busy distributing these venomous literature a Muslim despite his riot trauma continues to distribute copies of Geeta, the holy scripture of Hindus.
The dargah of Shah Alam in Ahmedabad is another centre of Hindu-Muslim unity. Despite holocaust in the city the dargah continued to attract Hindus and Muslims. Shah Alam Dargah is 600 years old. Right opposite the dargah is memorial of Narsinh Bhagat, a Hindu sadhu. It is believed that Narsinh Bhagat once showed concern on how their friendship could be made an example of communal harmony. To this, Shah Alam said that every person wanting to visit his dargah would have to light a lamp in Bhagat’s memory After what has happened in Gujrat common people should gird up their loins and maintain peace while the vested interests are determined to disrupt the unity of the people. Nehru had once rightly pointed out it is communalism and not communism which is the real enemy of India. And let the Sangh Parivar, which claims to be ‘super-patriots’, know that India’s external security cannot be ensured without internal security, which they are out to disrupt.
Posted on 2002-05-28
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