Dec 1, 2024 03:00 IST
First revealed on: Dec 1, 2024 at 03:00 IST
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Have each Hindus and Muslims gone fully mad in our beloved Bharat? I ask the query significantly. The explanation why I ask is as a result of it have to be insanity that turns into manifest when individuals who flip as much as throw stones in defence of a mosque or to make hate speeches are so blinded by religiosity that they don’t discover the larger issues that encompass them day-after-day. All it wants is to observe rigorously the visuals that seem in your TV screens each time there’s a new struggle over a mosque, or a temple and you will note what I imply about greater issues.
For some days now I’ve watched the violent clashes over the Shahi Jama Masjid in Sambhal and the aftermath. As a substitute of gazing on the white mosque that looms over shabby bazaars and slums, I’ve been extra considering what lies beneath this mosque with so grandiose a reputation. And I’ve been horrified by the slimy drains that line dilapidated alleys, the decrepit stairways that rise from hovel-like retailers and the final sense of decay that hangs over every part. Pictures from the destruction of Gaza got here to thoughts and never for the primary time it shamed me to see that residing situations that normally come due to struggle exist in India in regular, unusual peaceable instances. Small cities in India are filthy, ugly and grim in all places but when there was a contest, the positive state of Uttar Pradesh would win effortlessly.
That is what makes it so puzzling that Hindus and Muslims ought to be preventing about mosques and temples when they need to be preventing for primary civic rights. I’ve personally not been to Sambhal however I’ve been to many small cities in Uttar Pradesh through the years and never come throughout one which confirmed the smallest indicators of municipal governance. In these cities if there’s one, clear and comparatively engaging construction it’s at all times a mosque or a temple that shine like beacons within the wasteland from which they rise.
As a substitute of preventing for the precise to higher residing requirements, Hindus and Muslims spend their time killing one another whereas making an attempt to ascertain that beneath some mosque there might as soon as have been a Hindu temple. Why will we not simply agree that when Muslim invaders rampaged by way of India, they flattened 1000’s of Hindu, Buddhist and Jain temples? Why not simply settle for this ugly reality? Why do we have to proceed blaming each Indian Muslim at the moment for what his co-religionists did a whole bunch of years in the past? Muslims will not be harmless victims both. They rally in help of a Waqf Board that has been notoriously corrupt and criminally territorial for a lot too lengthy. However when you’ve got a Hindutva authorities making an attempt to limit the Waqf’s powers there are inevitably suspicions that this is only one extra try to humiliate Muslims usually.
As I write these phrases a sure trepidation comes over me as a result of I bear in mind that there’s some Hindutva outfit referred to as the Hindu Sena that’s now making an attempt to transform Ajmer Sharif right into a Shiv temple. That is one in all India’s most revered dargahs (shrines) at which each Muslims and Hindus have worshipped for at the least seven centuries so if there was a temple right here as soon as, does it actually matter now? Do courts want to just accept petitions that demand a survey of those Islamic locations of worship after they come from lunatic fringe outfits just like the Hindu Sena? Please keep in mind that the person who heads this Hindu military is identical one who organised a ‘havan’ for Donald Trump’s victory within the 2020 election. A mad factor to do. Proper?
In all this insanity, if there was heard one sane voice it got here, satirically, from the top of the RSS, Mohan Bhagwat, who warned when a survey was being performed within the Gyanvapi mosque that it was improper to go about trying to find a Shivling in each different mosque. No one listened to him but when he’s backed up with different sane voices from spiritual and political leaders, it’s potential that this tide of insanity will probably be stopped. That is vital as a result of it truly is time for each Hindus and Muslims to begin demanding far more vital issues like municipal governance.
In cities like Sambhal individuals reside with out such primary facilities as working water and electrical energy. They reside in properties that rise out of rotting rubbish and when the rains come, their youngsters play on mud flooring that absorb sewage that pours in with the rainwater. These are cities during which temples, faculties and hospitals usually seem as if they’ve been constructed on layers and layers of rubbish. The air stinks a lot it’s onerous to breathe. And clouds of flies and mosquitoes block the sunshine and decide on the faces of small infants. Might or not it’s as a result of persons are pressured to reside in such horrendous situations that the one method they discover to launch their rage is by becoming a member of spiritual processions that almost at all times finish in violence.
As somebody who has traveled in a lot poorer international locations than India, I usually say on this column, that there’s virtually no nation on the planet during which I’ve seen residing situations extra abysmal than in India. They may enhance solely when unusual residents uncover that they want primary, civic governance greater than locations of worship.
