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It is Gujarat again.
But this is not the tremor time. No earthquake has blasted the earth and its
environs. Only, the two-legged monsters are on the prowl this time. The ground
beneath burns and the sky shoots down fireballs. The innocent men, women and
children as young as nine months are doused with kerosene and petrol. The living
pyres are lit and humans turn into burning torches. The Delhi of 1984 repeats
itself. There then they were Sikhs here now they are Muslims. The winter of 1992
is recast. The perpetrators both times are frenzied Hindu communal mobs turned
mad by the party in power. Then it was the Congress now it is the BJP. Both
swear by democracy and claim to be the servants of the people.
But both act as
master gangsters when it comes to deal with the minority communities and
non-Hindu populations that live in this horrible land of saints and sages, in
this mad house of peace and tolerance, in this monstrous cradle of civilization
which is called India. All this is in the name of going back to the glorious
traditions of the past. How the "glorious" past will be resurrected and what
kind of a future it will bring is before everyone to see. These senseless and
marauding forces, which have crossed all limits of savagery and barbarism, swear
by religion and the best of all the human values. Religion indeed! We could not
have expected this from some atheist who detests the mystical but loves the
reasonable. Only the heavenly could have sunk to the netherworld, as only it is
he, who lives beyond the real, detests the truth and hates the right as he is
blinded by the creed that he considers superior to all and learns to despise
everything and everybody else.
You are not supposed
to rush with quilts and medicines to help the victims of the communal carnage.
This is not allowed. The saffron brigade is at work and blocks the way.
The police ensure that the fascist Hindu mobs do their horrendous job
efficiently and effectively. The military remains inactive so as not to disturb
the religious bigots who carry on their dance of death and devastation. The
politician speaks that it is understandable, that the anger is justified, that
the mobs have been provoked to act this way. The monster and its monstrosity
prevail all around. The State, the religion at its worst and the despicable
politician operate hand in glove reminding the people that this land only
belongs to the gangster. —This is the Indian democracy and secularism at its
best! It is not just state sponsored terrorism but state organised genocide.
The worst is the
complete Saffronisation of the society, the destruction of the minority
religions and communities, the Sikhs, the Muslims the Christians, the Buddhists,
the dalits, the tribals and lastly, the democratic Hindus, the
progressives, the communists, and the degradation of the whole world of Hindu
women into the manu ethics of slavery and shackles. Such is the dream of
the fascist Hindu forces who want to carry out their nefarious design by taking
on one by one of their prey. This is the Hindu Taliban at work. It has burned
Gujarati Muslims. It threatens Muslims all over India. It is preparing for a
communal holocaust throughout the length and breadth of the country. It
organizes one after the other pogrom of its adversaries. It is out to rewrite
history of the people of this sub-continent according to the fascist ideology of
Aryan supremacy and the Hindu mythology. It is out to corrupt natural sciences
beyond recognition. It is out to impose a medieval culture on a whole array of
different people having their own distinct national and tribal cultures. It is
Hitler’s fascism against everyone else again.
Frenzied crowds of
Hindu communalist forces roamed in hundreds and thousands burning Muslims’
hutments and homes. Those who came out to escape fire were hacked to pieces.
Properties belonging to the Muslim community were destroyed. Whether it was the
modern metropolis of Ahmedabad or the far-flung tribal villages of the poor
Muslim people, every place proved the worst. While the government did not bother
the counting of the dead and put the toll on 550, the unofficial figures put the
death roll above two thousands.
The leaders of the
Vishva Hindu Prishad openly declared that the Muslims would have to learn to
behave if they want to live in India otherwise they will have to leave the land.
An open fascist threat! If you dare oppose the will of the Hindu right you are
damned! Obey as slaves! Be respectful as subordinates! Keep shut if molested!
This land belongs to the Hindus and the Hindu word shall rule!
Fifteen crore Muslims
already feel that they are treated as inferiors. They are no better than second
class citizens. Right from a poor weaver to the likes of Dilip Kumar or Shabana,
whatever their position may be in their respective fields and in the hearts of
the multitudes of people, they are of no significance when it comes to the
religion. The most recent dictate from the Hindu fascists is:
Don’t buy from the
Muslims. Don’t sell to the Muslims. Don’t employ the Muslims. Don’t work in
their establishments. Have no social relation with them. Don’t see the pictures
in which Muslim artists are there. Don’t read the books written by Muslim
authors. In short, don’t ever care if anybody happens to be a Muslim, discard
him, despise him, and if you please, kill him.
This is hate
campaign. It is an open call for economic sanctions and social ostracism. It is
religious obscurantism at its worst. It is fascism in all its detestable
aspects. It is Hitler calling to pounce upon the Jews. It is the Zionist Israel
calling to exterminate the Palestinian masses. This is the call of the "Satan"
that is veiled in the garb of religion. This is the BJP led saffron brigade
at work. It is part of a build up that leads to the killing grounds at Ayodhya
and aspires to make whole of India into a bleeding, burning and defiling land
for men, women and children.
Muslims have been
declared untouchables and enemies. The prime minister declared just a few days
before the Gujarat carnage that his party does not need the Muslim votes. Next
he may declare that his party does not need Christians’ votes. His saffron
brigade is already burning down churches and mosques. It threatened preachers of
all the religions except the Hindus not to convert anyone to any of their
religion. All this has been going on for years. Christian are the relatively new
addition in their target list while the Muslims have all along been subjected to
frequent pogroms and massacres every now and then. Right from 1947 they have
faced the wrath of hostile fanatic Hindu crowds instigated and abetted by the
rulers and the state. Gujarat is only the latest addition. Not that it is the
first time in Gujarat that it has happened there. It has always,
whenever a communal carnage happens Gujarat ensures its entry into the chronicle
of crimes. This time it only started there.
They say that it is
because Godhra was enacted that all the Muslims must pay for that. Narinder Modi
said, " Har Kriya Ki Pratikriya hoti Hi Hai" (Every action has a
reaction). This is sheer villainy. The counter argument will run: Godhra
happened because the communal Hindus misbehaved and hurled abuses on the Muslims
who work on the Godhra railway station every time they passed that way and due
to the overall charged anti-Muslim atmosphere that has come to stay in the wake
of the steep rise of Hindu communalism after the demolition of Babri Masjid back
in 1992.
The right way is not
to lapse into such sort of endless feud that would justify every retaliation in
the narrowest of the confines. One has to go beyond the immediate and come
closer to the overall, the deciding factor, that pushes the things forward to
such types of acts. The reality is that the vested interests of the ruling
classes are instigating the majority community to pull the country into the
quagmire of internecine war where the real unity of the people gets broken and
they draw out their daggers to slit the throat of their imaginary enemy. While
the real culprit enjoys protection and satiates his lust for power. It is the
election politics. The workings of the Indian democracy that only put the
enemies of the people in power, the forces that are selling the country to the
imperialists cheap. The forces who want to ride at the backs of the deprived
multitudes of crores of people who are finding it impossible to sustain and make
both ends meet in these hard times.
‘Make them fight each
other otherwise they will come after you’, that is the lesson the Indian ruling
classes have learnt from their British imperialist masters. The people will
start chasing the rulers unless they are made to fight against each other.
Whenever anti-capitalist and anti-state struggles happen in the working class
districts or the peasants rise up in protest in the vast rural areas the Hindu
and Muslim working people shed their blood on the same side of the barricades.
Their real unity comes to the fore. The unity which gets realised due to their
class position. Then nobody has to appeal for any communal harmony. It comes
automatically. The class makes them stand together, fight together and die
together. The religion does not come in-between. No fanaticism raises its head.
No inter-communal peace marches are required. The people stand as one, as class
brethren. This is what the rulers fear. This is what the reactionaries are
afraid of. This is what the religious priests are scared of. The whole set-up
fears it because the set-up is anti-people to the core. When the likes of Ajab
Singh and Mohammad Irfan die in Delhi in November 2000 while fighting against
the forces of the State the fanaticists get fearful. The system gets fearful
when it sees Hindus and Muslims become comrades-in-arms fighting unitedly for a
cause.
The only salvation
from the specter of communalism lies in the class unity and in the struggle that
is meant for a better system. Not going back into the older times. Not reaching
out to the religious authorities for doing something for amelioration. Not
taking up the position of the fanatic adversary and fall into the trap. Not
appeasing the communal forces that are out to destroy whatever is good and just.
Religion cannot deliver. It never has. It never will.
The world has turned
a full circle with the temporary dissolution of the communist states that once
showed the way forward to humanity for the complete emancipation of the mankind
from darkness, oppression, degradation, poverty and exploitation. The times have
fallen back on the worst kinds of reactionary ideologies that destroy the human
being from within, turn him into a beast who pounces upon fellow human beings
only because they are from a different race, a different religion, a different
culture and a different national group. Turn this thing upside down and you will
see that the race, religion, culture and national groups need equality, respect
and no oppression. Only a proletarian led democratic revolution can ensure that.
The right to worship without any hindrance but no fanaticism and no communalism
and no misuse of the religion in any form. Brotherhood among nations, cultures
and races all assured.
No force on earth
other than a peoples’ democratic state can guarantee these things. It is
time to put an end to all the madness and the misery arising out of it. The
times are crying for that.
It is time all the
religious minorities that are oppressed unite as one and struggle against the
organised Hindu fascist onslaught.
It is time all the
democratic and anti-communal forces take up the initiative to defend their
Muslim brethren wherever and whenever they are threatened.
It is time the
revolutionary communist forces take up the lead as only they can deliver in the
final analysis.
It is time that no
appeasement to the Hindu communalist forces be done as this will only embolden
them and harm the interests of the people in general and the proletariat in
particular.
It is time the people are organised
in their class organisations and the class battles be brought to the fore to
cement real unity among the people.
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