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When the State turns murderer

 


“Do you want all non-Hindus to be banished from India?” I asked. His instant answer was, “Yes.” And then like an afterthought he added, “Not all non-Hindus but …” He named a particular religious community. I made changes in my Facebook settings so that I wouldn’t see his posts anymore. I didn’t unfriend him just because he was my student once upon a time. The above conversation took place in Messenger. It left me feeling ashamed of myself as a teacher. What did I teach him? I wondered. To hate?

He is not a singular case. There are quite a few students whom I taught in a residential school in Delhi who are now ardent Modi-fans and staunch haters of a particular religious community. None of them could ever give me a satisfactory answer why their nationalism was so vindictive and malicious.

Some of them are celebrating the death of Stan Swamy now. Their celebration saddens me more than the gentle soul’s departure. Their celebration is a symptom of a deadly disease whose virus was injected into the veins of the nation by Modi and his kind of politics. Who can forget Modi’s Gujarat of 2002 which catapulted him to the nation’s limelight?

Stan Swamy is a victim of that politics, a venal politics that has already killed many directly or indirectly, literally or metaphorically. What was his crime? That he stood for the poor and the downtrodden? That he stood by justice and equity?

Those who stand for truth and those who survive fraudulence through humour are consigned to prisons in Modi’s India. My novel, Black Hole, ends with a stand-up comic named Salman Lahiri and a Catholic priest named Stan Rosario meeting each other in a cell of the Tihar Jail. When I wrote that conclusion I couldn’t imagine a dead Stan Swamy. But the very fact that Modi’s judiciary can keep an 84-year-old man suffering from Parkinson’s disease behind bars for imagined crimes sends every neuron in my being into a screaming revolt. My State is a Murderer with hate as its only guiding vision. That is a sad realisation.

Comments

  1. I think its to blame the politics which has given rise to such environment, as Hindus are left to fend for themselves, in fact was in Gujarat when godhra incident happened when the train was set ablaze and many innocent lives were taken for no reason and what went on aftermath we dont need great brilliance to analyze, we can conveniently forget what atrocities happen and do not react when these kind of things. To give personal example, have been caught in midst of riots when Dr rajkumar was kidnapped and the riots happened in bangalore, i saved my life because of police officer, who helped and some rioters too.....have seen many times one family opposite our house, they are born and brought here, studied here and earn here and praise other Islamic nations and want India to be taken over by them and we did not have the guts to counter and speak to them.....even now after he is not more his kids behave the same way and they are same people who adorn high ranking positions in government. I can go on and on....I am also educated and my PG from UK and have been on the other side and believed in being all inclusive and myself married a Christian RC but after seeing the other side of the coin have changed my views....my wife tells me Ur right wing :) I smile what's right wing and left wing when there will no wings at all. We have our differences but we love it.

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    1. Sowing hatred is not a solution to any problem. If there's antinational activity, there is the law to take care of it. There should be. If there's crime, the law again. How can people be left to kill one another because they don't tolerate one another's views?

      I live in Kerala where there are Hindus, Muslims and Christians (in that order of demographic size) who lived in peace and harmony until Modi's BJP [contradistinct from Vajpayee's BJP] took charge of the country. Today people hate each other in Kerala in the name of religions. Is that what you wanted?

      I have quite many students who are Muslims - past as well as now. I couldn't ever find the kind of antinationalism among them that you accuse them of. It's possible that some of them have bigoted ideas and notions. Islam encourages such notions, I know and I agree. But a country cannot let a whole people be killed by the majority because of that situation. A good leader's job is precisely to find viable solutions. Anyone can do killing. Even the beggar on the street can. We don't need a PM for that.

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    2. Nobody is sowing hatred its already been sown by the people who commit crime, what's the use of justice after the crime is done and try to hide and escape. Nobody is left to kill anybody..! please do not make mountain of mole hill. I think the other community also should understand that they cannot get away with crimes and sit under the umbrella of that people hate them. I come from security establishment so i perfectly know how things work out. they are thought hatred systematically.

      If you don't find people with antinationalism that's good, I have found that's what I am trying to highlight, and it is not a out of a blue incident.

      Have you meet a person/survivor of any bomb blast I do not think so, I have meet a person from Mumbai local train blast, the horror he is gone through as he was pulled out of the corpses and he was by chance noticed, it took him 8 years to even come back to work. Don't tell me about killing, nobody has been killed, if we compare and put together total number of people and jawans/officers killed in terror attacks in India. Who will answer their family and their kin ?

      Who is not tolerating whos views....please have clarity first......!

      No majority is killing u must be joking hahaha :-) people are afraid to go to Muslim leave alone staying and it is opposite they feel safe to leave in Hindu and Christian areas. Go and see how Kanpur in Ahmedabad once a Hindu and Christian majority areas are slowly converted to Muslim areas, where people had to shift to other side of the river to look for peaceful and safe areas.

      It very easy to sit, write and talk with fancy words, real world is different....I think even if a beggar can find solution for this then he can become PM too...!

      Read this article https://www.firstpost.com/india/portrait-of-an-old-man-as-a-martyr-what-left-liberal-media-wont-tell-you-about-stan-swamy-9781821.html?fbclid=IwAR13pMfNC0IzT_PT_Y5zCQMZb1QEus6PMboNWaJ-u20hoXXEW-SnQhONAC4

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    3. In short, you're saying let people do what they want. Good governance!

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    4. Muslims must live rent free in your head. So much so that you will bring them when the topic is not even remotely related to them. Obsessed victimhood.

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    5. Nameless and faceless people are either cowards or terrorists. I can't debate with either.

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    6. To Mr. Anonymous
      One wrong cannot be corrected by another wrong. Everybody who violates the principles of humanity and common justice should be brought to book. And yes, I agree that once the crime is committed, punishment to the criminal is a small consolation for the victim. Hence preventive mechanism is the need which should be met on top priority. Good governance means ensuring these two things. Else, it's bad governance only. Unfortunately, that's what's happening in India.

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    7. I couldn't have put it better, Jitender ji.

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  2. It's such a depressing situation we are seeing unfolding around us, as bigotry and hatred seems to have taken roots even among the educated, well-read lot. One can only hope we wake up before it is too late, but I hold out no hope.

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    1. Hope is a distant dream. Unless the vision behind the system is good, there's no hope.

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  3. Hari Om
    This news had even reached our news headlines this morning. I share your outrage. All the more so because now Hindus are looked at fiercely, when there are many calling for peace also. Not all are following this lead. It is truly disturbing how Modi has done what previous monsters (yes I use that word) have done; cajoled and fooled the fools and manipulated even the supposedly wise until in a position of such power one can only see - most sadly and regretfully - a very sour end if this terror is to be stopped.

    What Modi can seem to get away with nakedly in beloved India, is more subtle elsewhere. My darling Australia has a fundamentalist PM just now also. And then, the place of my residence, the Bonny Land of Scotland, is struggling to have any recognition at all from the narcisistic despotic ways of Westminster as headed by one AdPJ... I have told any and all who will listen, indeed many who haven't 8~P, that history insists on repeating itself... as a global tribe, we seem unable to recognise it. YAM xx

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    1. Fundamentalism is contagious. It has to be. Because of fear of annihilation. At least, of being overpowered as one of the comments in this space implies. Moreover, fundamentalism has a fiendish charm. It lets you kill with impunity, nay with glory. Killing is intoxicating too, as you are aware, I'm sure.

      Yes, there were monsters ruling my country before Modi too. But the crown should go to this man who has made almost everyone enemies of each other. That's good vote bank politics too...

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  4. It's a killing by the state for sure. And the judiciary is the partner in crime. Once the judiciary of India was the last hope for those victimized by the state or the system. Now judiciary has gone to the side of the oppressors (while pretending to be still pious and adorable by occasionally doing something right). What's the hope left for the commoners in this nation (if at all it deserves to be called a nation now) ?

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    1. It's a frustrating situation because there's no light at the end of the tunnel.

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  5. It is a very sad situation. Nameless, faceless people writing long monologues claiming to be educated is one clear proof...

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