Dear Editor,
This is in response to the humanitarian editorial titled “Right wing groups on an upsurge”(March 25).
If any incident of torture against any Muslim citizen gets reported in Kashmir and it gets protested by Pakistan or by any other Islamic country; immediately the Indian state and “nationalists” will cry “Don’t poke your nose in our domestic affairs”! But if any Hindu gets coincidentally tortured by few fundamentalists in Pakistan/Bangladesh, the Indian state and public immediately start poking their nose in the domestic affairs of alien nations!
Why? To hide the scandals and devilish attitude of a rabid section of Indians and Hindus in their own backyard! The self-declared “liberals” named Indian Hindus are crying for the plight of two Pakistani Hindu girls forcibly converted as alleged! But yet to come across any saffron leader minister or “nationalist” Hindu common man to utter a single word of protest when news has just come how an innocent Muslim family have been beaten to pulp in Gurgaon during Holi!
Are they not fellow Indians! But “nationalists” should remain silent because the victims are Muslims and the sponsors of assault upon them happen to be Hindus! All our “cries” need to be reserved for foreigners if coincidentally the victims are Hindus and the culprit Muslims!
What does it mean! Indian Muslims are not our citizens! But Pakistani/Bangladeshi Hindus are our citizens! Let Imran Khan and Seikh Hasina deal with the communal and culprits there. And Khan has already done the unthinkable by compelling a minister of Punjab Government (affiliated to his party) to promptly resign following his nasty remark against Hindus! By endangering her own life, Hasina has ensured hanging of mass killers and fundamentalists — many of whom were accused of butchering the vulnerable Hindus! So instead of worrying over Hindus in Pakistan or Bangladesh, India should let the rulers of the said nations to continue their duty. India should rather learn to concentrate all its energy initiative resource and time to rein in the communal Hindutva brigade and goons operating in its own territory and jurisdiction and uphold the Constitutional duty of protecting minorities from the deadly fang of the fanatic section of the majority and award exemplary punishment to the culprits so that their fellow Hindutva comrades do not dare to repeat such acts.
Charity should begin at home. So instead of trying to project ourselves as “conscience of the world” by taking up the alleged sorry case of abduction of the two Pakistani Hindu girls; Indians should at first try to make their own house in order and see to it that no more Akhlaques Junaids Pehlus Afrazools get murdered in the name of “Gomata” or “Love jihad” and no more torture get repeated as experienced by the hapless Muslim family in Gurgaon.
Moreover haven’t the “nationalists” taught us about “India First”! Now the assaulted Muslim family in Gurgaon were also Indians. So “nationalism” demands that we should at first cry for our very own, for our brothers and sisters following Islam(in the Gurgaon case) instead of looking at outside affairs.
Sincerely,
Kajal Chatterjee,
Kolkata