It is that time again when all of us Indians should hang our heads in shame. What has happened in Muzaffarnagar is beyond mere repentance and regret. It is a national shame and we should have our national flag at half mast all over Uttar Pradesh and indeed in Delhi for the next month in the memory of the victims.
We should also ensure that the governments in Lucknow and Delhi do not easily forget their culpability in this totally avoidable tragedy. Our political parties should resolve to not send their glib spokespersons ( offensive at times in their arrogance and compulsion to shift blame) to any TV discussion on this issue as that just helps to trivialise this horrific act. Instead, they should be introspecting and examining their role in this latest episode of subhuman behaviour.
Social fabric We should impress upon our government and political leaders that government energies should rather be spent on putting an end to this cycle of communal violence and identity politics rather than vying for a seat in the UN Security Council ( UNSC). Will it behove India to be a member of the UNSC, while thousands are internally displaced and human rights are routinely violated in hundreds of incidents of communal violence every year?
Having experienced it at first hand in 1984, I can imagine the extent of human despair and cold fear when one feels completely vulnerable realising that there is no protection from the marauding gangs. One simply waits to be killed or worse still, be burnt alive or be converted overnight into life- long refugees. All those horrific images that I had thought I have banished from my consciousness come rushing back — of children traumatised, of women unable to save their dignity and men having to change their appearances to avoid certain death.
How can our politicians, who act with such cold calculus to let matters take their own course, not realise that their behaviour amounts to treason against the Indian Republic because each time such bloodletting happens it palpably weakens the already fragile social fabric of this country.
With each communal riot, divisions deepen in the psyche and hearts of our people and surely if this deepening continues, physical separation cannot be prevented. And yet our politicians do not hesitate to add fuel to the fire and bake their electoral bread in the fires that devastate homes and ruin lives forever.
My real fear is that the expectation that such incidents will become rarer over successive generations with improvement in living standards appears to be misplaced. If anything, greater material prosperity seems to be providing more resources to fuel the frenzy and more dangerous weapons to exact the highest toll of human lives. Clearly, we need conscious, deliberate collective action to remove this malignancy from our society. Who will lead the effort is the question before it is once again too late.
Venal ambitions There are is always the blame game and shouting matches, on television channels on who started it all. But does that really matter? What is it that makes the other side react in such a ferocious and sub- human manner? And why does not the administration, whose bounden duty it is to prevent such carnage, act in time? The failure of the State to do its job and accept responsibility is nauseous. This is a State, which has been debilitated by the venal ambitions of those who hold its offices and who will not flinch from leading it to complete paralysis and inaction if that served their immediate purpose.
Two questions arise. First, to what extent is the identity politics of our political parties either in the name of secularism or on openly opportunistic grounds responsible for the continued communal violence in our country? Second, is there any practical way in which the state machinery can be insulated from the consequences of identity politics? I am sure there are many complex determinants of identity politics.
The growing social malaise caused by poor quality of education, declining moral norms and rampant corruption among political leaders and their bureaucratic henchmen surely contribute to perpetuating this vicious form of identity politics.
However, I think that the principal factor for continued expansion of identity politics comes from the rent seeking nature of a growing number of political workers at all levels. I hear about cases of liquor being sent to community leaders for municipal council and university union elections, let alone legislative and parliamentary elections. Surely that is done in the expectation of mobilising particular communities by whatever means and then earn a hefty return once in office.
For a large majority who have joined politics ( and, unfortunately, for an increasing number in senior bureaucracy as well), the sole objective is to secure the people's mandate to get into office and then use it without any compunction to maximise private gains and raid the exchequer. These political functionaries ( they cannot and should not called leaders), who are opportunists to the core, have no concern whatsoever for people's welfare or for the progress of our country or indeed the challenges it may be facing. This must change.
Need for change The change could begin if we squarely face the question of a possible trade- off between the politics of so called secularism ( which in effect become a euphemism for identity politics) and politics of good governance and development. As far as I can see, political parties have used the excuse of safeguarding secularism to almost wilfully neglect economic development. This serves their purpose rather well because economic backwardness traps the youth in the clutches of identity- based politicians who then use them as cannon fodder.
We are witnessing a frightening trend towards the lumpenisation of our youth, from Srinagar to Muzaffarnagar. This is a direct consequence of the slow pace of development, poor skilling and scarcity of jobs. It is time that the electorate gives a resounding rebuff to those who practice identity politics.
We should force our politicians to focus only on development, good governance and employment generation. It is time that we start the process of putting into the dustbin of history all those who want to make their fortunes by dividing our people, robbing them of their human dignity and endangering this country's destiny.
