I had a dear friend since college days, a devout Muslim. we used to prepare for examinations at my home and I used to visit his place often and dine with his family. Both our families loved our friendship. My friend’s family had a unique system of entire family dinning in the same plate, entire family sitting on floor around a large thali. I enjoyed my dinner with them. But more than the dinner I loved the unforgettable unique sense of togetherness. He is no more. I miss him and miss that togetherness. This is just one example from my own life. But if you look across the whole of India, there must be myriads of such friendships crossing the man-made boundaries of what we know as casts, creed, communities, and ethnic groups.
Our common folk, which we call our India, is intermingled like sugar and milk. There is not even a remote sense of divide in our day-today-lives. Then, how come this quiet companionship is suddenly turned into a communal outburst just because of an irresponsible person showing disrespect to the religious deity of another religion ? It is, despite the silent ones who do not speak out and suffer, but, unfortunately, because of some few who are the beneficiaries. They create and fan such frenzy. The media which, in search of sensationalism and viewership ratings goes on showing the visuals of same violence again and again, adds fuel to fire.
But we do know the unshakable ethnic mix of people at large in this great country which has stood the test of time. This multi-cultural, multi-lingual, and multi-religious country is perhaps the only one of its kind in the world.
But when such utterances come from a responsible person of the ruling party, people are bound to be upset and strong reaction is natural. But it does not justify a rowdy violent outburst, such that it takes innocent lives. It hurts the common men of all persuasions. It is heartening to note that the most respected among Muslims, the clergy, have condemned violence in the name of the prophet who preached nonviolence and peace all through out his life and appealed people to stop it.
But unfortunately, there are some who want to fish in the troubled waters and fan religious hatred to promote their personal political ambitions. Should we fall a prey to them ?
As a country which stands on the threshold of a New India, removing all obstacles in our brisk journey to modernity, we must guard against such aberrations, to continue our unstoppable journey into the future.
We must, of course, ruthlessly punish, any attempts by whomsoever, irrespective of his or her political or social celebrity status, to disturb the invaluable equilibrium of our social-mix, not by unabashed violence hurting innocents and destroying public property, but by strong, just and fair arm of the LAW.
But let no one distract us from building modern India of our dreams by our collective endevour.
We the People 