India's Communal Crisis: A Call for Rational and Unified Action!

What’s happening in India’s socio-political landscape today has raised a number of concerns amongst different communities and has also raised eyebrows worldwide. India is a huge market for many countries when it comes to manpower as well as resources. That is why the world pays attention to what is happening in India to gauge their next decisions regarding investing or making business deals. Recently, CNN tagged Mr. Modi as “India’s hugely popular but deeply polarizing prime minister.” Should we be concerned? No doubt about as our Image in International market is directly proportional to our growth. It’s not wise to hold our big Hindutva pride and close our eyes to how world market views us.

I have been very disturbed lately when my rational mind thinks about this whole situation. Thus, could not stop myself from penning down my concern. I feel these are very difficult times, and every person who calls themselves a true Indian should come out of the shadows and talk about this unpredictable communal war that’s ahead if we choose to ignore the signs beforehand.

Can you be neutral? Let me present you with a few examples from the history of communal war and its devastating effects on the countries where it happened. Scars of the effects can still be seen all over the world. Here are some examples for you to take a look and decide.

1. Syrian Civil War: The most horrific of them all. We are all familiar with this specific incident, yet people need to be reminded on a timely basis. This war erupted in 2011 fueled by sectarian divisions and political unrest. This conflict literally ravaged the country, leaving piles of dead bodies and displacing millions of people. We have all seen the rubble of infrastructure on various media platforms; cities were brought to the ground, and let’s not talk about the economy. The country has not recovered since then. 

2. Bosnian War: This atrocity happened in the year 1990 when the world was making technological advancements from the WorldWideWeb to Google. This was also the time when the first website went online at CERN, and the most amazing tech till date, Linux, was making moves in the digital realm. However, in Bosnia, Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats stood up against each other, resulting in brutal conflict, death, and destruction. You can still see the war scars in the tension between these ethnic groups even today. Did the country take part in technological advancement and join the race? Well, I don’t see the name of the country anywhere on the Internet related to any technology, forget advance tech cloud computing, automation, and AI. 

3. Myanmar: One of our neighboring countries, formerly known as Burma. We can all connect with this story very quickly. This war was the persecution and violence against the Rohingya Muslim minority. Ethnic cleansing took the form of genocide, and thousands of Rohingya had to flee the country seeking refuge in neighboring countries. Ring a bell? Something like that has happened in Indian history too. The crisis took a devastating toll on the economy as Myanmar’s economy was already fragile. With this war, the country shattered completely. Not only that, but Myanmar also had to deal with international condemnation and mounting sanctions.

It’s well-known fact that when we forget the history, history repeats itself. When one community becomes stringent and starts spreading hate, another community becomes insecure and will do anything to protect themselves. It’s not a very difficult math.

The signs of an upcoming communal war in India have become so evident lately with the hate speeches by politicians which lead to violence against specific community which lead to distress amongst many other communities too. I do want to consider it a political stunt to get the attention of the masses and win. But… But… But… do not ignore the effects of these hate speeches. Media did an amazing job hiding what’s happening when it comes to violent attacks, mockery or human lynching. However, its peoples who needs to pay attention. The irony is that we are getting to know the real news from international media, and the Indian media is calling it fake news. That’s again very concerning as people are losing complete faith and respect in most important pillar of democracy.

Let’s take a hypothetical scenario. What if all the Muslim community vanished suddenly from Indian grounds? Then what? Will the communal hate stop? I don’t think so. Power is the only god politicians consider. By that logic there will be other communities on the next target. Is ethnic purity that important that we can completely forget about growth? I do not understand importance why any country has to belong to one specific community maybe. However, I do understand the effects of communal war. It’s not harmful to any specific community; it is harmful to the entire country, its economy, its infrastructure and also its image in the world and lastly common people on the ground. Some questions forever haunt me. Is it so difficult to live in peace and harmony? Do we need religion in today’s time? Do think!

This is sad that so many reformers came and gave one simple message: Humanity is the greatest religion of all. Some of them are great Hindu leaders, like Swami Vivekananda, Adi Shankaracharya. And yet we are fighting over religious. When people fight each other’s over religion people don’t get benefited instead they are at risk and have to bear the huge loss on the other hand political leaders benefit from it hugely. Do these political leaders really follow their Dharma properly? We need to question them. No religion talks about violence it’s the people who preach that religion, preach violence and mislead their followers into destructions for their personal gain.

Our beloved cultural country INDIA has a long history of many wars some with invaders and some communal. We have experienced the aftermath of those war firsthand. Do we need another one? Are we seriously that confident that the other communities will stay silent and there will be no resistance? How much fear did the British instill upon Indians, but when it came to freedom, people didn’t fear anything? There were riots, mass killings, manipulation, conspiracies, and whatnot. Still, Indians fought bravely. When you instill so much fear, there comes a point when fear holds no power.

Saving your country is not the responsibility of any politician, party, journalist, media, or any specific religious group. No one else but the people have the power. It’s the responsibility of the people who belong to that country to ask right questions, and when people don’t ask questions or start talking about what’s happening, then at the end it’s a loss for the people of that country. Violence spares no one. What’s happening to someone else today can happen to you tomorrow.

The idea of India was never fascism it has always been secularism. In these difficult times, I am trying to do my part, but where are you all educated, liberal, and rational people of India? Why don’t you come together to save your country? It's not time when you can just enjoy complaining. These are not also time when you can say we have our own personal problems to deal with. Or we want to stay away from politics. 

We still follow Bagheshwar Dham Baba who still practice untouchability and give Gomutra and Haldi ki Gaanth to cure cancer. But completely ignore that in Hindu Dharmagrantha Budha is considered as Lord Vishnu's some Avatara. The message Budhha gave to humankind is PEACE! 

Peace or Hatred your call! 

 Dhammayietra, an annual peace march in Lampatao, Cambodia at Thailand border against communal violence.