The myth of 'Communal Harmony' that's getting destroyed in 'Modi's India'

Renowned journalists pen down bleeding stories accounting atrocities on a certain community since 2014; foreign media houses feast on these pieces. Such articles, in most cases, are biased and shine the torchlight on one tiny selected area of violence, because the bigger picture is detrimental to their vested interest. Therefore, while one 2002-Godhra establishes Modi as a demon to the whole world, 1969 -Ahmedabad, 1970 – Jalgaon, 1980 – Moradabad, 1985 – Ahmedabad, 1989 – Bhagalpur, 1990 – Hyderabad, 1992 – Surat, 1993- Mumbai, 2012 Assam remain brushed under the rug.

I believe that writing this piece is beneath me, but if celebrated journalists reduce themselves to their religious identities, an insignificant blogger that I am, is left with no choice but to consider myself nothing beyond a Hindu.

Before I start squaring out the balance sheet carried through thousands of years of ‘communal harmony’, let me just say it out loud. ‘Communal Harmony in India’ is basically Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. We all know he doesn’t exist, but we deceive ourselves into believing in him for that ‘feel good’ factor.

Now let’s dig into the theory that intellectuals are selling since 2014 – the saga of communal harmony being threatened by Modi, of centuries of communal harmony being destroyed by this government. Which communal harmony are we even referring to? Invaders rushing in from far off lands, killing millions of natives, razing down their places of worship, burning down their libraries, enforcing religious conversions, do not constitute the base of communal harmony in any land. But let the premedieval history not influence our present. Let’s delve into modern dates. Less than a century ago this country was partitioned on communal grounds. There was no BJP instigating communal hatred in 1947. Then why couldn’t the dissection resulting in millions of brutal deaths, agonizing uprootments, rapes and loots in the name of religion be avoided by the Indian National Congress. When lakhs of Bengalis were getting butchered in Noakhali, there were only Nehru and Gandhi – no Bhagwat or Yogi. There was no Modi on 16 August 1946 when the Direct Action Day was orchestrated and Calcutta was turned into a graveyard in the 72 hours that followed?

Those were tumultuous years; let’s discuss more recent years instead. Are the late 80s recent enough? Over 60 thousand Hindu and Sikh families were driven out of their own land, in their own country after being looted, their women violated. During the shameful Kashmiri Pandit exodus neither was there a BJP government at the state of J&K, nor at the center. But a strong army, trained police force, and the esteemed constitution were in place – none of whom could salvage the citizens of this country. If humanity didn’t cry then, if prominent media houses didn’t see anything wrong in the way the then Indian government was governing this country then, maybe they should keep from hosting prejudiced opinions of peddlers of jaundiced journalism. The kind of journalism that writes the rape of Bengal nuns committed by Bangladeshi infiltrators as hate crimes by Hindus.

And here are some questions for everyone, in and outside India, crying ‘Muslims are being subjugated in Modi’s India’. Have you heard of the Hindu exodus in Kairana? Protesting some fictitious Hindi imposition, did you raise your voices when two Hindu students were shot dead by police for objecting to Urdu imposition? Did you call out ‘intolerance’, when over 300 Hindu families were denied their religious right to perform the Durga Pooja in Kanglapahadi? Why was there no noise when Geeta, Sanskriti or Divya were molested? Why were these girls any different from the child in Kathua to you? Were you moved to tears by the death of a Telengana temple priest at the hands of an Imam – all for playing the Suprabhatam? Did you trend hashtags when a priest in Uttar Pradesh was murdered for having cow smugglers arrested? You didn’t, because that was not yielding to your pseudo-liberal interest.

Problem is, I didn’t, either. I didn’t flash the victim card when, for one Godse, thousands of Marathi Brahmins were chased out and murdered, and when Sikhs across India were made to redeem Satwant Singh and Beant Singh. When ministers falsely dubbed the Mumbai attacks as an act of Hindu Terrorism, I didn’t object. My Prime Minister declared that one community has rights over my country’s resources before I did. Secularism of this country laughed out loud that day, but I stayed calm. I didn’t say “Hindus are living a nightmare in Congress ruled India”. I have lived the nightmare tightlipped for far too long, the vilification is turning unbearable now. I am paying a hefty price for my thousand years long tolerance. It’s time to break my silence because this yellow journalism that has so far decided the narrative in this country needs to be brought to reckoning.

PS: I know atrocities committed on Hindus don’t sell papers, but my pen in not up on sale either.

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