Divided, we stand no chance

Julio Ribeiro

When I was fighting the terrorists in Punjab, my friend of 55 years, Sanjay Nahar travelled from Pune to Chandigarh to meet me. He was a great nationalist. I had met him in 1965, when he was a student. I had seen great potential in him as a leader.

Sanjay was disturbed by the separatist movements in Punjab and J&K. In the latter state, he felt compassion for the orphans whose numbers were mounting because of the cross-border terrorism then prevalent. He formed an NGO called Sarhad and took many orphans of both genders to his native city of Pune. He accommodated, fed and educated them with funds collected from his relatives, friends and well-wishers, who were many.

To Punjab, he came to find out why a prosperous people (compared to most states) wanted to go their own way. In the train compartment in which he travelled from Delhi to Chandigarh, he could count 20 men sporting beards and turbans. He guessed that they were Sikhs. He sidled up to each of them in turn and befriended them.

He told me that he asked each of them if they wanted a separate state of Khalistan. Only one man said ‘yes’. One said Khalistan was not necessary but the grievances of the Sikhs must be redressed. The other 18 said ‘no’; they wanted India to be a united entity.

Sanjay phoned me 10 days ago. He has been in touch with me ever since I left Pune in 1968. He said the Hindu-Muslim divide had never attained the height which it has in all the years he has been alive, that is 70 or so! He is afraid, like me, that it is going to be disastrous for our country. He had approached Anna Hazare, that old warhorse, to lead a campaign against hatred. He wanted me to join and I assured him of my unconditional support.

In my career spanning 36 years in the police, I have encountered communal hate that led to riots on many an occasion. Religion rules many aspects of a person’s life, including birth, marriage and death ceremonies, eating habits, culture and even thinking. Very early in life, a person born into one particular religion is made to think that his or her religion is the only true one and all other religions are false.

But besides the purely religious content inherent in such beliefs, there is also the fact that religion has been used from the beginning of time for purely political confrontations, and even war between groups of people in a country and between nations. Marx had dubbed religion the ‘opiate’ of the people. He was referring to the suppression of peasants through the instrumentality of religion. Rulers and politicians seeking to protect their vested interests have always appealed to religious beliefs to maintain their stranglehold over the masses.

So also in our beloved country! Our present rulers have shown their penchant for using the Muslim minority as a convenient whipping boy to retain power. Communal propaganda has succeeded in a big way to divide votes on the basis of religion. This had not succeeded in earlier elections. Caste had mattered more than religious beliefs. But in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the religious divide gained traction among the poorer sections in populous states like UP and Bihar. The unfortunate fallout of this strategy to capture or retain power is that it also divides the country on communal lines. Simultaneously, it strengthens the hands of the Muslim clergy, who like the clergy of other religious persuasions also strive to retain their hold over their flocks, creating a beleaguered and alienated community, now counted at around 15 per cent of the total population. This is a very dangerous trend that will eventually boomerang on our rulers and leave the country weaker to a critical extent.

When I returned home from Romania in 1993, I found just such a disgruntled and alienated community in my city of Mumbai. They had been beaten and bruised by Shiv Sainiks and the police, causing them to lose hope, which is a vital ingredient in the mental wellbeing of any common man. The Mohalla Committee Movement was the concerned citizens’ response to this severe alienation. It brought the communities together for three decades, but has felt the first tremors of hatred of late.

Divisions based on caste or creed are the last thing this country needs at this juncture of our history. To meet the threat of the looming danger from the East, it is imperative that we unite and stand together shoulder to shoulder. A statesman like Modiji must surely appreciate the danger of using communal hatred for electoral gains. He surely knows that permitting such hatred will lead to a deeply divided country. A deeply divided country will lack the strength to withstand a Chinese assault from land and sea, with around 15 per cent of the populace in a disgruntled frame of mind.

I am glad that my Pune-based friend has joined forces with Nilesh Navlakha to start the campaign ‘India Against Hatred’ from August 9. The choice of Mumbai’s August Kranti Maidan to inaugurate this movement is apt. This is the place where our founding fathers started the Quit India Movement. All true patriots should join the movement to restore unity and sanity in our motherland.

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