One wonders, whether Narendra Modi’s promise of “acche din” was made to the whole nation as Prime Minister or whether it was made by him to the RSS in the capacity as its pracharak as a thanksgiving pledge! The outrageous remarks made by the BJP MP Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti in a public meeting in Delhi, the External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj’s demand to declare Bhagwat Gita as ‘national scripture’ and the latest mass conversion of Muslims to Hinduism in Agra by right-wing organisations by luring them with benefits under government sponsored schemes are clearly intended to polarise India on religious lines. The BJP government must understand that these mundane things do not auger well for the plural India and there are many an issue waiting to be addressed for nation building.
Syed Sultan Mohiddin
Kadapa (Andhra Pradesh)
Communal statements to divert attention from real issues
Despite strong opposition and criticism, BJP leaders and its outfits are not abstaining from making communal statements. They are fully aware that people are not voting for them on communalism. Then, why they are so much interested in making communal statements. These all are for diverting attention from real issues.
The party came to power by highlighting real issues such as development, price rise, women protection and poverty. The government didn’t fulfil any of these promises. When people demand to fulfil these promises, their leaders give communal statements to divert attention from that. Love jihad, conversion etc. all are part of these. And the mainstream media is playing a pivotal role in it by giving space to them.
Ibn-e-Hasan
New Delhi
An absurd, stupid statement
It was very astonishing rather shocking to go through an absurd and stupid statement of the president of a Muslim Educational Society of Kerala that Niqab used by Muslim women to cover their faces is unhygienic, and creates deficiency of vitamin D. Even a common man can understand the doctrines of Qur’ān, Surahs Nisa, Ahzab and Noor, which enjoin Muslim women to cover themselves. It seems that Ghafoor sought no other way to gain cheap name and fame.
Mr. Abdul Ahad Khan Furqani
Rampur, UP
A grim reminder, indeed
Dr. Suresh Khairnar’s article “25th Anniversary of Bhagalpur Riots”(Radiance 7-13 December) is a timely anatomy of one of the most infamous communal riots in independent India. Communal violence has been a recurring feature in Bhagalpur but the riots of 1989 were the most serious in their scale and intensity. The place may be said to be a victim of what Paul R. Brass has called the “institutionalised riot systems”, in which right wing nationalist organisations are deeply implicated. Historians such as Gyanendra Pandey have researched extensively into the Bhagalpur riots and highlighted the criminal role of the local administration in encouraging the attacks and suppressing evidence.
The pattern of Bhagalpur riots encapsulates more or less the general contours of communal violence in India since 1947, including the one in Gujarat in 2002. Almost all these riots have been deliberately precipitated as a device to polarise society on communal lines for political gains. Secondly, though labelled as Hindu-Muslim riots, more often than not, these have been turned into pogroms and massacres of Muslims, in which few Hindus are killed.
The 25th anniversary of Bhagalpur riots is a grim reminder of the dangers posed by militant nationalist forces to India’s pluralist ethos, particularly so at this juncture when these very forces are on the ascendance.
Mostafa Murshid Pasa
Rajnagar, Murshidabad, W.B