Born and Brought Up In Fear!
Waning toleration and mounting hatred, religious identities and the
discriminative relationship between them in India has always been instrumental
in propagating redundant fears.
A recent article
by a friend on his blog talked about an invisible tension, based on religious
prejudices, being strongly felt even among the educated youth. What I inferred
from the article was that the Indian psyche is far more intricately entangled
in the Hindu-Muslim bigotry than the superficialities of politics and
traditions. People without any convincing reason are afraid of each other, as
if it’s in their blood. Of course, much of the frictions have been inherited from
our ancestors, while most others are of our own creation in a period which
doesn’t much belong to history yet.
Historical facts apart, there should be an underlying factor that
influences the historical events and thereby this hatred, this fear. But often
have I wondered, is it just a factor or a benefactor? The whole history of the
world seems to be so manipulated by some people, some unseen puppeteers. Till
the time of Hitler, during which it peaked and then declined, there was hatred
and fear of the Jews. But as it appears, after the Second World War the same
fear and hatred is only being transferred on to the Muslims.
There seems to be a continuous propaganda, globally, which paints
the religion of Islam villainous and the role of the celebrated free media of
the West in this conspiracy is intriguing. In India, especially after BJP’s
rise to glory there has been a more proactive spread of such attitudes, not
only by media but also by people through different forums.
Who could be the benefiters of this? In India, it can be guessed,
quite easily, but what about the world? Is global secularism already as hollow
as most other Western values?
Such spread of mutual dread will surely explode in some way or the
other sooner or later. I only wish that India wouldn’t be the battleground and
Hindus the ones to trigger it.
Unless there is a global solution to this, India can only try to
prevent furthering the rift which in today’s case seems highly improbable. I
hope that the solution wouldn’t have to come through another Holocaust. The sad
part is that until then Indians will always be born and brought up in this fear.
