The conflict between the pluralistic legacy of India and the ground reality of ugly sectarianism came to the fore at a recent programme in the city.
The theme of the programme — held on the eve of the 152nd birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi and organised by the Bengal chapter of a pan-India confederation of Muslim organisations — was “Violence-free India: The Way Forward”.
A gamut of speakers — a retired judge, politicians, religious leaders, social workers and journalists — shared their thoughts on the state of the country.
While some of them reposed faith in the inherent secular culture of the country, some others pointed to the irony of the theme in a country ravaged by division and hate.
“If you want to know the ground reality, please go to Manipur. Please go to Nuh (in Haryana). First, they shot Gandhi. Now, his ideology is also being sidelined. They are building temples and memorials to (Nathuram) Godse and (Vinayak Damodar) Savarkar,” said Jaishankar Gupta, member of the Press Council of India.
His take on the “ground reality” appeared a retort to one of the previous speakers who suggested that Hindus and Muslims still lived in harmony at the grassroots level in Uttar Pradesh.
“I can’t say much about the electoral politics part. But at the grassroots, in Uttar Pradesh, Hindus and Muslims are still living together,” Sandeep Pandey, Magsaysay Award winner and Lucknow-based social activist, told the audience.
Gupta wondered what harmony meant.
“Muslims are not allowed to pray in the open. But a procession of Hindu kanwarias, when passing through the same road, is showered with flowers. Is this harmony?” he asked.
The packed Ashutosh Birth Centenary Hall in the Indian Museum responded with applause. But Gupta demanded more. “Please don’t clap. Be angry,” he told the audience.
Syed Azeez Pasha, CPI leader and former parliamentarian, said the majority of Indians was still secular.
“Communal clashes are happening because the secular majority is silent. Silence is complicity. The secular majority has to come forward and resist the attempt to create division,” he said.
Tariq Anwar of the Congress, also a former MP, was hopeful because of the “strong secular foundation” of India.
“There is a bid to promote hate and enmity. But our foundation is so strong that it will not be successful,” he said.
A note from the organisers, read out at the outset, seemed to draw from some recent incidents to suggest otherwise.
“Marginalisation, discrimination and oppression are not abstract concepts one theorises. They are as real as the sting of the slaps on the little boy’s face in that tiny classroom. As real as the marks of the belt on the lynched man’s body. As real as the gaping hole of gunshots on the man’s head on the train,” said the note from the West Bengal Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat, affiliated to the All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat.
Justice Asok Kumar Ganguly, a retired Supreme Court judge, who gave the inaugural address, linked the violence to “rising economic disparity”.
Arfa Khanum Sherwani, journalist and rights activist, said “inequality, discrimination and hate” were the three conditions for violence. Citing recent reports where human rights groups flagged the increasing insecurity of religious minorities in India, she said the State was “the biggest producer of hate”.