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In the name of God!

By Humra Quraishi. Dated: 7/18/2019 12:02:31 PM

SIGNS OF THE TIMES

In the midst of the growing communal surcharge wrecking the very survival, in the last one week there have been two disturbing news reports of madrasa students and also a madrasa attacked in the state of Uttar Pradesh. On July 11, madrasa children were attacked in Uttar Pradesh's Unnao, with three of the children seriously injured. According to news reports the madrasa children - all minors - were beaten with cricket stumps and bats and also attacked by stones - when they had gone to play cricket at the GIC grounds in Unnao…Whilst they were playing there, a group of men from the Right-Wing walked up to them and forced them to chant Jai Shri Ram. And when these madrasa children refused to do so they were attacked. News reports state that the Right-wing goons snatched bats from the madrasa children and attacked them with those bats and stumps, and when these children tried to flee, they pelted stones at them … "Almost all of them ( the madrasa children ) had their kurtas ripped by the miscreants" said Naeem Miswahi, the imam of the Unnao situated Darul Uloom Faizee Aam Madrasa.
Though an FIR was lodged but no comments on this onslaught on the madrasa children, by any one from any of the Child Rights forums and groups, nor from the concerned commissions or ministries dealing with the supposed 'welfare and well- being' of the women and children of the country. I wonder why this ongoing silence? After all, those attacked and injured and terrorized were minors from the minority community of the country.
And on July 16, came in another news report of violence erupting in another locale of Uttar Pradesh - in Behta village in Fatehpur district, after animal flesh was found in the village near a pond….To quote from the news report - "After residents claimed that cow slaughter had taken place in the village, and news spread, people from several villages collected and vandalized a madrasa and then set it on fire."
What is happening is nothing terribly complex, nor unexpected. After all, communal poisoning is being unleashed ever so systematically, whipping up sentiments against a particular minority community. Mind you, this poison is unleashed by the very law makers. Just last week, BJP MLA from Ballia, Surendra Singh, had publicly said that "In the Muslim religion, you know that people keep 50 wives and give birth to 1050 children. This is not a tradition but an animalistic tendency. In society, giving birth to only two to four children is normal." Mind you, this is not the first time that this particular politician uttered poison dripping comments. Go through his previous utterances and you'd be shocked to see there is pattern to them - his absolute and apparent communal bias and his hatred for the other. Yet no action against him. If the BJP's top brass can issue a notice to Akash Vijayvargiya for assaulting a municipality official in Indore with a cricket bat, then Surendra Singh should be hauled up and expelled for his absolutely twisted and lop sided comments about entire Muslim community!
Surendra Singh, has a track record of publicly coming out with hate dripping comments against the Muslims. Not long back he'd said that once India becomes a "Hindu rashtra", only those Muslims who assimilate into the Hindu culture will be able to stay in the country. "There are a very few Muslims who are patriotic. Once India becomes a Hindu rashtra (Hindu nation), Muslims who assimilate into our culture will stay in India. Those who will not are free to take asylum in any other country," He also claimed that by 2024, India would become a Hindu nation, "As the RSS completes 100 years in 2025, by 2024, India will become a Hindu rashtra."… And just days after declaring that India would become a Hindu nation by 2024, this Uttar Pradesh BJP MLA Surendra Singh came up with his next communal onslaught - those who desisted from saying 'Bharat Mata ki Jai' are Pakistanis!
Mind you, this is not the first time that the Hindutva rulers have come up with obnoxious comments about the Musalmaan in the country. Though the likes Sangeet Soms, Sadhvi Niranjans, Giriraj Singhs, Katiyars, Sakshi Maharajas, Togadias, Ananth Hedges have been heard threatening, abusing, taunting sections of the minority community, yet they move around freely. Also, though news-reports had surfaced that the VHP and Bajrang Dal had been holding arms training camps in Greater Noida, Varanasi, Ayodhya and in other locales, where the young were getting training to attack those with skull caps on, yet no arrests of the organisers and promoters of those terror striking camps!
Mind you, this trend of abusing Muslims and getting away with it, seems part of the Right- Wing governing tactics- In fact, 2017 had started with Sakshi Maharaja unleashing along the strain that Muslim men marry 4 times and with that produce 40 children! Then came Sangeet Som's communal speeches in Western Uttar Pradesh, threatening to once again ignite violence in that belt. Within days of that came in Vijay Goel's comments on the hijab! Also, BJP's MLA from the Goshamahal constituency in Hyderabad, T Raja Singh, mouthing death threats to all those who come in way of the Ram Temple construction- "If there is anybody who has the guts to say he would stop the construction of Ram Mandir at Ayodhya, let him come forward. I challenge that I will behead him…Until now, Uttar Pradesh had witnessed timid governments. Now, you have the powerful government. Baap ki sarkaar!" …Not to overlook Ananth Hedge's comments - "Across the globe, terrorism is taking place in the name of Islam…as long as there is Islam in this world, there will be terrorism…". And Vinay Katiyar, went to the extent saying loud and clear, Indian Muslims ought to go Pakistan!
Tell me isn't our basic co- existence in danger when such biased and poison dripping propaganda is spread about the Muslims of the country! Ongoing! No stopping, no halting, no curbing, no end to this obnoxious trend where several lawmakers are involved. Publicly vomiting poison and getting away!
*(Humra Quraishi is a freelance columnist based in Delhi and is currently a visiting Professor in the Academy of Third World Studies in Jamia Milia University).