Around the final quarter of 2019, a group of women, mainly Muslims, began occupying one of the key roads connecting Noida and Delhi. Not far from where I live, this gathering at Shaheen Bagh became a hotbed for resistance against a law the government had passed. The women and children were the puppets, for the strings were being pulled from somewhere else.
The women were cheered on as icons, and one of them even made it to the Time magazine, for she had led the agenda of the Left, that of the Hindu always being wrong. A Hindu can be forced to convert, kidnapped, harassed, raped, and even murdered in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh, but if a Hindu in India, as a Prime Minister, decides to merely fast track their citizenship amongst that of five other minorities from the three countries, he is wrong. The puppets are right. The rioters are right. The arsonists are right. The Hindu is wrong and, thus, must be wronged.
Last year, around this time, we were consumed by the farmers’ protest in Singhu, a little far from where I live, but as we all realised the magnitude of the Delta variant, another lesson awaited us, that of Hindus always being wrong.
Illegally squatting on a national highway, the farmers were hailed as heroes of the democracy, for they were resisting reforms that would have benefited a sector that makes up for 15 per cent of our GDP and 50 per cent of the working population. They were not questioned for the protest gathering, nor how the Covid norms were sent for a toss. In Uttarakhand, where the average Hindu assembled for the Kumbh Mela in far fewer numbers than pre-pandemic times, they were again called wrong. There was a toolkit as well to peddle the wrongness of the Hindu.
A Hindu aspiring to burst crackers on Diwali is wrong. A Hindu wanting to burn the effigy of Ravana on Diwali is wrong. A Hindu wanting to play Holi is wrong. A Hindu wanting to carry out a procession during Ram Navmi is wrong. The people pelting stones on that procession, however, are right. What does one make of these scattered attacks on Hindu festivals?
This is where we are today. A strategic attempt is underway to silence the average Hindu. The government is responding as well, perhaps in clearer words than ever. The answer to pelting stones is in demolition drives of illegal properties in the troubled pockets but is that a sustainable solution. I don’t think so, and while we can agree to disagree, I request you consider this perspective. To punish swiftly is great, but to deter rioters is what the objective must be.
The women were icons, the farmers were heroes, but the Hindus in Ram Navmi processions, pelted with stones, were wrong because they dared to assert themselves culturally. That’s what the media wants you to believe. That’s what the political opposition wants you to accept.
This charade can’t go on unchecked. This charade must be called out.
Until next week.
Tushar Gupta
from Swarajya
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