When will festivals stop being used for communal polarization?

People of almost all religions of the world have been living in our country for thousands of years. And various festivals of all those religions have been celebrated for joy. But nowadays, various political parties have started celebrating them as a means to polarize the community for their political lust. There is a race to sponsor Dahihandi on the occasion of Krishna Janmashtami.

Similarly, last year, during Ram Navami in Bengal, small children were seen in processions with tridents and swords in their hands. During this year’s Ram Navami, Manisha Banerjee, Bengal leader of the Democratic Nation Building Movement, has made a request to the people of Bengal on social media that “Ram Navami, which is coming after a week, should be celebrated peacefully.”

Similarly, during the Holi festival celebrated two weeks ago in Uttar Pradesh, the police covered mosques and warned people of the Muslim community to stay in their homes during Holi. And the most surprising thing was asking shopkeepers to write their names in front of their shops. Which law does this come under? How good would it be if the police-administration worked with the same enthusiasm during festivals of other religions as they did during Mahashivratri? Similarly, the current ruling party BJP usurped the Kumbh Mela held in February and made it a program of its party. And constantly calling the opposition parties anti-Kumbh, when it was a crime to talk about the people killed in the stampede at Delhi station or the stampede in Prayagraj for this Kumbh. Although all the people who died were of the Hindu religion. But talking about their death is anti-Hindu, what kind of Hindutva is this?

In all these years, governments of different parties have been in power in different states! But what is the element or flaw in the training of police that no government has noticed regarding the attitude of the police? How is the police so insensitive towards the persecuted community? Today itself I saw another video. In which a migrant is sleeping on the platform of a railway station in UP, probably covered with a sheet, waiting for his train at night. And a policeman in uniform is waking up the sleeping migrant by rubbing his foot with his shoe. Does this inhumanity come after wearing uniform on the body? Or is the police training given in the same way?

In the British era, we had to work under the leadership of British officers, so it is possible that the British must have specifically said to keep the local people scared. But today it has been more than 78 years since the British left this country. And after that, Congress, Samvid, Janata Party, BSP, Socialist and now BJP, none of them thought about why the policemen, who come from different castes and communities of the same state, are so against the common people? Mathura incident Even after fifty years, I remember the heinous incident that was done with a woman named Mathura inside the police station by the policemen of Uttar Pradesh in the seventies. Recently, after the atrocities committed on women of Hathras (Vulgadhi), Balrampur and other places, the role of the police has been quite suspicious.

Despite the Sangh Parivar not being a part of India’s freedom movement as a part of its strategy, Hindutva elements have been trying to polarize the communities since before independence. And this is continuing even after independence. This organization is a hundred years old. And in these hundred years, while doing nothing for Dalits, backward castes, tribals and women, today it has succeeded in making its influence in all these areas of India. And whether it was at the time of the demolition of Babri Masjid in 1992 or three years before that during the Bhagalpur (24 October 1989) riots and thirteen years later Gujarat (27 February 2002) and before that Moradabad, Meerut and 2013 Muzaffarnagar, who started the riots? This question has been raised continuously after independence. Who has got political benefit from those riots? The Bharatiya Janata Party, which is currently ruling at the center of India and in some states, is the most benefited party from the politics of polarization of seventy-five years. By the way, the foundation day of this party is being celebrated on 6th April. My humble request to its workers and leaders is that if you do some introspection, you will know that in the total political activities of your party in the last 44 years, what work can you do for the poor, Dalits, tribals and women or any special achievement that can be counted to improve their representatives? What other contribution is there other than doing politics of communal polarization?

After coming to power in 2014, they have been creating communal polarization day by day by raising controversies on issues like hijab, cow slaughter ban, historical places, then in election campaigns by making false statements against people of minority community on issues ranging from Mangalsutra to their clothes, lifestyle and food, what message of national unity are they giving? And a similar mentality was seen when a policeman deployed for railway security killed four people of different attire with his service pistol in a moving train. If such statements are made by the country’s top officials, then what can be expected from others? Because people behave by looking at their leaders. I am seeing this hatred increasing day by day. Today, when some political party leaders were making statements like Eid ki namaz will not be offered on the roads, I felt that if there is nothing else to speak against people of minority community except garnering sympathy of the majority community. Now the people of the majority community have to think what is the aim of the person who is instigating us? If he is speaking to create pure religious polarization, then why should we get influenced by him? Because he just wants to take advantage by instigating people to shine his politics. So the time has come to show such people their place. Till when will we risk our lives by getting influenced by them?

Dr Suresh Khairnar is Ex. President of Rashtra Sewa Dal