Delhi Riots : Time to remind ourselves of unity in diversity

Delhi Riots: Time to remind ourselves of irreparable damage that riots can cause and to re-emphasise on multitudes of our diversity amidst which united we must stand. 

The communal flare up, which spread like wild fire in north east Delhi starting with the clashes between pro and anti CAA protestors in Maujour and Jaffrabad has claimed 22 innocent lives and injured more than 200 people. Better sense must prevail among the citizens of Delhi, particularly political parties - leaders included, who must unitedly stand together, momentarily setting aside their political differences, to appeal for unity and peace. If not, it may not be unfair to remind ourselves of what the consequences could be by remembering the dark days of the partition and the communal flare up that followed. The Jaffrabad incident, coming as it did on the backdrop of the much publicised visit of President Trump to India, has  now spread to other areas of north east Delhi and has resulted in petrol pumps being torched, number of houses, shops and large number of vehicles burnt and damaged leading to loss of tens of crores of rupees, besides the immeasurable loss of human lives. Expectedly this incident was raised by national and international media during the press interaction with President Trump,  who showed his statesmanship in not stigmatising India, while handling some of the highly opinionated questions from some of the international media. 

‘At the stroke of the mid night hour’ when India attained independence - on the 15th of August, 1947 - the Britishers, the colonial rulers who ruled us unjustly for nearly three hundred years and left us high and dry in every aspect of our lives, finally deserted the subcontinent. But then before leaving, true to their character and nature, which was impregnated in their DNA to divide and rule, they engineered the partitioning of the country into two independent nation states - Hindu majority India and Muslim majority Pakistan. The result was the biggest ever human migration in the annals of human history. Nearly fifteen million people, who were displaced from their land on either side of the boarder, moved from one side to the other segregated purely on religious lines and in the process  more than a million people were killed in the deadliest of communal violence that erupted and several more were maimed for life. The Indian partition perhaps is one of the worst instance of human casualties, which was man made based on religious identities and therefore what we are now witnessing in Delhi communal riots is some thing that India  should never ever tolerate and everyone involved in this heinous crime, irrespective of their identity must be identified and exemplarily punished, named and shamed in public. 

India has moved on from those darks days of communal riots engineered by partition on religious lines and is now the largest thriving democracy in the world, where nearly 1.3 billion people with widest of diversity in religion, language and what not, live happily together as one single nation. Notwithstanding some of the aberration few communal riots that the country has very tragically witnessed post our independence including the current Delhi communal rights - India continues to be globally recognised for its democratic traditions and secular credentials, unlike our twin brother Pakistan. A closer look at the religious demographics and census in both the countries, and its comparison with what it was when we attained our independence, exemplifies our true secular democratic traditions. The percentage of the population of minorities in India has not adversely changed  rather it has increased.  On the other hand the Muslim-majority Pakistan is now a theocratic state and is constantly tagged with the terror networks by the international community, which is borne out from the fact that Pakistan continues to be in the grey list of the Financial Action Task Force, the global anti terror funding watch dog, for the insufficient steps taken by Pakistan to curb terror funding. The percentage of the minorities living in Pakistan has shrunk at alarming levels.

 India, continues to be a thriving democracy, which over the past 7 decades has become, kind of a role model to several nations for its democratic traditions.  Notwithstanding the debate that rages on in the country on the current status and definition of a secular state, depending on which side of the ideological divide people are, remarkably our credentials as a truly secular state is unparalleled and diversity is one constant, in all its variety, which thrives in India. Therefore what has transpired in Delhi for the past four days is something which all of us should be ashamed of. It is not the time to for us to continue politicking and scoring brownie points, rather it is time for all of us, the citizens of this great nation of ours, to put our individual likes and dislikes and our predisposition to ideologies and political affiliations aside and follow one dictum - nation and its people first. This makes it mandatory for all of us, particularly the people of Delhi, to join hands with the security forces who are tasked to maintain the law and order and ensure that we don’t fall prey to rumour mongering and spread messages, which might incite people and create hatred for one group against the other. Let us trust our judiciary to bring to justice the fall guys whose mischief led to this communal clash. 

Let us remind ourselves of how tolerant,  law abiding, secular and democratic society we are by remembering how the entire Indian society reacted so peacefully to the recent apex court judgment, which laid to rest the two warring communities - Hindus and Muslims on their respective claims to the disputed Babri Masjid. The landmark 1045 page judgement by the bench, which was unanimously delivered by the Supreme Court on the 9th November 2019 comprised of the Chief Justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi and his brother judges, justices S.A. Bobde, D.Y. Chandrachud, Ashok Bhushan and S. Abdul Nazeer, resolved once and for all the centuries old dispute between the Hindus and Muslims. Similarly we may have difference on most issues including the CAA, which should and must be settled using the democratic means and not resorting to violence. 

The CAA and most other so called contentious issues will have to stand the test of judicial scrutiny and therefore it is not fair that there should be agitations either for or against, which may inconvenience others and lead to the kind of situation that is witnessed in Delhi. It is the bounden duty of all Indians to resolve our disputes, if any, through democratic traditions and in the most peaceful manner. And  all such differences which cannot be resolved amicably can be taken to the judiciary for adjudication. The judgments, irrespective of each of our prejudices, likes and dislikes must be honoured and respected to uphold the rule of law, which must bring finality to the divisive litigations. What was most heartening to see was that post the Babri Masjid judgment barring a few aberrations, the whole of India showed poise and maturity and an outstandingly nation first stand was taken by the people to avoid any communal or other disturbances. What was more pleasing was the fact that all the leading political parties and their leaders and so also other leaders and influencers of Indian society, the litigants, media etc accepted the Supreme Court Judgement, and more or less collectively took a stand to respect the decision of the Supreme Court and appealed to their followers to maintain unity and harmony in the country. It is time for all of us to look beyond the religious prismatic view and strive that much harder to exemplify the ‘Unity in Diversity’ for which this great nation of ours is known for thousands of years. The plurality of Indian democracy lies not just in the multi-religiosity that is integral to this nation, but so also the diversity that is seen in language, traditions, food, culture etc., which is what India is made of.

Central to the beauty and vibrancy of the Indian democracy are the diversity of the people of India -  Hindus, Muslims, Parsis, Sikhs, Christians, Jains, Buddhists, religious and non religious, the rich and mighty, the powerful and powerless, the poor and the insignificant, the lettered and unlettered, sheltered and unsheltered, the males, females and the transgender’s, the believers and non believers, young, middle aged, old and the very old - who cohabit  this nation and stand as equal citizens. This vibrancy of our democracy and the unity in diversity gets played out during the dance of democracy- the elections.  The Indianness of our people and our unity in diversity is an age old tradition, which was best exemplified in the Cricket team that represented India, when it made its debut in the international test cricket in 1932.  The Indian team was a team of contrast with diversity in socio, religious and cultural practices. The 18 players, who were selected to represent India, spoke eight to ten different languages among them,  and belonged to four or five different castes. The team was truly multi-religious and consisted of six Hindus, five Muslims, four Parsees and two Sikhs. The players also had their own contrasting beliefs and cultural traditions and practices. 

The extraordinary unity in diversity, which was witnessed among the Cricket players who were divided by religion, culture, traditions and language is what must become a beacon for the whole of India today.  In the context of the narratives that may get played out by some divisive forces, in the days and months to come that may try and divide us on religious lines and create violence, it is hoped that the extraordinary unity in diversity spirit that team India exhibited in 1932,  repeats all across the country, particularly in Delhi.

Jai Hind 

Long love our diversity.