For the first time in the history of the Udupi Sri Krishna Temple in Karnataka, over 150 members of the Muslim community attended an Iftar this Ramadan. Over 150 members had a simple vegetarian fare, mostly fruits, at the temple’s Annabrahma Dining Hall, ahead of Eid. The event was proposed by Vishwesha Tirtha Swami of Paryaya Pejawar Mutt. The seer, who has been closely associated with right-wing Hindutva group, Vishwa Hindu Parishad, urged the people of Karnataka to live in peace and harmony. At the other coast, the Shree Narasimhamoorthy Temple in Kerala’s Muslim-dominated Malappuram district held an iftar party for Muslims where at least 500 people ate in the temple hall.“For us, it is the festival of the area not of a particular community,” T Asainar, a teacher, said. rThe neglected temple was in ruins when the shrine committee took up the renovation and deity restoration work and Muslims wholeheartedly supported the move. The centuries old idol of Lord Vishnu will be reinstalled on Sunday and the temple committee secretary PT Mohanan said that around Rs 20 lakh was donated by Muslims for the renovation.rA September 2014 story talked of traditional Muslim singers like Yamu Sheikh and Atta Khan who sing at garba festivities during Navrata, the nine-day Hindu dance festival in Vadodara. “Artists don’t have any religion,” said Yamu Sheikh, who has been performing for over two decades. These stories paint a picture of bonhomie. While for the representations may be true in the respective incidents covered, we have to ask ourselves urgent questions to find out on what shaky grounds our communal harmony lies today. Perhaps, it stands the shakiest in the history of modern media. Recent incidents exhibit a systematic bullying of the minority community under one pretext - beef ban. From Uttar Pradesh, to Rajasthan, to Uttarakand, people of minority communities have been assaulted or lynched on suspicions linked to cow slaughter. rAnother national daily carried a beautiful story about a Muslim family in the city that has reared cows for six generations. But, with the situation as is now, the family is worried. With the self-styled gau-rakshaks cropping up everywhere, Yunus Sindhi and his family fear even taking out the cattle out grazing or to get treated. Here people and police know us but we can’t take them to veterinary clinics in vehicles. The so-called cow vigilantes can intercept us anytime and lynch us as we are Muslims,” the family said.rOn September 28, 2015, Mohammad Akhlaq was lynched in Dadri, near Delhi, by a Hindu mob on suspicions that he stored beef in his fridge. Almost two years have passed. The first lynching related to cow slaughter has eventually faded in memory. What is horrifying is that in the two years since, such incidents have become frighteningly common. Bullying the minority has become the order of the day and the question of beef-eating has fuelled a Hindutva fire of irrationality like never before.rWhat perplexes me is this: each state in India has exhaustive a rules and laws regarding cow slaughter. Who are the experts who sniff out beef from the refrigerators and dabbas of people? How, when they express suspicion, they also seem to have a stop of weapons of a mob of similarly well-sniffing blood-thirsty men? In most lynchings, as they were reported, it seems the arguments began with a mission to kill. Such barbaric killings, repeatedly, malign our image abroad. rFor almost two years, since Mohammad Akhlaq, many Hindus like me may have discussed beef-eating, cow slaughter and the bullying of Hindutva groups in private circles. But, not in the open. The fanaticism of saffron-clad machete-wielding vigilantes is so offensive and the administration has so systematically failed in the last two years that the worst has happened - the outspoken have been silenced. The question of eating, anything, is deeply personal. Has the mobocracy of some Hindutva groups silenced even Hindu families from discussing amongst themselves the rationale , laws, socio-economic factors around the consumption of beef? There are two very dangerous aspects: first, a rationale and informed dialogue has been thwarted within the Hindus, second, two issues have been mixed up - whether on not one supports the beef ban, bullying, lynching and threatening is not acceptable in a civil, democratic society. We are not a Hindu Rashtra yet, and if democracy prevails, and if sane-minded Hindus start speaking up, we will not be. Meanwhile, people should stop acting as if they are living in a hypothetical India that is clad in saffron. Giving inciting hate speeches and committing most crimes of cowardice, hiding in mobs, brings shame to the entire nation.rOn June 28 a protest was held at Jantar Mantar where people, mostly Hindus, pledged they would not tolerate such incidents as the June 22 lynching and murder of teenager Hafiz Junaid on a Mathura-bound train from New Delhi. The protest #NotInMyName has been trending on Internet as well. Columnist Pratap Bhanu Mehta sums up the situation in his column ‘May the silent be damned’ by saying: “This violence seeks to alter the fundamental moral and constitutional order: The victim of the lynching is presented as the criminal, while the ideologies that justify this killing enjoy the patronage of the state. This is what makes it induce so much fear. A fear exacerbated by the fact that our public conscience seems to have been all but dismantled.“
Bullying the minority: Order of the day
Bullying the minority has become the order the of the day and the question of beef-eating has fuelled a Hindutva fire of irrationality like never before
