The intolerance in Indian society is getting worse by the hour. It seems, barely a day goes by without some sort of fracas in the name of vigilantism. Anti-Romeo squads, cow vigilantes, religious intolerance, everything that people do is being met with violence. Last week, a rickshaw driver in Delhi was beaten to death by the nation’s youth for objecting to their peeing against the wall of a public toilet at north-west Delhi’s Mukherjee Nagar. He was 33. Have we rejected all values of modern civil society and are paying with our lives for expressing dissent? It is very painful to see that simple hard-working Indian citizens are not safe on the streets of India. Our youth are turning hostile, violent and completely intolerant in a free country, ever ready to vandalise, persecute and kill.
Even a riskshaw driver understands cleanliness and hygiene and this is how he gets paid. Shame on Delhi and shame on the ruling government that refuses to do anything concrete besides utter a string of bizarre public pronouncements that are anything but progressive and forward-thinking. What’s more is that while Ravinder lost his life for expressing his opinion, the perpetrators of the crime will in all probability go scot-free. Why can’t our society be more civil and the police more
effective?
