An eye for an eye makes the world blind

 

“An eye for an eye, makes the whole world blind.” But nobody seemed to be bothered at this point of time. Thanks to few fanatics and our politicians (no less fanatics themselves), we are slowly becoming an extremist society. Though the use of the word ‘extremist’ might raise a few eyebrows.

 

For long, the word extremist had been attached to ‘Islam’. If you do a google, 8 out of first 10 results refer to Islam. Invariably, we relate these terms like extremist and fundamentalists to Islam.

 

But lets face it – we are no exception. No matter how much we deny it, every now and then, we, as a society, show glimpses of extremism in our behavior. What is more worrying is the ever increasing frequency of such behavior in recent times. We have had two very disturbing incidents recently which corroborate the history of our extremist behavior.

 

• Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur was arrested for her alleged involvement in the recent Malegaon and Modasa blasts

   

• A young man from Bihar Rahul Raj was killed when he was trying to hijack a bus to protest against the recent violence against the North Indians in Mumbai

 

Mumbai ATS arrested the Sadhvi from Surat. Apparently, Pragya Singh Thakur was part of a Hindu right wing group which carried out the blasts to avenge the killings of Hindus by Muslim extremists.

 

What is more scary is the fact that people are coming out in open to support the Sadhvi and her acts. I’m not going very far – my cousin thinks this was needed to teach a lesson to the ‘Muslim fanatics’. And everyday, while traveling in the local train, I hear people supporting the Sadhvi. The disturbing fact is that these are all educated people who, somewhere inside, support the usage of violence.

 

Not the ones to be left behind – the political parties are all geared up to reap the maximum out of the situation. The Sangh pariwar has openly come out in support of the Sadhvi and Bajrang Dal has already branded her as her modern day Goddess Durga.

 

In case of Rahul Raj, a 25 year old young man from Bihar was killed by policemen when he was trying to protest (?) against the recent attacks on North Indians by a political party.

 

His method of protesting – hijacking a bus full of innocent commuters with the help of a country made pistol. I don’t know what his intentions were or what was he trying to achieve. To be very honest, i doubt we’ll ever come to know what was going through his mind or what exactly happened there – thanks to the ’swift’ action by our police, who, on other occasions have been found wanting.

 

Though personally I condemn the action taken by the police (they didn’t even try to catch him alive), I don’t want to get into the debate – simply because we don’t even know what happened there. Did the boy actually fired 3 rounds of bullets on public (if he did, then what the police did was right), was he just trying to protest against a particular political party (even in this case, I personally don’t approve his method) with no intention of harming anyone..there are so many questions that need to be answered before justifying or condemn the action taken by the police.

 

To be honest, not many people know what conspired at ground zero. But my point is that there is no way you can hijack a bus, point a pistol at people and then justify your actions. This was totally uncalled for.

 

And as usual, our politicians left no stone unturned to add fuel to the fire. Without knowing the details, almost all of them tried very hard to take the centre stage by hogging the limelight. All of them gave interviews and addressed the news hungry media without any proper knowledge on the incident.

 

The State Home Minister justified the killing by saying that the ‘mad’ man deserved to be shot and that bullets were an answer to the bullet shot by the young man (wonder why he has double standards while dealing with the goons of a particular political party which started the whole drama).

 

All the Bihari leaders got together for the first time to justify the young man’s action by saying it was the result of the hatred caused by the political parties in Maharashtra (they simply ignored the fact that the young man hijacked the bus and was pointing pistol at local commuters).

 

Next day, another leader came up with another shocker. He expressed his satisfaction by stating that a Bihari goon was killed Bihari style (not to mention that it was his party which started this whole communal and regional divide). He is the mastermind behind many of the Hindu – muslim & Marathi – north Indians riots.

 

The bottomline is that both these incidences have set a dangerous precedent. In the first case, we saw a Hindu Right Wing party using violence to get back at the Muslim fundamentalists. The second one is equally horrifying. A young man deciding to prove a point against the constant acts of violence against a section of the society.

 

In fact, slowly but surely, all of us are getting involved in it. We need to save our society not only from muslim extremists but also from Hindu extremists, Bihari extremists and marathi extremists now. Because an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

 

We must act now. This must stop. We need to realise that this dirty politics of caste, community and regionalism is taking us nowhere. We must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.

 

I’m an upper caste, Hindu, Brahmin, North indian

The first thing that people ask me when i introduce myself is why is my name Pratyush Pankaj and why don’t i have a surname. There is a very simple answer to that. Its because my Father didn’t want me to use our surname. He believes that surnames are used to distinguish people on the basis of their caste and religion. A Sharma or a Singh would be an upper caste and Mahto or Ahir would be a lower caste. He never believed in Caste system and he didn’t want his children to get into this either. Hence, none of us has a surname.

 

When I was a young kid, I only knew i was an Indian and I very firmly believed that. I didn’t even know what my caste was. I realized that I’m a Hindu during my history lessons in school when I was told that people in India are mainly divided into four religions – Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and Christians. It was somewhere in early nineties that I realized that apart from being a Hindu, I’m also a Brahmin – which means an upper caste (thanks to Mandal Commission).

 

 

These things were irrelevant to me until I witnessed a riot after the Babri Masjid demolition where I lost one of my best friends who was a Muslim. I realized the implications of being an upper caste when I was denied admission in city’s top college despite getting very good marks in my Boards exams, and another friend of mine who got much less then me, got through on ‘Quota’ (he was a ’schedule caste’ – incidentally, he was always this rich spoilt kid)

 

As a young boy, I never understood this logic of treating the citizens of same country in different manner. I never understood the logic behind “special treatment” to these poor (?) minorities (?). I don’t know if my forefathers didn’t let them enter the temples or to fetch waters from the well (I’ve heard people narrating such stories on TV – specially the politicians). All I know is that by virtue of being born in an upper caste Brahmin family, I couldn’t get through the best college in the city even after securing much higher marks (trust me – much higher) then the so called lower caste kids (who would zoom around on their bikes and waste time everywhere except studying).

 

So, by the time I came to Pune for higher studies, I knew I was an upper caste, Hindu, Brahmin boy and not just an Indian which I always thought I was. And then, after spending almost 10 years in Maharashtra, I got a new identity. I was told that I was a North Indian and hence I shall go back to North India.

 

So now, In 25 years of my life in India, where my father wanted me to be a proud Indian, I’ve been given different identities. Thanks to politicians, so called social activists, Human rights activists and few others, I feel like an outsider in my own country because I’ve realized that I’m not just an Indian. I’m an upper caste, Hindu, Brahmin, North Indian and I’m not very sure how many more tags I’ll have to add to my identity.

 

I always wondered if my father has failed. He wanted to give me one identity but now I’ve so many. But i when i think about it, its not my father’s fault. He had a very noble intention. He wanted his children to be above caste, religion and regionalism. But thanks to the dirty politics of dividing the country into castes religion and regions, none of us is just an Indian – we all have multiple identities.