India New Culture: Wasting Productive Hours Amid "Jai Shri Ram" Chants

Stifling sane voices, taking law unto their hands under the cover of 'Love Jihad' ,film-laming and beating people of weaker sections, damaging properties of Muslim community and so on has been the hall mark of the Modi rule in last more than six years, besides massive protests and loss of countless productive hours.

The other day a recently renovated public toilet complex at the state-run bus station in western Uttar Pradesh's Saharanpur, was on Wednesday demolished by the saffron activists. They were upset over the urinals being next to a temple. It was there for the last more than four decades. Even temple people never objected to its presence.

In Yogi Adityanath rule in India's largest state,of Uttar Pradesh, lawlessness by right-wing activists has become a rule rather than the exception. Not satisfied with the persecution of Muslims, UP government passed a law made against 'Love Jihad' last year. Within 30 days of this law, the UP Police registered 14 cases . As many as 51 were arrested. out of which 49 accused are still behind the bars.

Saffron leaders have repeatedly made fiery speeches and anti-Muslim remarks after saffron party came to power at the center. These have even, at times, incited violent attacks under political protection and approval. Since 2015, mobs aligned to saffron outfits have killed and injured scores of members of religious minorities amid rumors cows being traded for beef. In February 2019, BJP supporters threatened and beat several Kashmiri Muslim students and traders, apparently to avenge a militant attack on a security forces convoy in J&K.

Remember the incident in February 2020 when video showed how five grievously injured men lying on the street being beaten by several policemen and forced to sing the Indian national anthem in Kardampuri, a neighborhood in northeast Delhi. One of the men, a 23-year-old Muslim, died from his injuries two days later.

At least 52 more people were killed within the three days of communal violence that broke out in India’s capital after CAA was enacted. Over 200 were injured, properties destroyed, and communities displaced in targeted attacks by Hindu mobs.

In July 2016, seven members of a Dalit family who were skinning dead cows were attacked by a group of people claiming to be ‘gau rakshaks’ (cow protectors) in Gujarat. The video of the brutal incident went viral and set off a slew of protests across the State, Dalits came out in large numbers to decry the government’s inadequate response and the discrimination against the community. Skinning of dead cow has been there India since centuries. But, such incidents have occurred in India only after BJP came to power in states and Center.

In November, workers in India launched a general strike that brought out an estimated 250 million people,the largest in human history to the street. It could have gone far wider but the outbreak of corona prevented it. Now, they have joined hands with farmers.

One fails to understand, how do we benefit by wasting human energy on such petty things. A single day of nation wide strike cases at least 32,000 crore of loss to the economy. Our farmers are protesting fo the last more than 50 days, We can only imagine the extent of loss to the economy. Its time saffron top leadership does some self-introspect over the implications of the loss of productive hours due to strike and protests.

(Chander Sharma)

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