Divisions should be rejected
IT HAS become public knowledge that those in charge of some overseas towns, cities and even countries are complaining about the Indian government having exported the rightwing policy of the BJP government to foreign lands to destabilise relations between Hindus and Muslims.
Already the mayors of Edison and Woodbridge in New Jersey, in the US, have reprimanded supporters of the BJP for including bulldozers in their cavalcade through the streets, during the celebration of the anniversary of India’s independence. (Bulldozers are being used to demolish homes of Muslim dissidents in India.)
A similar scenario now hangs over major cities such as Leicester in the UK where the controlling body of the BJP – the RSS – organises regular processions to harass Muslims, especially around mosques and residential areas. Experts are of the firm opinion that these events are the work of especially imported personnel, sent from India for the sole purpose of creating a rift between the two local groups who have lived for ages in relative peace, in different parts of the globe.
Managers in government and local community leaders from both Hindu and Muslim camps have vehemently issued a clear warning against these “infiltrators”. The situation in South Africa is also reaching that stage where the trust and understanding that existed over the past one-and-half centuries is gradually being eroded. The RSS has also sneaked on to our shores. Local Hindus have forgotten that most of them arrived here from Madras, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh provinces in India.They did this to escape dire poverty, as well as the heavy discrimination against scheduled castes.
Most of them are ignorant of the fact that the present gross discrimination, by official government policy in the motherland is not against just Muslims and Christians, but definitely against all non-Brahmin (upper-class) Hindus as well. In India, class does not necessarily alter a person’s caste with improved wealth or by any other means. It is something that is truly considered genetic. Our government must check out the presence of any faction group, whether it’s Muslim or Hindu, whether it’s Taliban or BJP or RSS, that seeks to divide our Indian communities, deliberately fragmenting people who struggled to eke out a living and went on to build reasonable homes, then educate their children, build mosques, temples, churches and schools and became doctors, engineers and teachers, and participate in assisting to help dismantle apartheid. It is just not right. We all deserve better! EBRAHIM ESSA | Durban