By Jasim Mohammad,
According to a shocking news, noted actor Emraan Hashmi has been denied NOC by Nibana Cooperative Housing Society. Emraan Hashmi wanted to purchase a flat in the building which was his legitimate right. Consequently, famous film director Mahesh Bhatt and Emraan Hashmi jointly held a press conference and revealed their pain. Instead of setting the wrongs done to Emraan, Maharashtra police slapped cases under different sections of Indian Penal Code against Emraan Hashmi and Mahesh Bhatt without realizing larger issues involved.
This is not the first incident in which a Muslim citizen has been denied his right of purchasing property within Indian territory. There are numerious such cases, some have been reported and some have been buried. Sometime back, Shabana Azmi had also made such complaint. Leaving aside Emraan Hashmi episode, the issue must be discussed intellectually.
When India attained freedom, large number of Muslims decided to stay back. Those who remained in India are satisfied that their decision was right. No doubt Muslims are far better in India than Pakistan but since last two decades, a sort of degeneration into our socio-politico atmosphere has taken place. Advani’s Rathyatra [1990] left blood trail in the way and demolition of Babri Mosque [1992] and inaction by the government further bolstered Hindutva elements. Veer Sawarkar’s Hindutva philosophy derived from European fascism has taken over our Constitutional secularism. The reason is that our policy makers and politicians failed to translate constitutional secularism into ground level realities. They allowed religious places to come up on public lands and went on to either overlook or allow communal forces to take ground. Administrative aloofness from fascist tendencies to take root resulted in Gujarat genocide of Muslims [2002]. But we have not learned any lesson and even today are tolerating communal activities of some organizations.
When our forefathers were busy in debating constitution, one question which was looming over their head was: how to satisfy aspirations of all sections of the Indian society. Constituent Assembly debates indicate in very clear terms that they had desire to develop a cohesive and scientific society within India. Hence, they enacted special laws for the tribal and deprived classes on one hand and inserted special Articles in the constitution for the minorities on the other. Their intention was completely in the direction of evolving a peaceful sustainable Indian citizenry without any bias. But our politicians of later years could not govern the nation on the lines decided by constitution framers.
A very large section of the majority community is still secular. If I say that Mahesh Bhatt represents that section, it will be no wrong but unfortunately the governments, even those governments which are formed by secular political parties fail to appreciate individual efforts of secularizing Indian society. A new trend is emerging and emerging fast in which secular parties make alliances with communal forces just for government formation. It is a very dangerous trend because communal forces sometimes form the government on the shoulder of secular forces and then implement their hidden agenda. It is this modus operandi by which BJP has succeeded in saffronising administrative machinery of the country. History will record that the credit of this trend goes to George Farnandes. BJP was treated as untouchable before George Farnandes aligned with it. Slowly other such smaller outfits also joined the race of sharing power on the cost of diluting their secular identity. It is high time when political parties should clear cut declare their stand either on Right, centre or left. If they do not do so, it is the responsibility of our intellectuals to expose their greed of power before masses.
What is most painful is that when Emraan Hashmi made allegations of bias, right or wrong, Maharashtra government should have sought explanation from the concerned society. Instead of safeguarding the rights of citizens, the govt. did just the opposite and slapped cases which has further encouraged communal elements to pursue biased approach.
Why all this being happened? I would like to draw the attention of concerned people to the fact that as may as 28 reports of different inquiry commissions including Sri Krishna Commission are lying under dust. It was the Maharashtra govt. which had appointed sri Krishna commission amid much fanfare but failed to implement its recommendation which has clearly held responsible many communal politicians and police officers for the well planned post-Babri Maslid demolition riots. Why did the govt. with all its resources shy away from booking culprits?
We must ponder over another issue. Since a very long time, the government has allowed Saraswati Shishu Mandir [RSS schools] to impart education to children as per their own curriculum. Due to these schools, today we have youths whose minds have been completely polluted and communalized. There is no effort on the part of the secularists to de-communalize them. If we fail still in channelising our energies in that direction, I am afraid that demographic changes within Indian cities and even villages will divide whole India into Hindu and Muslim India. The development will not be in the larger interest of the country because forces hostile to India will try to exploit the situation.
We all are Indians. We are all committed to safeguarding this nation and its heritage. It is our national duty to spread message of peace and secularism and to counter communal forces by every mean. If the government is not acting, if the politicians are failing and if our administration is shying away, it is the duty of silent but effective secularists to come out openly and oppose every move of the communalists within the frame of democracy and law. The highest values of all religions are humanism and to create a society based on justice. It is time we woke up and also made people aware of communalism with hidden politico-economic agenda. Survival of all sections of Indian citizenry is foremost condition of survival and developments of the nation.
(The writer is Research Scholar of Aligarh Muslim University. He can be contacted at [email protected])