By Mike Ghouse,
Three serial blasts hit different parts of Mumbai on July 13th, killing 24 and injuring several. It is a national crisis and could possibly tear the cohesive fabric of the nation, if we don’t guard ourselves it could do more harm. In a time like this, the leaders of all communities need to resist the temptation to take advantage of the situation.
The incident should be treated as an invasion of our cohesiveness. The invaders are misguided individuals among us, and as Indians we need to converge for a common purpose and focus on finding the fountain head for such evil acts and remove the cancerous cell. We need not blame anyone recklessly at this time. It might do irreparable damage to the society. The patriotic thing to do is keep India together and preserve sanctity of life and safety of the citizens.
No matter who commits the crime, let’s haul that individual or the individuals to jail and bring justice for the crimes against public safety. Let’s not be dumb to accuse the parents, siblings, spouse, neighborhood, community or religion, who had nothing to do with the evil men. If we want justice and peace, get the bad guys and not mess with good people.
Blaming the religion has never yielded the results nor will it ever. You cannot kill, hang or wipe a religion out, it is intangible and justice remains un-served and frustrations mount. Blame the individual and do what is lawful, justice will be served and frustrations will fade and national cohesion will remain intact.
One of the biggest lessons to be learned in social cohesiveness is about dealing with extremism, to mitigate the conflicts and nurture goodwill and not aggravate it.
During the communal riots in Jabalpur in the early sixties, both Muslims and Hindus were killed in the mayhem. I wish every father in India teaches this valuable lesson to his kids. My father was clear in his pronouncement that the “individuals” were responsible for the bloodshed and he would name the individuals responsible from both Muslim and Hindu communities as miscreants and not as Hindus or Muslims. Had the police booked those two specific individuals, Jabalpur would have been spared. It takes a lot of work to rebuild the trust. If we can share this idea with those who are eager to blame the communities instead of individuals, we will do a lot of good for our nation. That is the patriotic thing to do.
My father would emphasize that you cannot blame the intangible, and added that you cannot annihilate, kill, hang or beat the religion, then why bark at it?
Let no Indian look at the other with suspicion, out of a billion plus people a dozen individuals are responsible for this cowardice. There is no doubt that a few bad misdirected individuals create havoc for their own self gain or the politicians are playing it out for their gain.
We can see this incident as the work of interested parties or loonies. It certainly is not subscribed to by Muslims or Hindus. It is disgusting for both groups that someone who claims to be a Muslim or a Hindu could be so destructive, thoughtless and ruthless. We should build trust for a better India rather than look at the other with suspicion. No sane Hindu or Muslim subscribes to this non-sense.
We should not and cannot allow the criminals to carry religious labels.They are damned criminals against every Indian, it does not matter to them who they are hurting, all they are interested is in dividing and creating mistrust between the people – so they can have their gain. Shall we give that to them? Hell no!
It is during this time, we need to embrace each other, the Hindus, Muslims and others towards a common enemy; the criminal. No matter what religious label they claim, we must say, hell with you, you are a criminal and we treat you as such. We cannot afford to look at each other in suspicion and create more difficulties, indeed the goal of right wing politicians is for us hate each other. Who is gaining from this? It certainly is not the common Muslim or the common Hindu. Should someone shake us and wake us up?
I urge every Indian to think about this, what is that we want and how do we get it? Obviously the goodness will come through cooperation and not chaos. Getting our anger out creates a far greater destruction than those who are responsible for it. We are better than them, aren’t we? Don’t we want them to lose?
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Mike Ghouse is a speaker, thinker, and a writer on Pluralism, Interfaith, Islam, India and cohesive societies and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day. Two of his books are poised to be released this fall on Pluralism and Islam. He can be reached at http://www.mikeghouse.net/