It is my privilege that my path of life has crossed with many friends and colleagues who happen to be Muslims. Such noble affectionate loving kind-hearted innocent souls they are!
Now can any individual or collective might in the whole world succeed in demonizing them in my eyes by injecting me with hatred by peddling lies! Can the whole combined force of intolerant communal brigade succeed in manipulating me to hate Muslims and my acquaintances of Islamic vintage!
Certainly not because my heart does not possess an iota of hatred towards my Muslim brothers and sisters. Rather those communal vested interests would have escaped with their lives had they dared to make an attempt to brainwash me in this subject. However if even a minimum crack existed between myself and the general Muslim community, had I nurtured a bit of poison in my heart towards them; then the merchants of hatred would have surely and easily succeeded in exploiting that divide to implant zealous hatred against Muslims in my mind and demonising the whole Muslim community.
So it must be appreciated that actual poison exists in the heart of the concerned individuals only which the religious zealots promptly exploit to meet their electoral interests. Thus it gets proved that original or greater sinners are the common people only, without whose patronage no evil power in the earth can succeed in their dirty mission of spreading hatred against the "other" and demonising them.
In this very context, we should not give clean chit to the communal rabid section among Indians as if they are all "innocent gullible children" whose "unpolluted" minds get washed by the vested interests! Rather they are the greatest offenders as just because of their disgraceful patronage, communal forces attain political power and create mayhem in the society. Yes, no party/government can make a society communal unless the general society chooses to walk on the path of hatred and intolerance.
When a party repeatedly gains power through free and fair elections despite engaging in communal politics in a secular country; possessing "glorious" record of demolition of shrines, dastardly pogroms; associating with murderous lot in the name of a "Godly animal" and calling all sorts of names to a particular community through cheap vulgar barbs of "We are 5, Ours 25" and appeal of identifying criminals through their dress --- it gets clearly proved how immense popularity these merchants of hatred enjoy in present times. Had the general society believed in secularism and religious brotherhood, these rabid divisive elements would have been electorally vanquished from the face of India.
In this context, I will like to add that not only being religious minorities; rather to be a secular sane and humane has also become terrible in current times with murders of liberal-minded intellectuals and rationalists, assaults on student leaders calling spade the spade, imprisonment of social activists bearing testimony to it. Also that "Moses will descend from heaven on the command of God to save this country" is nothing but wishful thinking! We must remain aware that God helps those who help themselves. So it remains the duty of common people to turn Moses and save the country from the deadly trap of the communal brigade. However to do so, the majority of this country are required to be humane with absolute unity of the secular sane forces being must by discarding all sorts of ego and personal interest.
And only when Indians will come in support of fellow Indians by transcending all norms of racial caste religious boundaries and stand unitedly against the divisive forces of intolerance, can India hope for a better 2022. Else all rhetoric of "Happy New Year" will simply count to nothing.
