Scorecard: Politics of Love – 1; Politics of Hate – 0

Communal Tensions  starting from Uttar Pradesh  via Haryana And Maharashtra have reached Delhi, making a brief stay at Trilokpuri then  teetering  to the other areas of capital, like Bawana and now Okhla.

During the wee hours of Wednesday morning, when the imam of a mosque in JJ colony, Madanpur Khadar of Okhla region, opened it for morning prayers, a slaughtered pig was found. With the presence of mind and to prevent anger from spilling on the streets Imam held his emotions and approached police along with the other residents of the area. The police took hold of the situation, cleared the spot and beefed up the security in the region.

Being a Dalit Dominated area, both Hindu and Muslims are living peacefully. Casting it as a goodwill gesture, the Hindu residents of the area have assured that they would help in punishing the guilty, if found.

Keeping in mind, the failed attempt of stoking the communal passions, Police have formed an Aman committee which consist of 20 members, 10 each from both Hindu and Muslim community which would keep vigil at all religious places in the area.

If drawn statistically, the bars for communal passions will stand parallel to those of poll-bound states. The root cause has always been a rumour or a fist fight or a provocation or some miscreants, for an incident required to qualify as news, which later turns out in the form of anger  spilling on  streets as what had happened in Trilokpuri or at times rolls out in a completely different avatar to the astonishment of the masses.

Had there been no restraint practiced in Okhla’s incident, the area might have been on fire. Religion has been made to be shown occupying so much space into our inside that the space for tolerance and adjustment have lost its place and we get fumed at the slightest of provocation for vengeance. A dialogue from Movie Haider aptly settles here, Intiqam se intiqam paida hota hai, azaadi nahi milti (vengeance further leads to vengeance and not to freedom). Now a days, every crime, be it communal or not, is given communal overtone.

So, why is it so hard to understand, it is some anti-social elements and not the social values that create fissures in the perfectly knitted society of ours. Today, the basic need of development and progress are  modishly being replaced with religion and caste from our minds. Why is it done  only after settling communal scores that people from both the communities come forward for reconciliation either by helping out to conduct a Puja or by facilitating a procession at Moharram.

Living peacefully would only become impossible, when the possibility and desire of living peacefully is overtaken by those who wish to make it impossible.

[This article by Mohammad Urooj (2015) was first published on ‘Kanves.in – The Free Spirited Journal‘ started by a group of Jamia students. We republish his article here with their permission.]