Violence during Ram Navami bodes ill for the country
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A policeman near a burnt vehicle as police try to control the situation after a communal clash during the Ram Navami procession, in Himmatnagar, Sunday, April 10, 2022. Photo: PTI
Ram Navami is a festival celebrating the birth of the epic figure Lord Ram, a symbol of sacrifice, brotherly love and justice. In northern India where it is commonly celebrated, no unrest, clashes or violence have been reported in recent times in connection with this festival. But this time reports are coming of even the occasion being observed in a violent manner. In Khargone, Madhya Pradesh, following the skirmishes during Ram Navami, fifty Muslim houses were demolished by government officials. This operation of displacement was done with the allegation that Muslims were responsible for the conflict, and it was carried out with the blessings of the district administration. In another incident, as many as 25 vehicles were damaged in communal clashes in Mankhurd, Mumbai.The clash erupted after a group of people called Jai Sri Ram during night prayers at a mosque. One person was killed and 12 others were injured in clashes in Jharkhand. One person was killed in clashes in Khandal town in Gujarat's Anand district. Clashes also broke out in the Howrah-Shivpur region of West Bengal. In BJP-ruled Karnataka, two students were injured in a confrontation at the Kalaburagi Central University. Sixteen people, including girls, were injured in a clash when ABVP activists blocked the serving of non-vegetarian food and attacked leftist students at the Cauvery Hostel at New Delhi's JNU during the Ram Navami. If the police were silent spectators in some of these incidents, in others, they were actively involved with unilateral arrests.
It has ceased to be anything new in BJP-ruled states that the Sangh Parivar's planned attacks have the full support and encouragement of the authorities. Since start of the second term of Narendra Modi, with the planned and extensive racial hate and communal attacks across the country, the very future of India has been made a question mark, a worrying fact which has been pointed out by many senior political leaders and cultural figures. Janata Dal MP Manoj K Jha commented that sights of violence that come up in any context anywhere, has to be seen as the last warning of the fact that we are approaching the prospect of a civil war bearing similarity to genocide. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi lamented that hatred, violence and exclusion are making our beloved country weaker. And if this trend continues, warns CPI leader D Raja, the country will have to bear its consequences. He points out that the sangh parivar outfits are imposing their agenda of hatred and violence. It is clear that secular political parties generally have a grave concern about the path of India in current times. The speeches heard at the CPM Party Congress at Kannur and statements of the party's General Secretary Sitaram Yechury during the event also share the anxiety about the gravity of the muscular majoritarian communalism. Yechury also stressed the need for secular political parties and secular organisations to unite to defeat it.
But circumstances do not arouse optimism that the collective voice of humanitarian leaders and patriots can deter the sangh parivar -which came to power for a second time with unprecedented majority - from the perilous path or cause them to make a rethinking. Every move they make proves that they are bound to strive for the realisation of a Hindu nation envisioned by VD Savarkarand MS Golwalkar at any cost. They believe that with an intensive drive to convince the majority community that the chief enemy is the biggest minority of the country, they can make people forget sufferings like poverty, unemployment, price rise and underdevelopment. In this race for victory, they are comfortable with the support given by giant corporates and financial tycoons, whose sole pursuit is acquiring money. In the government's effort to silence opposing voices, they secure total support of national media controlled by the corporates. The sooner a unified move of patriots prepared to work and pray for an India where peace, equality, human love and sense of justice prevail, the more the chances for saving the great Indian nation from the brink of an internal racial conflict.
