I broadly endorse what you say. This, however, is not a lasting remedy.
Unless we tackle the virus of communalism, which has deeper roots, such
incidents are bound to occur. The first and foremost thing is that the
Constitution and the laws of the country must be supreme and respected. To
give just one example, Babar came to India in 1526, even though there is
no concrete proof, let us assume, he demolished something pertaining to
Ram and Sita to build a mosque. Nothing was done to undo it for more than
460 years even though there were greater devotees than our present day
Rambhakts then. Tulsidas who spent many years in Ayodhya never mentioned
the so called black act of Babar. For years, a title suit had been going
on in a court of law. What was the hurry to organise Rathyatra to demolish
the mosque? The legal process should have been allowed to come to some
conclusion. In fact, for votes, faith, no matter whether supported by
facts or not, was allowed to override the Constitution of the country. If
this is allowed to happened again and again, you cannot have peace and
prevent terrorism.
Take another example. In Orissa, Staines and his two young sons were burnt
alive in the name of faith. Recently, Christians have been attacked for
the alleged murder of a Hindu ascetic. Law should have been allowed to
catch the culprits and punish them. Instead, terrorism has been resorted
to. In Godhara, suppose the Muslims burnt the pilgrims, the law should
have been allowed to take its course: decide the veracity of the
allegation, catch hold of the guilty and bring them to books. Instead,
Newton's Third Law of Motion was applied. Enquiry commissions are so slow
that the people at large and the aggrieved in particular have lost all
confidence in them and some desperate ones among them resort to terrorism.
Please remember that no one can drive, marginalise or annihilate the
minorities. The Muslims alone account for 15 crores. If they develop,
rightly or wrongly, a feeling that they are being treated as subhumans, it
will lead to dangerous consequences which cannot be tackled by law and
order machinery. Even if the number of misguided and utterly desperate
Muslims, resorting to terrorism is just 0.1 per cent, it will cause havoc.
So let us try to respect the Constitution and keep religion and faith in
the private domain and integrate the minorities with the society and
inculcate a feeling among them that they are human beings and first class
citizens like the majority community. The majority community has a greater
responsibility and duty in this regard.
Girish Mishra
