Increasing intolerance between communities and religions is becoming a global problem and Muslims find themselves at the receiving end of a lot of suspicion nowadays. The Portland train stabbing incident shows that not only are Muslims getting affected by it, but also anyone else who happens to speak in favour of peace and harmony.
Caption: “The nightmarish possibility of my children being someday confronted by a mob demanding to know their religion could be inching closer to reality.” – Naseeruddin Shah.
CultureVulture
The actor writes an essay to describe the growing divide between Hindus and Muslims in India.Instep Desk
Increasing intolerance between communities and religions is becoming a global problem and Muslims find themselves at the receiving end of a lot of suspicion nowadays. The Portland train stabbing incident shows that not only are Muslims getting affected by it, but also anyone else who happens to speak in favour of peace and harmony.
This is also what actor and writer Naseeruddin Shah aims to highlight through an essay on Hindustan Times. “Never before have pleas for peace been interpreted as cowardly or seditious,” he wrote about how he, or anyone else in India, will be seen as unpatriotic if they ask for the hatred between India and Pakistan to quell down.
He continues to talk about the division between Hindus and Muslims within India, and how it has become about ‘us’ versus ‘them’. “The visible increase in the sight of saffron scarves and tilaks, as well as on the other side beards, hijabs and topis in a country where barely ten years ago in most states (Maharashtra, Bengal, Kerala to name only three) Hindus were indistinguishable from Muslims, is cause for apprehension but this assertion of the club you belong to and the waving of its flag was waiting to happen,” he wrote.
Shah also believes that we are all arguing about the wrong thing nowadays. “Till the length of Sania Mirza’s skirt causes more agitation than the lack of modern education and employment opportunities for our community, as long as we hesitate to condemn the sadistic madness of the ISIS (that we haven’t heard too many Hindu voices condemn the lynching of innocent Muslims by gaurakshaks is immaterial), so long as we continue to spawn ‘believers’ without giving a thought to their upbringing, or continue to dilly-dally on the removal of an outdated heavily misogynistic tradition, we only help reinforce the belief so easily held that we support or at least condone violence and regression.”
Shah concludes on an interesting note: “A depressing indicator of the extent of the divisiveness eating into us today is the fact that not too long ago on a quiz show, not one of the contestants got the answer to ‘Who wrote saare jahan se achchca Hindustan hamara’ right and the fact that it was a Muslim astonished not a few of them.”
