Kudos to Editor Sujay Gupta for his brilliant and touching article on the heartless killing of India’s daughter Gauri Lankesh (Herald, 7 September). May her soul rest in peace.
It is hard to believe that this is actually happening in a country which gave Ahimsa to the world. A country where the Mahatma preached non-violence and achieved the national goal through his philosophy of Satyagraha – a philosophy which influenced Great Souls like Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King (Jr). A country which never went to war with any nation throughout her Pre Independence history. A country which gave major religions such as Hinduism, Budhism, Jainism, Sikhism, The Lingayat Faith to the world and where people from faiths such as Christianity and Islam have not only lived in peace but contributed immensely to the cultural, economic and political developments of this nation. Today it appears as if there is a license to kill in the name of religious beliefs, cultural leanings, food habits, caste and creed, a warped sense of nationalism, dress codes and even for showing affection to a loved one.
The political powers that be must take responsibility for lighting this spark of hatred amongst the masses. If this is not curbed immediately, within the next two decades our younger generation will be at each others’ throats, as they will be growing up with these new divides among themselves believing that what each one of them thinks is best for the nation – India. Some of the current organisations goaded by political interests have already begun to take the law in their own hands with no respect to the rights of others, no regard to the constitution and above all no fear of the law. We are on the verge of creating a Frankenstein’s Monster which when released will be hard to control. It already appears that the politically and religiously oriented and the self appointed moral and cultural police are having a heyday threatening and lynching anyone that they do not like in the name of nationalism and it appears that very little action is taken against these fanatics and hate mongers. Many states have passed the so-called “Anti-conversion” laws. After all what is conversion? It is basically a change from one state of mind to another. A criminal who changes from his hostile attitude to one of self respect and peace is a convert. A guy who changes from a non-vegetarian to a vegetarian diet is a convert. A person who changes from being a national of one country to another nationality in search of better prospects, is a convert. Within our own country we have people migrating from one state to another in search of a better living and adopt the domicile of the latter-they are converts. So why have these kind of laws that only help to divide people and show disregard to the Constitution of our country? It is time that the centre intervenes in these matters and stop the misuse of Religious, cultural and moral bigotry in the political scenario. We have in our own state Lakhs of people who have migrated to this tiny land and want to be called Goans. Aren’t they converts? After all we have accepted them as one of our own.
