It is not how many who said those words ‘Not in my Name’. It is not about how many cities reacted in anger. It’s about a growing tide of Indians, beyond politicians and parties, who with their brave and passionate acts of citizenship are affirming democracy, in the spirit of what democracy is. And the idea of India was reclaimed on the streets of Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Allahabad and others on Wednesday.
It started off as a Facebook post by Gurgaon-based film maker Saba Dewan calling for street protests against the tyranny of lynchings in India. And while a spin was given that this was all against Muslim lynchings and not Hindu ones, it is only those who empathise with the lynchers who actually gave a communal colour to the act of true Indians.
India, Hindustan and Bharat met and will meet on the streets of Delhi, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Mumbai, as well as London, Karachi and Cambridge. Seeing their faces of determination of reclaiming the space of unity, equality and justice, which is sought to be snatched back, there was no room for identifying if they were Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs or Christians or of any other faith. They were peaceful and they just held placards which had four words which encapsulated the spirit of India. Four words which can counter an entire army of lynch mobs. NOT IN MY NAME. And above all, one placard held aloft by an elderly muslim man said it all, ‘Is it that easy to turn us against each other”. And his fellow Indians replied “Not in my name”.
This was a unique chain protest by Indians who felt a dam had burst. Bottled up emotions about a spate of mob lynchings across the country. It is also a fact that the overwhelming majority of victims of mob attacks recently have been Muslims, but then, this wasn’t a Muslim backlash. It was a peaceful backlash of a true secular India of the common and the not so common, an India that was being taken back from those who stole it, the lynch mobs.
Therefore, when those who have remained silent or even in their warped way justified the lynchings, reacted to this spontaneous initiative, by actually counting the lynchings of 2005 and 2006 (obviously linking it to the Congress rule then) to indicate that this year’s lynchings have gone down, it shames even the word shame.
Are we going to get numbers thrown at us, to justify the spate of killings? Are we going to accept the logic that relatively low number of killings, however brutal, and a part of a progrom, is justified?
An India which said ‘Not In My Name’ is an India we must be proud of. An India where ailing actor Girish Karnad joins the protests in Bangalore with an oxygen cylinder and pipes attached to his nostrils, along with a 25-year-old Vishnu who says ‘I am against mob lynchings, Incidents like these will destroy the secular fabric of our country. Such protests help build solidarities.” Our India is where these two Indians took to the streets to protest against the killings of Junaid and Pehlu Khan, defending every Indian’s right to live with dignity.
Shame on those who asked, where were today’s protestors when Kashmiri pundits were getting killed. Every life matters and it must be said that the power of social media and communication allows us to meet for a cause much easier than before.
And Goa must take hope from its fellow brothers and sisters of India. Goans should know that if true Indians get together to protect the idea of real India, they have no fear.
