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The R plus M combination too much for the Sanghis!
By Humra Quraishi. Dated: 9/21/2017 12:31:00 AM
Even the police officials interviewed in full public view have been seen giving a clean chit to these refugees; nah, no terror connection to them. Though, let me quickly add this relevant one -liner: in all probability a list of directions will now descend on the cops from their political bosses to veto their earlier claims, as this government seems determined to paint the Rohingya refugees as terrorists!
R for Rohingya refugees! M for Musalmans! And this combination seems enough for this Right -Wing sarkar of the day to add the choicest prefixes of the day: ISIS, Al- Qaeda, Indian Mujahideen, Jihadis and whatever else gets scribbled along the sarkari registers to paint the dying and deprived Rohingya refugees as some potential terror striking lot!
This sarkar has got hold of the 'security scare' alibi when it's been unable to catch hold of any sane argument to deport these hapless refugees who have been living in India for the last few years and till date no one terror related case against them. Even the police officials interviewed in full public view have been seen giving a clean chit to these refugees; nah, no terror connection to them. Though, let me quickly add this relevant one -liner: in all probability a list of directions will now descend on the cops from their political bosses to veto their earlier claims, as this government seems determined to paint the Rohingya refugees as terrorists! Soon we could see television shots of Rohingyas arrested and paraded as top ranking terrorists with hood on their faces! Or they would be seen shot dead in 'police encounters'.
Suddenly there's sprung up this surcharged frenzy to label these refugees as terrorists or as potential terrorists! Blatantly communal arguments in those government- backed television channels are taking off, where a bunch of experts have begun shrieking the terror links to these refugees. And if that isn't enough, Bangla writer Taslima Nasreen is also making her presence felt to give her expert comments on these refugees! She is herself a refugee here yet she is asking for their deportation. Pathetic irony!
How smug can we sit in this atmosphere brimming with sorrow! How thick -skinned can we get! We are seeing these refugees dying in front of our eyes - dying of starvation and sub- human living conditions -and now those terror labels are to be pinned on their heads or foreheads before they are deported to be massacred in their home country!
Whilst the debate accelerates on whether these Rohingyas could one day become terrorists, can we focus on those amongst us Indians who can be thrown into the terror -striking category…those men from the Right-Wing brigades who have been striking terror yet are not even deported to the jails or prisons of the land! Yes, killers of cattle trader Pehlu Khan of Rajasthan were let off last week. Why? Quite obviously because of their connection with the RSS - BJP top brass. Tell me what justice have we provided for the murdered man's family! None!
Going by the conventional definition of terrorists, today's Right Wing brigades and their top men can be well fitted into this category yet nobody can touch them because they happen to be rulers of the day and with that can twist and turn facts and can also appear as witnesses to defend even high profile murderers of the Gujarat riots. Yes, that's the prevailing state of affairs. Yes, today you and I can be gunned down for speaking out and our killers will simply vanish. Not to be found and even if found they could be let off as witnesses could be pressurized to keep shut, else bullets or pellets showered on them. Yes, today there's that lurking danger of each one of us who questions or queries could be silenced by the political mafia.
For years I'd been hearing this term - 'unknown killers' - in the Kashmir Valley. More or less implying that the killers are not be named; and with that not just the killed but even the case lies buried! The alive killers roam around scot free; perhaps,assigned to kill more and many more …Well, today similar patterns are emerging and spreading out to all possible locales. Writ large the anarchy, the loot, the deceit, as communally -charged rulers are deciding our future and also that of those refugees who have somehow managed to crawl till our cities and towns crying for refuge! See their weak forms and the absolute misery they are surviving in, yet the short -sighted us are being made to view them as top terrorists!
I would feel safer with refugees around than with Right -Wing goons, for the simple reason that Right wing goons can cut and chop me a hundred times yet they'd be let off under some pretext or the other …Well, this is what's been happening in all the recent cases, where hapless Muslims lynched by gau- goons have got little justice as their killers are declared no -killers!
Its getting to be more than worrying. Yes, even daily survival is getting to be tough …very tough. As an Indian Muslim I'm not too sure what the future holds out ;after all, you have ministers stuffed in today's cabinet who have been loud and clear in their anti - Muslim chants.Minister Ananth Kumar Hedge had even gone to the extent of saying on a public platform, 'Till Islam is in the world there can be no end to terrorism.' Others are known for their pracharacks and maha - pracharacks backgrounds so their anti- Musalman views are more than writ large.
This government's alibis for deporting the Rohingyas to Myanmar have to be countered on every possible ground. Aren't we housing hundreds of Tibetan and Sri Lankan Tamils and Chakma refugees who also fled seeking refuge here? Why this allergy for the hapless Rohingyas? Look at their faces, their eyes, their withered forms… reach out to them before they perish.
More than half of New Delhi's men and women have been refugees at some stage of their lives yet this apathy! You never know destiny's ways; someday you and I could get reduced to the refugee status!
*(Humra Quraishi is a freelance columnist based in Delhi and is currently a visiting Professor in the Academy of Third World Studies in Jamia Milia University).