Way To Go

Life at XLRI sure takes me by surprise. The summer placements,a most sucessful one, was just over and all around there was a lot of wrok. Classes to be caught up on, projects to be submitted, quizzes to be taken. Just as everything seemed to have settled into the regular routine (what with a term of a million activities!) - the 1984 riots shook students into a frenzied discussion.And while I refrain from quoting anybody - here's my take on it.


To be frank, I was hardly old enough to remember what happened right after Indira Gandhi's
assassination except that I came across the 'concept' called curfew. I've always stayed in a very mixed neighborhood in an old part of Cal, and although I’ve grown up with a Sikh family right across my house, I really haven't seen or heard anything atrocious being done to them. In fact they all still are there. The 1992 Babri Masjid incident however, and especially news of the Bombay riot was a hit closer home. With the huge number of Muslims, I saw signs of terror, and later heard tales that when I still recall makes me shiver. Orissa rocked with the news of the brutal death of the Christain missionary, and of course to say the least the Gujarat incident are more than clear in everybody's mind.

Taking an overview - Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Sikhs - and probably most of the other communities within or without them have been persecuted at one point or the other.
Without alluding to any other country (too political) and without making an attack on any particular religion/political party - I think I agree that any government that has allowed such things to happen, should be without a moment's deliberation condemned. However before we come up with a solution, I have a question - what is it that we hope to achieve? (Assuming we could do something and did it) Do we just want the anti-communal sentiments to die down? Do want the change to be overnight or gradual? Do we want a government, which will be tolerant and unbiased? Or even protectionist? And if so, what it is it that we are trying to protect - surely not any particular community or religion. After all - we here all claim to be truly secular.

As an Indian I find a lot to be proud about and yet many things to be ashamed of. Maybe that is the way that it truly is - like everything else in like - we don't feel for our country in a black and white way. If the beastly behavior exists, if the horrors we hear of - as part of any religious community, or political affiliation – are there in front of eyes and we recognize it and abhor it, perhaps it's time to educate not only ourselves but others and broaden the mind. Perhaps to simply live as we do - by turning a blind to eye to it, as it is convenient because these do not truly affect many of us, is itself the worst thing to do. And if, as many here on the newsgroup, feel so strongly about it - it's time they did something about it. After all, it all starts with 1.

Maybe it's just time we stopped looking back into the past to just point out mistakes that have been made - there is no undoing them. Maybe it's time we left caste, creed, religion and all of that behind and just looked at being an educated human-being as opposed to literate. Maybe to contribute to a change we don't have to start a 'movement' so to speak - but simply do our parts as a citizen of the country without always putting ourselves first. Can we just do that?

I am a Bengali and am proud to be so. I am an Indian and am proud to be so too. I don't believe that just because I am a Hindu, I would have to be anti-Muslim, and that because I am Indian, I have to be anti-Pakistan. I don't believe that just because I am Bengali - I have to hate other communities. I am a human being - and that's what I believe I am first and foremost. I don't support many things and no, I cannot claim to have done a lot of things to contribute to these sentiments. But I can say I have, at every chance, stopped what I believed was wrong - not because I was a part of a country, or religion but because I am human-being with a sense of right and wrong and a mind of my own.

I am proud to be who I am - and I am what I am as a function of my ethnic, cultural, religious and educational background. I am proud of them too.

Author : Mononeeta Law, IR 2005