The day Parliament's pillars lowered their heads

BJP MP from South Delhi, Ramesh Bidhuri’s comments made in the Lok Sabha during the special session of Parliament, relay the utter decay and degeneration spreading out. His unleash could be termed not just communal but crude and uncouth and enough to be aptly dealt with in the severest possible way.

He was heaping communal comments, one after another, on the BSP MP, Danish Ali. Mind you, all this taking place in the Parliament. And with that, one can well imagine what obnoxious stuff he must be shrieking and shouting on the streets of South Delhi - his constituency! What would be the fate of the minority communities!

Lurking in the backdrop is the grim fact that this is not the first time a parliamentarian has unleashed obnoxious-communal comments on the largest minority community of India, the Muslims.

And also stands out the fact that each time the communal politicians go unpunished and uncontrolled has only added to the mess getting messier. Mind you, this trend of hurling hurtful- obnoxious communal comments and abuses at Muslims and getting away with it, seems part of the Right-Wing governing tactics. And with these blatant communal onslaughts on the rise, one can well imagine the fear and apprehensions the minority community goes through.

In the Spring of 2015, I travelled to Agra to attend a writers’ meet and I spent a day at the Fatehput Sikri. It was relaxing; amidst the grandeur of the fort, the calm at the dargah of Saleem Chishti , the greenery spread out and amidst it all quaint little shops selling ethnic stuff to desi and videshi visitors.

Just after a year, in the spring of 2016, as I’d travelled once again to the same locale, a drastic change in the very atmosphere. Hopelessness spread around this historic township, as details lay splashed in the national dailies of the communal speeches of BJP’s MP from Fatehpur Sikri, Babu Lal, and also that of BJP’s MP from Agra, Ram Shankar Katheria, who was then Minister of State in the HRD Ministry( GOI).

What had shocked the Muslims was the fact that these politicians were not arrested under any of the ‘terrorizing’ charges, even as they seemed hell bent on openly and publicly humiliating them in their speeches, going to the extent of calling Muslims ‘demons …descendants of Ravana!’

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At the very start of 2020, it’s the likes of Kapil Mishras and Parvesh Vermas who gave speech after speech, mouthing the absolutely unthinkable hatred for the other. Mind you again, none of them even bothering to somewhat camouflage or conceal their hate for the ‘other’. All out in the open!

At the very start of 2019, Ananth Kumar Hedge came up with this revengeful one liner- “hands that touch Hindu girls should be chopped off!” Earlier it was this particular provocative sentence from him –“Till Islam is in the world there can be no end to terrorism!” yet he remains untouched.

In 2018, Right -Wing MP, Vinay Katiyar, went to say loud and clear, Indian Muslims ought to go Pakistan!

In 2017, Sakshi Maharaja and several other Hindutva characters unleashed along the strain that Muslim men marry 4 times and with that produce 40 children!

Then Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti went to the extent of heaping abuses along the Haramzada strain for the entire Muslim community …

Not to be overlooked, Sangeet Som’s communal speeches in Western Uttar Pradesh, threatening to once again ignite violence in that belt (if you recall , Sangeet Som had been implicated in the Muzaffanagar riots of 2013 and he was also accused of stoking communal tensions in Dadri’s Bisada village after the killing of Mohammed Akhlaq.)-

Also, BJP’s MLA from the Goshamahal constituency in Hyderabad, T Raja Singh, could get away even after mouthing death threats to all those who come in way of the Ram Temple construction. “If there is anybody who has the guts to say he would stop the construction of Ram Mandir at Ayodhya, let him come forward. I challenge that I will behead him…Until now, Uttar Pradesh had witnessed timid governments. Now, you have the powerful government. Baap ki sarkaar!”-

And just days after declaring that India would become a Hindu nation by 2024, Uttar Pradesh BJP MLA Surendra Singh came up with his next communal onslaught - those who desisted from saying ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ are Pakistanis!

I could go on …the list is long, of today’s Right Wing politicians hell bent on coming up with communal comments and stark threats …threatening the very existence and survival of the Indian Musalmaan in the country.

Though the likes Sangeet Soms , Sadhvi Niranjan Jyotis, Giriraj Singhs, Katiyars, Sakshi Maharajas, Togadias, Hedges, have been openly and blatantly threatening, abusing, taunting sections of the minority community, yet they move around all too freely! What’s going on!

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The stark reality is that we do not wish to even talk nor discuss any of these ground realities! This is no sudden development but building up rather too steadily in these recent years. Communal comments hurled by the ruling lot at the vulnerable sections!

And then these very rulers carry the confidence to quip that all’s going well with their governance!