Politics of intolerance - Amar Nath Wadehra & Randeep Wadehra

Traditionally, India has been a land of forbearance. Since ages, outsiders belonging to different races from around the world have found it easy and comfortable to settle down and be assimilated into the local society. Merging one’s ethnic or religious identity with the mainstream or keeping it separate was optional. Let us not forget that those were, going by today’s ‘civilized’ norms, barbaric times. The Aryans, the Huns, the Kushans, the Greeks, the Mongols and countess others settled down in the comparatively hospitable clime of the subcontinent. There were tribal conflicts for sure but the general drift was towards merging the ‘native’ identities and involuntarily creating a Pan-Indian identity. An identity that was never asserted but, subterraneously, permeated our collective psyche.

However, with the coming of the British, this Pan-Indian identity began to manifest itself in a perceptible manner. With the idea of a unified nation-state crystallizing there was, unfortunately, an odious by-product too. If you recall the myth of samudra manthan wherein along with the nectar poison too was churned out of the ocean, you will understand the nature of this odious by-product called the ‘Politics of Intolerance’. Jinnah used it cynically to further his own political ends with disastrous results for our subcontinental unity. And today we have several versions of this politics of intolerance – religious, linguistic, regional, caste and what have you. And no Indian state is free of this poison.

We are presumably living in a civil society. Egalitarian. Democratic. Constitutional. With a set each of rights and duties duly enshrined. So, barring minor glitches the nation should be cruising along for its tryst with destiny. Unfortunately the scenario is not all that rosy. The reverse is nearer to the truth. There is grinding poverty, intolerable levels of lawlessness and widespread violence that help sustain our image as a functioning anarchy. And the politics of intolerance is only making things more ominous.

Dear fellow Indian, ask yourself whether the practitioners of such politics should be allowed to play havoc with our polity? Do we need another Partition type bloodbath to stir and stop this dangerous trend? The answer, we hope, is obvious. India is approaching the stage when it will become a global power – and its populace will live in reasonable comfort, free of poverty and want. But this journey towards our tryst with destiny is in danger of being derailed by petty practitioners of divisive politics. Banish them.