GUJARAT’s NAKED AND BRAZEN DISCRIMINATION AGAINST MINORITIES

Coupled with several other forms of discrimination and exclusion – one more brazen than the other – including complete political exclusion, denial of fairplay, harassment, naked denial of state patronage, even refusal to allow Muslims to buy properties in ‘mainstream’ localities of Ahmedabad [on which authoritative threads exist on this forum and on TAHZEEB Group], the picture is unmistakable: Gujarat generally not for minorities, and certainly not for Muslims.

Living through these circumstances and having read some accounts of pre-partition politics, I wonder if such were also the circumstances then that compelled some Muslims that opted for Pakistan, to forsake their legacy and the land of their ancestors to escape discrimination? [Whether their hopes were belied is for another thread]

Are the circumstances obtaining in Gujarat – and elsewhere, thanks to its politics – responsible for the suffocating and rising ghettoization we see everywhere, and for fanning voices of separatism – from reservations and proportional representations to whispers for earmarked territories and separate homeland?

While the political pundits continue to ponder, the nationalist youth of India must rise in unison against this fascist trend – at least in the interest of national integration.

We must recognize that no people, no large community will tolerate discrimination and suffer in silence ad infinitum. Notice the shrinking population of the Hindus in Pakistan / BD? They are escaping that discrimination. If they were large enough in numbers they might stay put, fight and demand separate and reserved spaces.

Let’s act before it gets too late, and before history repeats itself irretrievably, to sheer loss of everyone concerned.