How do we Promote Peace in India, Today?
Ram Puniyani
We
are passing through times when Hate against weaker sections of society
and religious minorities is increasing by leaps and bounds. The increase
in the mob lynching all over the country on the pretext of child
lifting is coming on the back of mob lynching on the pretext cow-beef,
public flogging-humiliation of dalits on the issue of beef and other
issues related their caste humiliation. Mobs seem to be emboldened by
the fact that there has been an approval of these acts from the top.
Ministers like Mahesh Sharma came to the funeral of Dadri accused, now
Mr. Jayant Sinha welcomed the
accused of Alimuddin lynching accused when they got bail. The matters
are frighteningly increasing as now the horrid incidents of rape are
being given a communal twist, fake news is being employed with impunity
on one side and rape accused are getting social support on the other.
It’s a matter of shame that in case of Kathua the then Ministers from BJP Chaudhary Lal Singh and Chander Prakash Ganga, attended the event organized by Hindu Ekta Manch, which was protesting against the arrests in the case.
Now in case of Mandsaur rape, the incident is being given false twist to demonize a community. The
accused belonged to Muslim community. Muslim groups took out a
procession demanding severe punishment to the accused. Jyotiradiya
Scindiya of Congress joined a candle light procession to demand death
penalty to the accused. Social media was used to spread the hateful message as if he was demanding the release of the accused. The pictures of procession were photo shopped to present Muslims in bad light. A message was circulated, which said that members of the Muslim community rallied in Mandsaur demanding that the perpetrator of the crime be released because the Quran sanctions rape of non-Muslim women.
The text of the placards in the Mandsaur procession was “We won’t tolerate attacks on daughters, stop this brutality”. A tweet was circulated “NCRB
report: India is most dangerous for women reason: In India, 95% of the
rape cases have a Muslim perpetrator. Of the total 84734 rape cases,
81000 rapes had a Muslim rapist and 96% of the victims are non-Muslims
and with an increase in theirpopulation, number of rapes will also increase.”
Nothing
can be farther from truth. NCRB (National Crime Records Bureau) does
not record the religion in cases of rape. This tweet and the one about
Jyotiraditya Scindia was exposed by AltNews, the portal going to the
roots of such fake news and is doing a great service to society by
giving the truth and exposing the news which is deliberately trying to
demonize the religious minority. One recalls that in case of
Muzzafarnagar; the violence was incited by circulating a photo of two
young men being beaten by a Muslim looking crowd. It was presented that
Hindu youth are being beaten. As such that picture was from Pakistan,
the crowd beating two thieves.
Recently
in Kairana the Mahagathbandhan candidate Tabassum Hasan won the
election against the BJP candidate. After winning she stated “This
is the victory of truth and ‘Mahagatbandhan’ (coalition) and defeat of
the BJP in the state and Centre. Everyone has come out and supported us.
I thank them.” On social media and on TV debates what was presented was that she said “This is the victory of Allah and defeat of Ram”. This quote was posted on a number of pro-BJP pages on Facebook among which Yogi Adityanath-True Indian posted it on 1 June, and was shared massively.
One
recalls that in recent times BJP has deliberately muddied the waters of
social media by employing thousands of trolls, as Swati Chaturvedi’s “I
am a Troll”, tells us. As such the hate propaganda began with
demonization of Muslim kings for breaking Hindu temples in medieval
period, for spreading Islam, for having large families, indulging in
polygamy, being terrorists etc. Now it has taken a dangerous turn with
people trained in communal ideology and in the use of social media
twisting the facts blatantly. There are reports that in the forthcoming
elections BJP is planning to train lakhs of volunteers in the use of
social media for electoral gains. The rising hatred is becoming like a
monster, propelling itself beyond control.
Can
we just accuse the social media for intensifying this hate? Some
control and restraint is needed, some fact check is necessary for this
highly impactful media. What is also needed is that mechanisms like
AltNews are made more popular to counter these falsehoods. It is
heartening to note that Twitter has decided to suspend seven Crore fake
accounts. We also need to ensure that the misconceptions and Hate which
is ruling our society, streets need to be countered by message of love.
What we need is that truth is propagated and message of peace is made
more effective. We have activists like Faisal Khan, who through his
Khudai Khidmatagar takes out peace marches. Harsh Mander’s
Paigam-E-Mohabbat (Message of peace) has been doing yeomen service by
meeting the families of victims of lynching and creating an atmosphere
of amity. Mahant from Ayodhya Yugal Kishore Sharan Shastri, through his
less advertised peace marches is trying to reach sections of society
with a message of tolerance and peace. Such efforts need to be upheld
and broadened. These are just few examples of the initiatives in this
direction, there are many more which need to be projected to promote and
preserve amity in India.
Countering
Hate and promoting amity became the central message of father of the
Nation, Mahatma Gandhi, who struggled to promote peace, in the highest
traditions of his Hinduism. As the fake news is assuming frightening
proportions and is doing serious harm to the concept of fraternity
inherent in Indian nationalism, we need to retune ourselves to the core
value of amity, which was the foundation of freedom movement and is very
much the part of our Constitution.
