Compounding the grim situation is the fact that the Mewat region in Haryana, where homes of Meos have been bulldozed, is one of the most under-developed Muslim-populated regions in the country.
Surcharged civil strife seems to be spreading out from Manipur to Haryana’s Mewat region. Havoc and horrific onslaughts and targeted attacks on the vulnerable communities are happening. Ask the families who have been ruined, perhaps for generations to come!
I was just reading a news report published in a daily which states that within days, dozens of homes of the Meos have been demolished and destroyed and bulldozed in the Mewat region.
This entire exercise of bulldozing homes seems so very barbaric and brutal and unfair and unjust. You’re not just destroying a structure but along with it also destroying lives and livelihoods. Will the affected men and women and children be able to even survive without a roof over their heads? Where can they go? Who will house them as communally surcharged frenzied atmosphere is peaking as never before! Biases and communal onslaughts have been erupting as never before.
Compounding the grim situation is the fact that the Mewat region continues to be one of the most under-developed Muslim-populated regions in the country. It seems it’s been kept sans development by the successive political rulers and governments. And to add to the dismal-bleak scenario, the major source of livelihood for the Meos — cattle raising-grazing- supplying, has been severely affected, with goon brigades attacking them along the alibi of cow protection.
Meo families have been sliding down the graph, with unemployment and joblessness hitting as never before. Have you read news reports focusing on the grim socio-economic-health conditions of the Meos and of the dismal education and health facilities in the region? Do read. Then, perhaps, you’d realize the gravity of the situation for the Meos. Today, their very survival is at stake. Tragedies after tragedies inflicted on them! This, when this martial race, the Meos, did not migrate to Pakistan, during the Partition phase. They had opted to stay put in their country, Hindustan, and not shift to the new country. Also stands out the fact that the Meos of the Mewat region, fought for the country’s Independence. The Meo freedom fighters were hated by the British rulers. Hated to such an extent that the entire Mewat region was kept backward on all possible spheres. And there seems little change in this day and age …many could be reciting these lines of Ahmed Rahi ( tucked in the pages of Anthems of Resistance by Ali Husain Mir and Raza Mir- India India/Roli Books):
“Our lives were spent in despair; hope had begun to stir in our hearts
We thought our destiny would change, but alas, we were deceived.”
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Let’s face the basic and crucial fact. The targeted assaults and hounding of the Muslim community took off in the BJP ruled states, with the Right-Wing government coming centre stage. There’s ongoing apprehension and fear and restlessness prevailing in the Muslim community as goons and Hindutva brigades have been unleashed on them and they seem to be going about uncontrolled, unleashing terror. Muslims have been voicing their concerns as biases and discriminations and prejudices have been experienced by them at the governance stage. But there seems no one out there to see their plight or even hear their woes and grievances!
In these recent years, several Right-Wing parliamentarians have used absolutely gutter-abusive language in the context of the Muslims of the country. It wouldn’t be incorrect to state that it’s becoming fashionable to blast Muslims and their faith. In recent years, I have heard many of the so-called Right-Wing ‘who’s who’ beginning or ending their disgust with the Muslim community along the strain, “These Muslims! They can do anything! They cut and chop …bloody marrying four times, producing children all the time…These dirty filthy Muslims!”
Such is the level of third class propaganda. Such is the extent of the negativities spread out about the Muslims of the country. It seems a horrifying picture, far away from reality. Yet the gullible are fed on this anti-Muslim diet, as the political mafia is made to flourish on the lethal combination of hate and hatred.
Today, as steady deterioration spreads out on several fronts, affecting the masses, when I’m asked what’s the difference between a Muslim poor and a Hindu poor, my answer is: no difference except that the Muslim is sitting amidst insecurity and apprehensions of the worst kinds. Yes, the Indian Muslim is living in insecurity and fear. Mind you, not from his fellow countrymen but from the state-unleashed terror, in the form and shape of goon-brigades, political mafia, and biased machinery.
A pity that the various Ministries and Commissions have done little to counter these build- ups and vicious propaganda against the largest minority community in the country. And if individuals react there’s that expected backlash.
Today Muslims cannot openly voice their disgust or dissent for fear of the aftermath. They could be branded militants or anti- nationals; with that killed or dumped in jails. Apprehensive is the Muslim community, as fears mount of the killing of the very spirit of the minority population. Dents on the very identity of the Muslims. Gone are the days of living-on-par. …In all these years I haven’t felt so disillusioned as in the last few years. There is a growing sense of hopelessness, with fair play and justice just about a hazy dream.
Why is there no apparent halt to the poisonous propaganda spread about the Muslims? Why should every single Muslim looked at as some devil at work! Not to overlook the fact that any terror or criminal activity gets directly or indirectly linked to the Muslims, more than relaying that beware of Muslims as they are some sort of terror striking wolves! Nobody even bothers to question or query – how could ISIS or the Al-Qaeda or any of the propped up terror outfits survive or exist without the support of the superpowers of the world. The tragedy is that today nobody even bothers to question the very authenticity of ISIS; fed that we are on a heady dose of outrageously biased propaganda against the Muslims.
Do the political men and the administrators and planners realize what this attitude would lead to! What happens when you push an entire community to the wall…hound in every possible way!
Mind you, a Muslim’s anger is not against the Hindu but against the fascist Hindutva forces. I would go to the extent to say that whatever little chance of survival holds out for the Muslim community is because of the liberal Hindus who refuse to be part of the Hindutva brigades. As they say,today it’s a clash between the sane and the destroyers of this land.
The only hope for survival seems the cushioning provided by the Hindus and Sikhs and Christians; hundreds of our brave fellow citizens who are speaking out, taking on all possible risks and challenges to protect the minority communities, coming forward to protect the vulnerable, striving against all possible odds to see that the fabric isn’t ruptured and we live on peacefully …all together.
