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There are none of those full-throated cries against the human tragedies taking place. We need to cry out, now and immediately: Halt this war\u2026please halt this war!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Seeing those shots of Russia\u2019s military might unleashed on Ukraine and its people, I feel we Indians, as a people, are not reacting enough to those deadly disasters taking place. Mind you, though a large percentage amongst us are against Russia\u2019s war-cum-invasion of Ukraine but there are none of those full-throated cries against the human tragedies taking place! We need to cry out, now and immediately: Halt this war\u2026please halt this war!<\/p>\n As a collective lot we aren\u2019t reacting enough to the human disasters unfolding each single day. It wouldn\u2019t be amiss to say that by the time some sort of a truce or ceasefire could get announced thousands in Ukraine would have perished in one way or the other.<\/p>\n We were perhaps much more vocal and strong-voiced in the\u00a0 90s \u2026Before America\u2019s aggression into Iraq, the Iraqi Embassy in India, situated in New Delhi\u2019s posh Jor Bagh, was \u2018alive\u2019, with over\u00a0 40\u00a0 Iraqi\u00a0 diplomats at work. As the \u2018mother of all wars\u2019 peaked in the 90s, I had visited the Iraqi embassy on several occasions to interview the then Iraqi envoy to India. I had also met Sikh and Hindu and Muslim families gathered there in large numbers, chanting slogans in support of Saddam Husain, for taking on the super power of the world \u2014 America!<\/p>\n I saw many, many well-to-do Indian families carrying rations and medicines, pleading with the Iraqi diplomats that those huge cartons\/ containers be sent to the Iraqi soldiers fighting the American forces. It was such a forceful-impactful- touching-sensitive sight of that great human bonding that it gets difficult to describe\u2026After all, it was humans here, standing up for humans out there\u2014 across seas and\u00a0 mountains and desert stretches, thousands of miles away.<\/p>\n Why no such human bonding today? Is this because we have become exhausted and fatigued and weak, fighting our own survival battles? Or is it because there\u2019s so much of hopelessness spreading out, with\u00a0 that there\u2019s little hope left?<\/p>\n The fact is that many amongst us are sitting baffled:\u00a0 Where are the United Nations protecting powers! Where are the world\u2019s political who\u2019s who, who never miss an opportunity to give speech after speech on peace! Where are all those peace-brokers who are forever to be seen on the international summits and circuit, talking of the welfare schemes and protective formats!\u00a0 Where are those statesmen who can carry the grit to take on arms lobbies and dealers!\u00a0 Where are all those world leaders who are seeing the plight of the ever increasing number of the refugees \u2013 children, women, men running away from their homelands towards the unknown terrains!<\/p>\n Non-issues being made into issues!<\/strong><\/p>\n Ground realities don\u2019t look good here too, in our country.We have begun tearing each other\u2019s flesh on any alibi, with the communal virus unleashed in our midst, hovering around in the background or foreground!<\/p>\n With rising prices of the essential commodities and very little on the platter, we are being distracted by the spread of\u00a0the communal hatred. Uncontrolled, made to spread out. Non- issues being made into issues!<\/p>\n The manner in which Haldiram\u2019s store manager was very recently verbally assaulted by one of godi<\/em> media\u2019s channel women reporters, on the alibi that the\u00a0\u00a0 packing-cover of the \u2018Falahari\u2019 packet had \u2018Urdu\u2019 text on it! That TV reporter spoke in that typical communal aggressive way. And she was so\u00a0 very\u00a0 busy pursuing the\u00a0 communal agenda, that she didn\u2019t\u00a0 quite realize that those product description\u00a0 words were in Arabic, as\u00a0 Haldiram\u2019s\u00a0 snacks are\u00a0 popular in\u00a0 the Arab and\u00a0 Middle\u00a0 East countries. Thankfully, till date there isn\u2019t any discrimination in those countries.\u00a0 Definitely not along the lines of whether the manufacturer of eatables is from a this or that religion, caste or country.<\/p>\n In fact,\u00a0 this\u00a0\u00a0 incident reminds me of what\u00a0 Jesuit\u00a0 priest, Father Cedric Prakash\u00a0 had once\u00a0 told me in the\u00a0 context of the communal virus\u00a0 made to spread out in\u00a0 Gujarat, resulting in the 2002\u00a0 pogrom. He had told me that in Gujarat the communal poisoning had been on, along the set definite agenda.\u00a0 He had even narrated an incident to relay the petty narrow-mindedness along the communal strain: \u201cOne day an influential citizen of Ahmedabad called me over to his\u00a0 home for\u00a0 breakfast and\u00a0 told me I should keep away\u00a0 from the Muslim community. He kept saying, \u2018Muslims ought to be settled! We are going to teach these Muslims a big lesson\u2026you boycott them\u2019. Mind you, whilst he was saying all this, he offered me seedless dates with \u2018Made in Iran\u2019 label printed on the packet!\u201d<\/p>\n And till about recent years there wasn\u2019t ever any controversy about\u00a0 halaal or the jhatka meat but now there’s come up petty politics in this too! With many from the ignorant communal lot, joining the bandwagon without even being aware of the basic difference between halaal<\/em> and jhatka<\/em>. Why the preference for the halaal <\/em>meat? Said to be healthier, as the blood together with the clots, flows out slowly and gradually, during the zeebah <\/em>\u2014 slow mode of cutting the animal\u2019s neck.<\/p>\n And as I have been writing all along, the biggest myth going around is that the Indian Muslims devour meaty chunks along with kababs all day long. This\u00a0 notion\u00a0 seems so well embedded\u00a0 that\u00a0 I\u2019ve\u00a0 myself\u00a0 been\u00a0 ridiculed\u00a0 for my\u00a0 preference for vegetarian food. \u201cTum kaise Musalmaan ho, jo gosht nahin khatee ho!\u201d <\/em>(what sort of a\u00a0 Musalmaan are you, you\u00a0 don’t eat\u00a0 meat!). As though it is almost certain that every Musalmaan will hold a big fat boti <\/em>\u2026perhaps, tucked in a roti<\/em>!<\/p>\n Many Muslims like me are vegetarians or semi -vegetarians by choice. On an Eid evening, when I visited the home of Islamic scholar Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, there was no meat dish on the table.\u00a0 Curiosity hitting to such an extent that I to ask him the \u2018why\u2019 to it. “Because I ‘m a vegetarian. Though the family eats gosht but I don’t\u2026I\u2019m hundred percent vegetarian.”<\/p>\n I have before me two books written by the Lucknow based botanist, Dr M.I.H.\u00a0 Farooqi. The very\u00a0 titles of these two\u00a0 books\u00a0 \u2014\u2018Plants of\u00a0 The Quran\u2019 and \u2018Medicinal Plants In The Traditions of Prophet Muhammad\u2019 (Sidrah\u00a0 Publishers) \u2014 relay the\u00a0 significance of plants, herbs, fruits, grains, spices\u00a0 and\u00a0 vegetables in our daily\u00a0 intake.<\/p>\n This botanist has quoted extensively from the Quran and the Hadith. In the \u2018Plants of The Quran\u2019, plants and plant-products mentioned in the Quran have been highlighted, in the context of their botanical identification, medicinal properties and the health benefits they carry. And the\u00a0 volume \u2018Medicinal Plants in the Traditions of\u00a0 Prophet\u00a0 Muhammad\u2019 is a\u00a0 scientific study of the medicinal, food and aromatic\u00a0 plants mentioned in the Traditions (Ahadith), of the well-known\u00a0 collections of Bukhari, Muslim, Tirmidhi, Abu Dawud, Ibn Maja, Nasai.<\/p>\n Also, stands out the fact that the meat industry in India is one of those\u00a0 traditional industries which provides jobs to hundreds from the different communities. Fauzan Alavi, heading APEDA (All India Meat and Livestock Exporters Association of India), had detailed during the course of an interview, that a substantial percentage of workers in the meat industry are non-Muslims.<\/p>\n It is also relevant to mention that several meat exporters in India are non-Muslims.\u00a0 Also, stands out the fact that today more non-Muslims consume the non – vegetarian fare than the Muslim community.<\/p>\n Above all, why should a citizen of this democratic country have to give explanations or apologies what he or she eats or cooks! It is pathetic that we have reached such a day when we have think twice what to eat or cook or wear or speak!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There are none of those full-throated cries against the human tragedies taking place. We need to cry out, now and immediately: Halt this war\u2026please halt this war! Seeing those shots of Russia\u2019s military might unleashed on Ukraine and its people, I feel we Indians, as a people, are not reacting enough to those deadly disasters […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":337085,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23,2205],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337084"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337084"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337084\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":337086,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337084\/revisions\/337086"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/337085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}