Hundreds of families in India are displaced, forced to flee their ancestral homes due to the unchecked power of land and political mafias, surviving like refugees in their own country. by Humra Quraishi
What are we doing for our internally displaced fellow citizens? Today, in India, hundreds are displaced, with entire clans and families forced to shift from one locale to the next, as land mafia as well as political mafia hound and target vulnerable communities. They are made to run from their ancestral homes, forced to survive like refugees in their own country!
One first heard the severity of it all when hundreds of Kashmiri Pandit families had to shift base, from Srinagar towards Jammu and further beyond. Leaving back their ancestral lands and homes, coping with severe challenges in unknown locales of North India.
And now in recent years, one town after another in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand has been witnessing the vulnerable targeted communities moving out, fleeing from their ancestral homes and lands, to save their lives. A major level of displacement was witnessed in Muzaffarnagar after the rioting of 2013. Entire Muslim families and clans survived under tattered tents. All lost for them! And just months ago, Haldwani witnessed the same pattern. Muslims fled and tried to seek shelter in other townships after suffering huge losses. And after last month’s targeted attacks and assaults in district Bahraich, Muslims left their homes, shops and business establishments behind …to save their lives!
And if one were to grasp the severity of this crisis from a broader perspective, images and videos emerging from the Middle East, hit… and hit hard. The ongoing targeted bombardments and killings in the Middle East are leaving huge imprints. The civilian population trying to move out… But where to!
A major offshoot of this Israel and Allies unleashed war on the Arab lands, is the very future of the civilian population. Victims of the political wars and civil strife, hundreds and thousands of Arab children are either dead or dying. Those surviving with a nothingness to them. Haven’t we all seen shots of Syrian, Palestinian, Yemeni kids and their families looking all too hopelessly … many tried to flee. Even those managing to reach Europe are treated as aliens; tags thrown at them – suspects, intruders, beggars seeking refuge!
Many children lay dead even before they could reach some sort of destination. For months, I couldn’t get over the picture of the Syrian child, Aylan Kurdi, lying dead by the sea shore. The innocence of the refugee child, compounded by the pain of hundreds of refugees fleeing into nowhere of sorts, brought into focus the grim reality of those trying to seek refuge… European right-wing lobbies coming in the way, sealing the fate of hundreds and thousands of Aylan Kurdis, who ironically have been reduced to refugee status because of the civil war triggered off the western expansionist strategies.
Before I could recover from Aylan Kurdi’s death, what had hit were those haunting photographs of the four-year-old injured Syrian child, Omran Daqneesh. Though alive, he looked lifeless; covered with blood and dust, he didn’t cry in pain or shock. And then came news of Omran’s older brother, 10-year-old Ali Daqneesh, succumbing to his injuries. Hundreds of children and their families killed or disabled in and around Syria by bombardments and much more havoc.
And such is the level of intolerance spreading out in the Western world, that even refugee children are seen as potential threats. Sadist cartoonists lampooning dead refugee toddlers! Why French publications like Charlie Hebdo mocked the tragic death of the Syrian child Aylan Kurdi! Wasn’t that lampooning blatantly vulgar and much too insensitive!
Mind you, this ongoing destruction in the Middle East is bound to affect us. In fact, this has already been leaving imprints here in our country. In terms of employment and job avenues, business and trade, travels for pilgrimages and ziarats, and interactions of academics and writers during seminars and meets.
Changes all too visible
One could see and sense changes coming about here, in the country, from the 90s, when America invaded Iraq. Before the USA aggression into Iraq, the Iraqi Embassy in India, then situated at New Delhi’s posh Jor Bagh locality, was ‘alive’; buzzing with activity with over 40 Iraqi diplomats at work. And almost double the number of the junior-rung staff. As the ‘Mother of all Wars’ peaked in the 90s, I would visit the Iraqi embassy on several occasions to interview the then Iraqi envoy to India. I also met many Sikhs and Muslims and Hindus who gathered there in large numbers, outpouring support for Saddam Husain, “for taking on the super power of the world – America!”… I saw for myself Indian families carrying huge food and ration containers and medicine cartons, pleading that those be sent to the Iraqi soldiers fighting the Americans… And contrary to the Western propaganda that Saddam Husain was a regressive tyrant, Iraqi diplomats and their families, residing in New Delhi, seemed far ahead of the times. The envoys and their spouses, well educated with their attires very western, most spoke fluent English. I recall the receptions hosted by the then Iraqi envoys at their official residence/bungalow on the Prithvi Raj Road, which was gifted by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to the first Iraqi envoy posted to India in the 1950s…Those receptions continued till Iraq was actually Iraq! When July 17th heralded the celebration of Iraq’s national day with a series of receptions, with Iraqi intellectuals, editors and writers, and the top creamy brass flying down here, from several cities of Iraq. Of course, that before it was intruded into and ruined by American and Allied Forces on that alibi of ‘looking for weapons of mass destruction’ but didn’t manage to find any! Instead, they destroyed that land, its very fabric, its people, an ancient civilization.
Stand out memories of the cultural evenings held in the 90s, by the Arab envoys to India. I recall the first time I heard a Dhrupad concert was at the residence of the then envoy of Qatar to India, Dr Hassan Al Nimah. He was one of those suave diplomats who hosted classical musical evenings in that traditional baithak style. Also, the envoys of Lebanon, Iraq, Libya, Jordan and Algeria would also host interactive meets at their residences and embassies …Today I am not too sure whether the once well-functioning Arab League office in New Delhi still functions with that level of out-reach. After all, there’s been a slow and steady phasing out of the very vibrant and spirited strength of the Middle East and the West Asian countries. Rather too obvious that several of these countries are battling on the various fronts, devastated by the tactics-cum-strategies of America and Allies, using the age-old western ploy of creating a civil war like situation, with that going right ahead to rule!
Compounding the situation for us Indians, is India’s apparent slant towards Israel and Allies. This pro-Israel tilt was more than obvious right from 2014, peaking in the summer/July of 2017, when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made his first trip to Israel.
What a contrast to India’s stand under Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi. In fact, Jawaharlal Nehru’s vision and policies vis-a-vis West Asia made the Arab world tilt towards India. He was clear about his stand on Palestine, and with that made the Arabs and West Asians strong allies of India. Today, there’s no Nehru and there’s little trace of the connect with the Middle East…I have attended press conferences of fiery Palestinian envoys to India and the emotions they generated amongst the Indian masses. I recall that warm hug that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat gave Indira Gandhi when she had hosted an elaborate reception for him in New Delhi.
Today, that’s all history as disturbing patterns are emerging of the changed world order. Where there’s little concern for human life.
