The Standpoint

17 YEARS AND COUNTING...

By

Sugandha Tyagi

17 years! Yes, what all changed in 17 long years, planets changed their paths, countries changed, the governments changed, millions were born, legends died, even homosexuality became legal in the city...but what remained as it was 17 years ago, is the hindu-muslim tension and hatred.

After the infamous Babri Masjid demolition that happened 17 years ago people of the country still seem to be stuck upon communal unacceptability. A local masjid construction in Rohini has been ceased due to tension in the area. “Suaristaan[land of pigs]”, that is exactly what the residents of a colony near the construction site were quoted saying.

On the very first day of the construction, locals allegedly threw stones and protested against the construction of the mosque, which resulted in a low intensity riot, hospitalising two workers at the construction site. There has been a great deal of police patrolling in the area since then.

“Hum abhi bhi panch waqt ki namaaz padhte hain, hume shanti chahiye, ” said the caretaker of the site. Another helper present on the site pleaded not to make an issue out of the on-going situation. Apparently, the Islamic union under which the mosque is being built filed a request for the allotment of the land in 2004. It was only after waiting for five years that the union was given permission to start the construction. But due to protests by Hindu residents living right behind the site, the construction of the mosque has come to a standstill.

It is extremely ironical how we talk about modernisation while the basic idea of peaceful co-existence of two communities is so difficult for us to accept. As Winston Churchill had rightly said: “If the human race wishes to have a prolonged and indefinite period of material prosperity, they have only got to behave in a peaceful and helpful way towards one another.”

A country like ours, which is looking for development in all areas, cannot develop with an ingrained divide in the minds of its own people. It is indeed time we look beyond the very notion of community and start thinking like human beings. It is time we stop slitting throats for religion and culture. After all, humanity comes before religion.