Dying communal harmony
Syed Tajamul
Besides reeling under Covid-19 19 outbreak, a new world is seen struggling into other beleaguered situations. The worst of all, instability in the communal harmony hampering the life from breathing an air of peace. The lives and property of people proves to be at stake. Hence, all the unity and togetherness our life aspires to adhere with, gets shattered and dissipates.
Having our nation made of multi- ethnic cultures where people belonging to different religions, racial, cultural and lingual identities live together. At present, untoward incidents are affecting the communal harmony in different parts of country. Communal riots have begun to rise causing ebb in the peace prospects of the nation. A blame game among the religions is milking the communal violence to engulf and damage the social fabric of the society.
Religions are made for betterment of human race. How is that religions which supposedly espouse peace, love and harmony, are so commonly connected with intolerance and violent aggression? All religions preach us to live in harmony, peace and togetherness and spread out the message of love and brotherhood and not hatred. Communal harmony- a fundamental need of every country’s fabric, means to live with unity and mutual reciprocity beyond class, caste, creed, religion and gender barriers.
Since antiquity, all religions, cultures and societies have provided for living in harmony. Communalism or communal violence has become a serious threat to our sovereign, secular, socialist and democratic polity. It includes conflicts, riots and other forms of violence between communities of different religions, faith or ethnic origins.
The communal hatred involves people belonging to two different religious communities mobilised against each other and carrying the feelings of hostility, emotional fury, exploitation, social discrimination and social neglect. The divisive forces operating, are constantly consuming innocent human lives, damaging public property and creating an environment of desperation and uncertainty where society concerns negate viable growth prospects.
The communal forces flourish in an environment of mutual mistrust and feeds for its survival on hatred for other communities. The hate speeches with derogatory remarks have bloomed online especially on social media, triggers a massive outrage in the society. The streets and towns witnessed a sea of placards carrying the message to stop the use of blasphemous remarks registering fury over the sentiments being hurt.
The sarcastic figure of the issue lies in the biased media houses who instead of adhering to media ethics and neutrality, have shown an inclination towards particular political ideology and thereby delivering a communal violence to germinate. They insist to provoke the communities to speak ill of other communities.
They watered the seeds of communal hatred by being at the helm of a biased and polarised station. The irresponsible reporting by biased media broadcasts unconfirmed sensitive reports just to sensationalize the issue and improve their TRF, adds fuel to the fire and increases animosity between the communities.
Another irony is hooked in the nature of politicians using the communal card as a vote bank. Using such communal card, the politicians either align themselves to a particular community or for purpose of breaking up the vote bank of another party, often indulges in instigating a communal riot. What promise of leadership and development prospects these politicians will imbibe among the people, when their agenda does not yield any sort of communal harmony during their tenure.
The social fabric of society gets irreparably damaged and the conditions of mistrust serve as a catalyst for future conflicts on flimsy grounds. The greatest sufferers are the innocent common people who get caught inextricably into circumstances beyond their control. Their honour and sentiments are hurt and broken turning them to be too much furious and freaked.
To make a living in an unfavourable communal hit atmosphere is an uphill task and such atmosphere nests the terror, fear, agony and pain in the victims. It has become a moral duty of every citizen to end up such communal violence by fighting with tooth and nail. Peace communities need to be set up in riot affected places in which individuals belonging to different religious communities can work together to spread goodwill and fellow feelings and remove feelings of fear and hatred among the people.
The media houses need to throw away biased tactics and be secular in content. They should come forward to spread the advantages of communal harmony and promote love, brotherhood, togetherness, unity and fellow feelings. Value oriented education should be emphasized both in schools and colleges/ universities which could bring a sense of brotherhood and togetherness in them.
To end up the dangerous fate of communalism, we need to respect traditions and practices of other religions and should solve our social and economic problems rationally. We should not let the marriage between religion and politics to happen. All it needs our contribution to unite together and erase up the menace of communalism from its grassroots for the healthy sociable society.
(The author is a student and can be mailed at [email protected])
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