The yellow race

The marked minority is an abiding motif in the history of hate. Whenever an ideology, or a faith, takes control over a people, the segreg...

The marked minority is an abiding motif in the history of hate. Whenever an ideology, or a faith, takes control over a people, the segregated other is the prime object of persecution. The Fuhrer8217;s regime sought the Final Solution to establish the Aryan supremacy.

The Soviet empire found an enemy in anyone who asked questions. And in the People8217;s Republic, the supermarkets of social capitalism are balanced by the prisons for the counter-revolutionaries. And for the Islamic warriors in search of a world according to the Book, the enemy could be a Coptic Christian or a dissenting Muslim. So, does the newly-found yellow race8217; in the Taliban8217;s Afghanistan come as a surprise? In the Taliban country, a veiled piece of war and terror managed by Islam8217;s most fearsome fanatics, religious apartheid looks very ordinary. But for the 50 Hindu families of Kandahar, the new yellow status marks a break from their own history, their own land, and from their compatriots. Under the Taliban decree, every Hindu in this southernAfghan city has to wear a yellow piece of cloth: the identity of the outsider. In a system sustained by fear and scriptures, the marked one is an impurity, one that disturbs the idyll of the divine order.

The religious ostracism of Kandahar8217;s Hindus brings back the discarded chapters of a dark history. It may not match the Jewish tragedy in the Reich of supremacist fantasy. Still, by identifying and marking the unwanted, the religious warriors of Kandahar follow the philosophy of hate perfected by the ethnic cleansers of Europe. And in Kandahar8217;s case too, the minorities do not see themselves as outsiders. The city8217;s non-Muslims, including Hindus and Sikhs of Indian origin, see themselves as an integral part of Kandahar8217;s identity as a commercial centre. With a generational history of three centuries, they have every reason to feel at home in Kandahar. But the turbulent Islamic evolution in Afghanistan is sending a different message to them: home is elsewhere. Unfortunately for these people, there is nohome other than Afghanistan. In the Taliban8217;s Islamic absolutism, that doesn8217;t make any sense. The Taliban8217;s Afghanistan has become the capital of religious terror.

Once, it was the Ayatollah8217;s Iran, or Turabi8217;s Sudan. The Hezbollah-isation of Islam has been replaced by the Talibanisation of Islam. The terror stretching from the ghettoes of Egypt to the streets of Algeria can still be contained by responsible governance. In Afghanistan, the revolution8217; is official, and the Koran-wielding revolutionary is quite happy to export his wares to every potential market. The American Tomahawk alone cannot repudiate this threat. A diplomatic re-orientation in places like Delhi is very essential to minimise this threat. The received wisdom of anti-Americanism hardly helps in this regard. The Taliban philosophy is steeped in vengeance. Having triumphed at home, today they would like to have an extraterritorial implementation of the terror. And the Taliban have already told the world that the marked ones are notconfined to Kandahar alone. The holy guerrillas are seeking the yellow race8217; outside the borders as well. On the eve of a new century, the civilised world can live without this dark medievalism.