Opinion Tavleen Singh writes: Will India become an economic superpower or slide down into the depths of barbarism?
Gurugram is not just a Haryanvi city it is a suburb of Delhi. In it can be seen on almost every other wall posters advertising G20 meetings and words of inspiration from the Prime Minister like ‘one earth, one planet, one family
Across north India, gangs of Hindu vigilantes began hunting for Muslims to kill. Monu Manesar who some blame for the violence in Nuh is a vigilante. (Express File Photo) 
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Using hatred as a political weapon comes with a price. India is beginning to pay it. For ten years we have watched the BJP use hate to build up an atmosphere in which ordinary, law-abiding Hindus have been encouraged to think of all Muslims as enemies of India. This was done in various ways. First came the cows. Muslim farmers were lynched on suspicion that they were killing our ‘sacred’ cows and selling beef and that by doing this they were somehow anti-Hindu. Videos of the second lynching were posted on social media and the killers of Pehlu Khan identified but nobody has been punished. Muslim farmers stopped breeding cattle and butchers (usually Muslim) were forced to close shop. Across north India, gangs of Hindu vigilantes began hunting for Muslims to kill. Monu Manesar who some blame for the violence in Nuh is a vigilante.
Just before the Hindu procession that was attacked by Muslims in Nuh, Manesar uploaded a video telling people that he would be leading the procession and they should gather in large numbers. This man has supposedly been on the run since two Muslims from Rajasthan were burned alive in their car by vigilantes from his group but somehow the Haryana police were not able to find him despite the video. After the procession was attacked in Nuh the Home Minister of Haryana accidently confirmed that he had official protection when he publicly gave Manesar a clean chit. This clean chit will not be given to Muslim rioters. For them it will be bulldozed homes and hefty penalties. This has been the pattern ever since Yogi Adityanath replaced due process with bulldozer justice.
One consequence has been that it is hard to find Muslims these days who believe that the institutions of the Indian state will deal with them fairly. When the rule of law collapses it should surprise us not at all that an armed railway policeman should suddenly decide to hunt out Muslims on a train and shoot them dead with the weapon that he was given to protect passengers. Later high officials in the Railway Police Force (RPF) tried to say he had mental health issues. If this was true, why was he given a weapon? Why was he on duty instead of in a hospital?
This is just one hate crime. There have been too many in recent years to list here. It shames me to admit that these hate crimes have been cheered on by Hindutva-minded news channels who have no compunction in making their own hatred of Muslims and Islam well known. Some have fallen to shameful depths in this exercise. It astounded me to hear famous TV anchors demand that Seema Haider be sent back to Pakistan because she had to be a spy. These are intelligent people who should know that if she was a spy, she would have concealed her whereabouts and her love story. They should know that since she has publicly declared that she has become a Hindu she would be killed if she was sent back to Pakistan.
Having lived in the ‘old India’ I must point out that had she come here ten years ago nobody would have noticed her existence. But, in the ‘new India’ there is a long list of chief ministers who are in the process of making it illegal for Hindus to marry Muslims. In such matters it always seems to be Gujarat that leads the way so the chief minister of that state announced last week that he was considering a law that will make it compulsory for adults to take their parents’ permission to marry outside their community.
The problem with hatred is that it is hard to confine. So, the violence from Nuh spread like wildfire to Haryana’s shining commercial jewel Gurugram. Violent angry mobs managed to locate a small mosque in the forest of tall, glass buildings that define this city and killed a young Imam while destroying the mosque. Gurugram is where foreign investors come to set up offices and find fancy residential apartments, but will they not look elsewhere in times to come? Will they not find it safer to invest in our southern states where communal hatred, riots and bulldozer justice have not come to define everyday life.
Gurugram is not just a Haryanvi city it is a suburb of Delhi. In it can be seen on almost every other wall posters advertising G20 meetings and words of inspiration from the Prime Minister like ‘one earth, one planet, one family’. The G20 Summit is mere weeks away and when the leaders of the richest and most powerful countries arrive in India’s capital, they will already have read about what happened in Nuh. They will have already noticed the violence that has ravaged Manipur for the past three months. They would have noticed that India’s prime minister who has just returned from foreign travels in which he urged investors to ‘make in India’ has not spoken against the violence. What will they make of these dichotomies?
What is more important from an Indian viewpoint is how we are to see our country’s future. Will India really become an economic superpower? Or will India slide downwards into the depths of barbarism and become a country in which ordinary people can be killed simply because they happen to be of a different faith?
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