In an interaction with this newspaper last week, Maharashtra DGP Sanjeev Dayal reflected on the factors that have led to increasing radicalisation among Muslim youth and called for a holistic approach involving multiple government departments. The youth are often attracted to ideologies and groups that seek to disrupt the state and its institutions because they are alienated from society. The alienation arises from grievances perceived and real, including faulty state policies and societal discrimination. It is hence important to create a sense of belonging among the youth to prevent the growth of radical ideologies focused on the creation of an exclusivist religious state.
In this context, Dayal spoke about the discrimination rampant in housing, especially against Muslims, which forces the community into ghettos. The very statement, from the head of a state police force, in a leading metro like Mumbai — and the city is not an exception — is a positive step. Ghettos fuel ignorance and fear of the other. And, ironically, the people who are forced into ghettos by rejection elsewhere are blamed for ghettoisation. The social prejudice that causes the exclusion of members of a particular community from affordable housing is ignored. The ghetto, in turn, begins to believe that the administration too shares the prejudiced social mindset that created it in the first place. Any failure of governance is perceived to be a deliberate and targeted act of discrimination by public officials — which, of course, may be true in some cases.
