And Never The Twain...India's Hindu-Muslim Divide
"People are frustrated that they are not being able to get jobs."
"There is angst, which is spreading across communities and people ... It's a reaction to their circumstances."
Vasundhara Raje, Leading member, Bharatiya Janata Party [BJP]
"I have a strange sense of confidence now. The group has taught us what is right, what we need to do for society."
"Earlier there was a fear that the government would arrest us, but now with the Yogi government, we don't have any fear."
"Even if a smuggler is killed during a fight, we don't have to worry about it. Even if a life is lost, we don't care."
"All these BJP leaders, they've said, 'Do what you want to do about cow protection. Don't worry, if there is any problem we are there for you."
Ram Kumar, 23, Govardhan, India
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| People walk past a shop selling cow meat in Kolkata, capital of the eastern Indian state of West Bengal. |
There are over 600 million people under the age of 24 in India with access to technology and education. But India has a vast population, many in the same age cohort who despite the advance in technology and education available to them now, for whom there will be scant opportunity for meaningful employment. The negatives don't end there; because boys are seen as preferential to girls, the culture selects for males, either in the womb or through neglect after birth.
The result of which is that there is an estimated 37 million men for whom a mate will never be found, thanks to aborted female fetuses. These are called "bachelor bombs", for whom the presence of a woman in their lives and the fulfillment of family life will never defuse those incipient 'bombs'. The cultural legacy of preference for boys leaves those young men bereft of a normal future.
Each month in India over a million young men enter the labour market, often with inadequate employment skills. India is able to generate 1.8 million jobs annually, according to the Center for Monitoring Indian Economy. The government, on the other hand, claims that closer to 7 million new jobs were created last year.
The result of this growing social dysfunction with scant employment opportunities and restless young men for whom life seems purposeless, is a search for meaning. Some attend leadership camps; they are themselves under no economic duress, coming from well-off families. And they are joining right-wing groups in the belief that they can help clean up society's ills.
Their core Hindu beliefs, they believe, require their very particular vigilance to ensure that society knows its place. Beating others suspected of violating those Hindu beliefs, threatening interfaith couples in the belief that Muslims are plotting to steal their Hindu women for whom they're prepared to kill in defence of the faith.
This past summer has seen dozens of people killed by lynch mobs, where extremist Hindus assault and kill other people, mostly Muslims. Religious zealots responded to a minor traffic accident by demolishing a car with sticks to vent their rage, even while police looked on, unresponsively. The Hindu nationalist Bharantiya Janata Party governing India is being blamed for encouraging violence by Hindu extremists.
Ram Kumar is one example of a college graduate who attended a leadership camp sponsored by the Hindu nationalist World Hindu Council. And this is where he became familiar with the need to protect cows held sacred by Hindus but butchered and eaten by Muslims. It is where he was inspired to protect women's modesty, and to prevent those outside the faith from converting Hindus to their own faith.
Military drills, sleeping in spartan concrete dorm rooms, eating lentils and rice was part of the hardening off formula of these activists. Kumar, and his friend Gaurav Sharma, 22, a law student, come from Agra where they grew up, the city that boasts the Taj Mahal, the world-famed monument to love, which they regard as symbolic of the Mughal invaders subjugating India's Hindus.
After Kumar's indoctrination in the training camp he became accustomed to chasing down and threatening interfaith couples, conducting the kind of moral activism he feels is required to stop Muslim men from seducing girls "as young as 14", a practise known as "love jihad". At night Kumar prowls the streets on the lookout for cattle traders illegally smuggling cows to slaughter.
He and five other committed activists recently stopped a truck transporting cows and beat the driver, a Muslim, who pleaded for them to spare his life. His life was spared but not by the activists, when police arrived. "I was raging, if I had a pistol, I would have killed him", said Kumar. Since the BJP came to power in the state of Uttar Pradesh, the activists have no fear of accountability to authorities.
"Our parents never told us anything bad about Muslims. But in madrassas, they learn that Hindus are bad."
"We will tell the next generations how bad these people are."
Gauray Sharma, 22, law student
Labels: Conflict, Customs, Hindus, India, Muslims, Traditions
posted by Pieface @ Saturday, September 22, 2018
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