On 24th February 2020, more than two months long peaceful protests against the controversial CAA-NRC-NPR, suddenly turned violent and resulted into riots in East Delhi. Several people injured, death toll is still increasing with each passing day and many were arrested. And just like any other debate that we’ve seen for the past six years, people were desperate to find the culprit on the basis of their religion, name, clothes rather than their crime. This debate itself is a distraction. Some are blaming Kapil Mishra and some Tahir Hussain, but are they capable of orchestrating these riots alone?
What happened in Delhi has its roots way back in the 2015 when the cases of mob lynching started surfacing. The term lynching may sound too normal because conditions have worsened far too much since then. But is this not bizarre that people were killed only for their “suspected eating habits”? No major action was taken against those killers, instead some were rewarded for their atrocities. Is this not a matter of concern when murders are ignored by the government, misrepresented by media, and rewarded by Neo-Nazi groups?
This concern is the reason behind the conversation of “Religious Intolerance” at that time. Shahrukh Khan and Aamir Khan both addressed their concern regarding the issue but were accused of fear mongering and asked to leave the country. This was done not only by the politicians but people also and this slowly made our society immune to hate crimes. Possessed with the idea of Modi = Nation, people labeled any form of criticism as Anti-National. They still do.
Five years after, now we’re seeing people being attacked both tangibly & intangibly, for what they’re wearing, what they’re speaking, what their sexual orientation is and most prominently what faith they belong to. This hate, the cases of sedition against concerned celebrities and now even common citizens, and all those brutal lynchings make up the amalgam of what we see as Delhi riots. It happened at the time when an international dignitary was visiting India and Our prime minister still didn’t care to even look at the situation. If you still see these killings as an act of valor and Modi as some God who shouldn’t be questioned for his responsibilities, then you need to remind yourself that hate has no religion and if you let it grow, someday it will knock your door too, as Death.
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