Malda and Dadri, what is the difference?

Malda, a district in the Indian state of West Bengal (WB) is tense, the reason is very trivial, some person said something about Prophet Mohammad and the Muslim community of India didn't like it. I don't know what was his intention behind saying those things, maybe he was just joking or maybe he really wanted to hurt the feelings of Muslims all over the world for me this is not really important. But this guy said something that Indian Muslims or some sections of them thought was very insulting and derogatory to their prophet, hence many of them decided to protest. I don't see anything wrong so far. The guy said whatever he wanted to say under his right of freedom of expression and people who protested used their democratic right to register their opposition to that statement. But the problem started when some people in Malda decided to attack the police station and destroy public property which resulted in a serious law and order situation. Now one can easily ask, what was the intention behind all these actions apart from spreading the terror? If it was just a protest against some statement then it should have been a peaceful protest. There was absolutely no need for any sort of violence. As expected this violent behavior created an atmosphere of fear and flared up communal tension in that region. This can not be called a protest but it is an act of communal violence with a clear intention of spreading terror, especially among minorities of that area (who are Hindus and other religious groups). Surprisingly, there is not proportional outrage about this incident like it was in the case of the Dadri incident, I wonder why? I agree that in Dadri someone died, and one innocent man was lynched by a violent mob. So far no casualty has been reported in Malda but is this the reason not to offer equally strong condemnation for this act?

Actually, such incidents are not rare, these things happened in the past and they will happen in the future too. This is an ugly truth that many people don't want to accept. Such incidents start occurring especially if some type of election is around the corner. In this case, there are state elections due in WB this year, so this may be a warm-up round to get ready for the final battle for some political parties who are looking to appease their respective vote banks. Minority or majority appeasement politics is very common in India. All political parties use whatever tactics they can to appease their core constituencies. If the beef ban can be considered as majority appeasement politics then calling riots like Malda a routine scuffle between people and police is an example of minority appeasement. Such dirty tricks are always used and respective political parties or governments justify their stands by using their resources and talented spokespersons. Riots like Malda are as deplorable as the Dadri attack, a library burning, or any other mob violence incident. Just because no one died in this particular incident can not reduce its severity or cruelty. It is quite possible that it would have resulted in full full-fledged communal riot like Godhra. Any such incident must be taken very seriously. But the truth is as long as people are going to be selective in expressing their opinions about such incidents Indian society is not going to see any change in the attitude of political parties who use such incidents as a tool to polarize voters for political gains. If people are interested in putting an end to the use of such dirty tactics to win elections then they need to condemn such incidents equally irrespective of their political or religious affiliations. This can only happen in politically and intellectually mature societies. If this starts happening in India then only political parties will get a clear message that any such act is not acceptable to people and it might hurt their prospectus of winning elections. But if the majority somehow believes in those lame justifications like 'this is a reaction to certain action' or 'religious sentiments are hurt' or 'our idol or hero was insulted' then such acts will be repeated. Unless we are ready to condemn every mob violence and communal strategy by any political party this dirty game will not stop. The choice is really in people's hands as they are very important players in this game. Please think rationally and logically before justifying any such act, beware that any justification offered today might become the reason for regret tomorrow.

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]