Dear Mr Narendra ‘Bhai’ Modi,
Congratulations on managing a convincing
win and here’s wishing you the best as
you pack your bags to 7 Race Course Road. Kudos to the way you managed to spur a nation to
dream of a stable government, sustainable development, eradication of inequality
and what not.
When you walk up to the highest office of
my country, I can only congratulate you for the excellent public relations
exercise you had triggered over a year ago. The strategy has paid off, and enticingly
well, indeed.
But then, Mr Modi, though I congratulate
you, I do it not from the bottom of my heart. For, whenever, I see you smile,
the weeping souls of 2002 appear, soaked in blood and tears, in my conscience.
Whenever you address my Muslim friends out there as bhais, I know you don’t mean
that at all.
The whole of India is now reverberating in joy
on your election and what a massive one it has turned out to be. But then, does
that mean the whole of India is celebrating? When you thank the voters profusely
for giving you the mandate to rule, have you ever thought of what secular India
has been thinking of?
In case you haven’t realized, Mr Modi, life
in secular India has ceased to exist. And through that, secular India is dead
and gone too. I, and many like me, who have always taken
pride in calling ourselves the children of a secular India, are in mourning
mode.
I’m
sorry to say that you and your parivar
have now put an end to the secularist beliefs that have helped my nation survive.
When your cronies start to talk of building the Ram temple at Ayodhya, it gives
me the jitters. A secular nation that we are, why do we need temples or mosques
that build boundaries among brethren? Why do we need a Hindutva way of thought when
we are all Indians?
In case you didn’t realize, your parivar folks have been out in the open
doing all sorts of things possible to make sure that we all love you. Frankly,
I did try. But my conscience doesn’t let me speak good of you. Simply because,
I find the goodness to be spoken about missing in you!
Now
that you have become PM, my hopes go for a toss. My hopes of India being seen
as a secular nation take a backseat. I find it difficult to mingle with my Muslim
brothers as they see me as just another Hindu.
Till recently I was one among them.
And now, see how things have changed. I’m a Hindu in Modi’s Hindustan. I’m
just another thread in the saffron fabric. I hate this existence.
Will Modi give me, and the secular India I belong
to, something to be happy about? Or, are you bound on following the Sangh
Parivar’s way of fanning Hindutva thoughts in my secular nation? What we need
are not temples, or the trident sporting kar
sevaks that will now come out in the open with renewed vigor.
I’m a Hindu and I’m of course proud of being
one. But more than being a Hindu, I feel myself proud of being a secular
Indian. This is something you or your men may not understand in its essence.
For, you have always thought through your mind that has been programmed to be
partial to the Hindus. But then, you need to realize, India is a country populated
by not just Hindus.
Mother India has provisioned space for all to
live comfortably once they are born in her lap. Bharat Mata, as you would love
to call her, is also mother to the Muslims, Sikhs and Christian who are born or
brought up on her soil. Refusing to wear a Muslim skull cap, while readily putting
on any other variety of headgear whenever possible, doesn’t sound secular to
me.
Even as the 2002 riots were raging, while
working in Mumbai, I had played host to a Hindu friend who had to run away on
a night train after being confronted and threatened by armed Hindus in your
state just because he sported a beard. I recall with fear the agony on my
friend’s face on that night. It is then
when I decided to stay away from you and your beliefs. You have, unfortunately, done nothing to sweep
away such fears from my mind with whatever you did ever since.
You are now PM. Congratulations. But my heart
goes out to the hapless souls out there who think their existence is now worth
just another question mark. Do you have anything for them, something that will make
them feel better?
Anyways, history will provide you with a
seat in its pages. We now have a new PM. Wishing you all the best! Wishing my brothers
who aren’t Hindus, also the very best! As for me, I hate this moment.
Yours truly, bhai
Secular Indian
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