The ghost of Malegaon
Hindutva terror banks on majoritarian prejudice in the criminal justice system as much as the larger public opinion, which assumes that Muslims are guilty even of terror attacks that clearly target their own community.
Hindutva terror banks on majoritarian prejudice in the criminal justice system as much as the larger public opinion, which assumes that Muslims are guilty even of terror attacks that clearly target their own community.
It was night by the time our weary and dusty band of travellers in Karwan e Mohabbat reached the seminary near Satna, Madhya Pradesh, where young prospective Catholic priests spend several years studying theology.
The election results in Brazil last month came as another troubling reminder of the direction in which an increasing number of countries are careening.
Uzma was born on the terrifying night when her father was shot dead on the banks of a canal by paramilitary soldiers, about 50-odd km from Delhi. This was in the summer of 1987.
The first day of the Karwan e Mohabbat (caravan of love) in Odisha revealed a state torn apart by the same ruptures of communal and caste mobilisation against religious minorities and disadvantaged castes that lacerate many parts of the country.
I held Rakbar Khan’s father Suleiman’s hand in mine for a long time. His face was creased with grief, his eyes often welled up.
It was a gut-wrenching two days. Between March 29 and March 30, the Karwan e Mohabbat team met nine families in Haryana’s Mewat region who had lost loved ones to hate murders of another kind.
For some weeks, India’s glittering hub of information technology, industry and finance near Delhi was shrouded in fear and animosity.
By affirming that he bore Muslims no ill will, Yashpal Saxena, whose only son Ankit Saxena was murdered by the family of the Muslim girl he loved, demolished one of the most widely used rationalisations for communal hatred.
Never in any of his election speeches did Rahul Gandhi use the M word – Muslim. He did not touch once upon the gruesome massacre of 2002 under the watch of Modi.