Divided, we fall!

As production stagnates and needs surge, citizens in most countries crowd the town squares in disappointment and anger. The joblessness and the pandemic have increased frustration and intolerance. Groups are looking for scapegoats or sacrificial lambs to vent their accumulated negativity and helplessness, upset with lack of speedy reliefs.

Such troubled times are an ideal recipe for disruptive forces to spreading disinformation, blaming one community against another, on caste or religious grounds. One community has come under a concerted and collective attack in many countries from organized far-right groups, media, and security forces. Most tend to believe the highly slanted print or visual media, often controlled by vested interests. More lethal are social networks, which seldom censor their contents. Corrective actions are often taken after the damage is long done.

A classic example is Ami Horowitz’s Fox News interview in 2017 about Sweden facing an unprecedented crime wave from Muslim immigrants. Visuals of dark men beating up police officers, burning cars, vandalizing shops were unproven on the investigation. The US President Donald Trump quoted such Swedish incidents, which were promptly denied by the Swedish authorities and dismissed as nonsense as most fact-checking organizations. A Swedish military expert, Nils Bilts, brought in by Fox News claimed that Swedish women felt unsafe. Again, Sweden was quick to dismiss that none existed in the name of Bilts, who turned out to be a felon from the US. Television crews often stage the crises for upping their TRPs.

France is another classic story of a nation divided, that has begun on their misplaced tolerance of needling other religions in the name of freedom of expression. Charlie’s vulgar depiction has caused deep wounds in the French Muslims’ psyche, which would take a long time to heal. Such a divide must heal. Otherwise, the fear, distrust, and intolerance will hurt France’s greatness and spread to other countries.

India has also suffered the ignominy, the courts coming to the rescue of either religious followers cherrypicked by the forces as spreaders of Covid, or as perpetrators of forced religious conversions by fake marriages. The label of spreaders of terror and unrest is wrongfully stuck on the whole community. The mistrust of both communities has risen, as are the far-right forces, in the guise of true flagbearers and saviours of their respective religions. Most travails are due to a schismatic media, doing a great disservice to the society, merely for their commercial gains.

We should come out boldly against the mischief-makers, isolate and re-educate them from both communities. Simultaneously we must spread love, goodness, trust and help in the confidence building. Let us understand one thing clear, all Indians are Indians irrespective of their caste or communities, and for India to dream a $5Trillion economy, every Indian must put in their best.

The leaders must tone down all harsh rhetoric and appreciate the value of a truly unified India. Every community must enjoy the spirit of the growth of our nation. The nation is ours, lets us make it stronger.

Sampath Kumar
Intrépide Voix

Pic: Slain Lance Naik Nazir Ahmed Wani’s father being consoled