Sangh Parivar

From: Hilda raja
Subject: Open letterto Ms Seema Mustafa
Date: Tuesday, August 26, 2008, 9:03 PM
 
 
Dear Seema Mustafa,
Allow
me to introduce myself-I have been a professor in one of the elite
colleges in Madras and after retirement was a Development Consultant
for both National and International organizations. I have reached the
biblical age of three scores and ten on the day your article was
published.
 
Your article 'When callousness rules' (NIE 25th
Aug) was partly good and did expose the callousness that we in India
have to live with day in and day out but unlike the NRIs whom you
mentioned, cannot leave this land of callousness because this is the
only land we have and the only home we have. Your examples of this
callousness from the peeing on the road to 'the soulless class which
has no time for sovereignty, democracy, secularism, stability, poverty
alleviation" , did echo what the ordinary citizen like me agonizes
about.
 
But when it came to terrorism your bias surfaced. The
moment police and the investigation agencies try to do their jobs the
media and  journalists bring out 'the other side of terror'. Is it
possible for the police to straight away walk and with one look pick up
the culprits? Is there any country in the world, which is as soft to
terrorists than India? Even the Islamic countries there is hardly any
investigation- a terrorist is simply done away with. Even hardcore
terrorists have not been brought to justice in India. Thanks to the
politicians' vote bank mentality. It is true that in the process
innocent people will be put to hardships. But how will one eliminate
the innocent without going through the procedures of investigation of
the suspects, which will have both the innocent and the culprits?
 
The
Muslim community is well knit and they live in aggregate communities.
The community usually closes up and walls all investigation.

Tell
me Ms Seema how will you react if across the country thousands of
temples gave a call to the Hindus to congregate at a particular area.
But this is  exactly what happened in Kashmir when a call given was by
more than a thousand mosques in Kashmir through the public address
system (which is meant to proclaim the prayers) to congregate on the
roads in a specific place for rallies to shout anti-Indian slogans. And
pro-Pakistan slogans holding Pakistan flags. Only this country will see
such scenes of betrayal by its own people. So in the whole frame- work
of callousness you did not mention the treason and the betrayal of this
nation.
 
Your article appeared on the 25th Aug and just the
previous day a revered Swamiji Laksmnananda Saraswathi and his five
disciples were brutally murdered in Orissa. Had they belonged to the
minority community the media would have splashed the news across its
front pages and the electronic media would have imaged it poignantly at
the prime time as these did when a Christian nun was alleged burned by
the VHP in Bargha in Orissa, but as you rightly stated the " dilution
of  journalistic ethics", operated to allowed the latter incident to be
blurred and passed over as just another one of those killing to be
forgotten.

Was it sheer
callousness and 'dilution of journalistic ethics which allowed the
ethnic cleansing in Kashmir to be systematically carried out with the
nation and its impotent government to be just silent spectators? And
look at how even you as a journalist has rushed to the defense of
Shabana Azmi. With her stature and her financial power she is finding
it impossible to get a house .Is she then living on the streets of
Mumbai?
 
Why is it that when all the Muslim actors can possess
posh bungalows only Shabana Azmi finds it impossible to buy a house.
And you fault that no government official has tried to find out the
reason and no remedial action was taken- this another example of the
'callousness' ; which you cited in your article? What about the lakhs
who are sleeping by the roadside and a few who get mowed by the
reckless driving of powerful persons? Should we not cite the community
of the victims and the reckless drivers? That will be news. What  about
those who have no shelter above their heads for generations- should the
government not find out the reason and take remedial action? How deftly
you have come to the defense of Shaban Azmi and even accused the
communal forces demanding an apology from her. This reveals your own
biased mindset.

Please
bear with me if I narrate to you my own experience. I have lived for 50
years in Chennai-Mahalingapuram- It was a predominately a Brahmin
locality (I am a Catholic) The area today has a large number of Muslim
families who have bought the houses-some have constructed flats; this
was possible because the owners did not look into the religion of the
buyers. But now not a single Muslim will rent out his flat/ house to a
non-Muslim. One Muslim who owns 12 flats when I approached for my niece
told me point blank  'we take only our people as tenants". The media
usually brings out how the Muslims are denied houses- employment by non
Muslims. My experience is just the opposite. Why does the media not
report facts and base their articles on ground reality?
 
I
myself had rented out a portion of upstairs to a Muslim-. After having
lived for two years and when I had to dispose of my house he refused to
vacate though I had given him a three months notice. He  asked me to go
to court. Do you think I would recommend him to prospective house
owners? It would be easy for a biased journalist to report, 'Poor 'X'
nobody is prepared to take him as a tenant'. And one must read this as
part of the discrimination the Muslims by and large face in India.
 
'Poor
Shabana Azmi a five times national awardee-if this is what happens to
her then one can imagine what the ordinary Muslims go through' is the
message. No country in the world treats its minorities as they are
treated in India-with respect and equality. It is grossly unfair for
the pseudo- secularists then to heap such unwarranted accusations.
 
Indian
history records that the massacre perpetuated by the Muslims in India
is unparallel, bigger than the holocaust of the Jews. If that was
history then today we have the biggest number of terror victims in the
world.
 
All religions profess that theirs is a religion of
love and brotherhood. But this cannot remain  as hollow proclamations
by the religious leaders and so called secularists. It has to be
experienced. It is in the name of  religions that our country is not
just a nation where "callousness rules' but where disharmony, distrust
and disunity rules. Religious fundamentalist is shredding the fabric of
the country. Any action has its reaction. You would agree with me that
the criteria to etch the contours of a religion as fundamental are its
dogmas, its tight control over its adherents and its intolerance of
other religions.
 
I believe that it is in love and goodness of heart that one will be judged not by the religion to which one belongs.
 
Dr Mrs Hilda Raja,
Vadodara