What Pallavi Rao should really tell Narendra Modi: stop BJP's polarising anti-Muslim rhetoric, like now
The truth bomb the terrorists hurled into the Karnataka woman’s ear after killing her husband
When an arrogant, power-drunk regime sits down to assess the remains of the day (with its Israeli handlers listening in), hopefully it will factor its own role in fuelling the anti-India, anti-Hindu hatred that led to the Pahalgam Massacre---one which may prove to be an inspiration for others, and not just in Kashmir.
Kashmir is a bone both India and Pakistan have been picking at for ages, but only bhakts, bigots and idiots (and sometimes a happy mix of all three), can pretend that the "K-factor" was singularly responsible for ordinary Indians, all but one of them Hindus, to be mowed down on the meadows of "mini-Switzerland" at mid-afternoon on April 22.
In the days and weeks to come, after the breastbeating over "intelligence failure" and "recruitment" die down, a standard playbook that New Delhi has perfected over 77 years will be deployed for the gullible public to read and move on.
Intercepts revealing an "ISI hand" will be traced and leaked. Locations of "training camps" will be spotted. India will promise to expose Pakistan's "dastardly designs" on the world stage. Warnings of a "befitting response" will follow. Later if not sooner, "normalcy" will arrive---unless something seriously stupid and suicidal is attempted.
Yes, but.
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When a Santosh Jagdale (above) is killed for failing to recite an Islamic verse; when another's pants are pulled down to check if he was circumcised; and when a Pallavi Rao is spared her life so that she can "go and tell Modi", there is an important message here---that a territorial war is showing every sign of morphing into an inter-religious conflict.
Or, the latter is providing the veneer for it.
As an acknowledged expert on, and practitioner of, Sir Isaac Newton's third law---for every Godhra action there is an equal and opposite Gujarat reaction---the pradhan provocateur does not need Pallavi Rao of Shivamogga, Karnataka, to tell him what some masked terrorist of 'The Resistance Front' wanted her to convey on behalf of the Lashkar-e-Toiba.
That two can play the hate game.
(When an Islamist terrorist asks a Hindu to recite the kalma if he wants to save his life, how different is it from a Hindutva terrorist exhorting a Muslim to say 'Jai Sri Ram' if he doesn't want to be lynched?)
All things considered, it is plainly evident from Pahalgam---as Pallavi Rao found out, unfortunately at the cost of her husband's life---the denigration of Muslims as "puncture-wallahs" (Narendra Modi), the dehumanisation of Muslims as "termites" (Amit Shah), and the demonisation of Muslims in towns and cities as "second-class citizens", are creating the necessary conditions for a deadly blowback.
CAA and Article 370, Triple Talaq and the Waqf Act provide the necessary legal framework.
By accusing Muslims of this or that 'jihad'; by mocking Muslims on what they eat ("pink revolution"); by running down the language Muslims speak (Urdu); by taunting Muslims on what they wear ('hijab'); by decrying how loudly Muslims pray ('azan') and how publicly they read prayers ('namaaz'); by tittering over how Muslims marry and procreate ("hum paanch hamaare pachchees"); by boycotting Muslim businesses etc, RSS and BJP have turned dogwhistling into a national sport.
Pahalgam shows you don't always win.
Saying that is not being "anti-national"--- it is a national duty.
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The historian Timothy Snyder recently wrote that the way things were going in America under Donald Trump, a terror attack was imminent.
"Most of the people directing the relevant agencies are incompetent; the next few layers down have been purged in culture wars; resources have been diverted away from terror prevention; Americans have been distracted by fiction and chaos; and potential attackers have been encouraged," Snyder wrote.
Ditto and likewise in India.
By relentlessly ratcheting up the anti-Muslim rhetoric to dangerous levels, a mutant ideology is putting Hindu lives in danger.
Truly, "Hindu khatre main hai", as more than two dozen innocent tourists, sucked in by the triumphalist propaganda of "Normalcy in Kashmir", found out.
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Maybe the Pahalgam Massacre was just a matter of timing, with the American vice-president visiting India and the Indian PM in Saudi Arabia. But what Pallavi Rao was told to convey has a tonne of truth for Narendra Modi and his ilk: that it is time to dial down the thuggish, hate-filled, communal rhetoric.
There is nothing to suggest that a more civilised political discourse, a language fit for the "land of Buddha and Gandhi", would have saved the lives of those who perished in Pahalgam. But at least a woman drowning in grief would not have been chosen as the terrorists' courier to a prime minister who should know better.
Her own experience (above) has a lesson for those who wish to learn.
Well-articulated for our polarised times. But wonder if the H ideology really cares for the loss of lives, Hindu or Muslim. If killings can help to divide and rule and win elections, all the better for this inhuman lot. As this piece indicates, all will be forgotten after the high decibel rhetoric from the BJP politicians and their Godi Media, starting with the screaming Arnab, with competition from Shivshankar. Woe betide the day that the Sanghis came to rule.