Forgetting M’nagar, abandoning hope

Now that the media silence on the plight of Muzaffarnagar riot victims, particularly women and children of the minority comminty, has been broken, can we all get together and do something about it? Post-riot Muzaffarnagar is a graveyard of political machinations and targeted attack on communities, with symptoms of malignant calculations writ large on every spot of the ravaged region. As reports on how the relief camps are understaffed and understocked, how children and women are systematically denied their dues, resulting in deaths because of extreme cold that has gripped North India, have started trickling in, the political fraternity is still busy cashing in the tense atmosphere, pitting neighbour against neighbour in this ugly game of one-upmanship. The string of cover stories in prominent news magazines have openly put the finger where it hurts the most – the forgotten and abandoned riot victims, the survivors and their sorry state, after the September riots. The refugee camps, where 4,000 Muslim families are housed in unbelievably shabby conditions, with practically no access to basic amenities, including minimum protective clothing to escape the grueling winters, have been relegated to a life of extreme suffering, with even the Samajwadi Party, apparently pro-Muslim with ‘secular’ credentials, doing much less than needed to alleviate their daily worries. The schools have seen an exodus of Muslim students, who fear coming back to a regular pre-riot life, assuming the worst. Time and again, the citizens of India have fallen prey to the political class’ policy of divide and rule, of playing the communal card and erecting impenetrable walls between people. It is a travesty of our constitutionally-guaranteed rights that we have not been able to live as our freedom struggle veterans had expected us to, with harmony and understanding. Our political and chattering classes prefer selective amnesia to re-engineering collective values.