The mouse trap
I am appalled at the blatant
attitude of the present Government in crushing the minority freedom in this
country. They came to power on the agenda of development, but one year into
their job they seem to be scouting for ways and means to trample minority
freedom.
As soon as they ascended the
throne they started with changing the textbooks to suit their way of thinking.
This as they have done in the past with other decisions was projected as the
real Indian ethos and the ‘desi’ culture and if your dare differ with them you
were a traitor and working against the country. Their body language gives the
impression of being a bully. I am reminded of a famous dialogue from a Hindi
movie where Amitabh Bachchan mouths this line "Hum jahan khade hote hain,
line wahin se shuru hoti hai”.
The banning of beef is another
point, citing majority sentiment. Long ago I used to work in the Banking
Industry and as a freshman I was intrigued at why a 100% majority union was not
able to get the workers their rights. On the contrary I found to my amusement
that Unions with a lesser majority were more successful in having their way.
A senior leader and colleague
said thus “being in majority brings about more responsibility and since we are
in majority it becomes incumbent on us to see that we do not propose or insist
on unrealistic or unethical demands. It becomes incumbent on us to facilitate
the smooth running of the institution. Had we been in a minority we could have
played havoc with the management and asked for the moon and got a fair share of
it too.”
The majority community must see to
the comforts of the minority community and not needle them at the slightest
excuse. But all this is playing to a perfect script. How else can you justify
the celebration of Good Governance day on 25th December which
happens to be Christmas Day and the basis of Christian faith? But they chose to
create a normal day out of what is an extraordinary day for the Christian
community.
This is not an aberration or
isolated incident but a definite trend towards annihilation of the feelings and
sentiments of the minority. The idea of the saffron brigade is an Indian nation
that confirms to their distorted vision and not a nation that responds to the
heart strings of a majority of Indians.
Thankfully this may not be the
majority viewpoint at the moment, but believe me it does not take time to
gather steam. During the demolition of the Babri Masjid I was told by one of
the saffron brigade members to go back to Israel if I did not like the sight of
what I saw. The idea, is to erase from public memory the fact that minority is
viewed as a separate block and should be carried along.
Those who remember Modi’s Gujarat
rise will note that he had always advocated the erasing of definite space
between the majority and minority. This follows the leanings of the saffron
brigade who visualise an India ruled by the majority and a constitution that
finds no mention of the minority. Religion that confirm to a majority view camouflaged
as cultural identity of this country.
Again their view that since
everyone was once a Hindu and got converted into different faiths therefore ’Ghar
Wapsi’ was but natural. Inter faith marriages were termed as ‘love jihad’. Remember the idiotic utterances which equated
the wine in the chalice to alcohol, and the ridiculous pronunciations by others
who were not against the Christians practicing their faith but against the way
Christians emulated the west in their worship practice.
As Indians it is your duty to
stand up and be heard, to protest in your own ways in places where one can be
recognised for the views one propagate and to live peacefully alongside the
majority. Failing to act unitedly may cause us to be caught in the mousetrap of
insignificance.
I am reminded of a story of a
mouse that tried to warn its other friends about the entry of a mouse trap in
the farmer’s house but they all turned a deaf ear since it did not concern
them. Read further and draw your own inferences.
The story-
There was a mouse that used to
merrily live with a chicken, a pig and a cow in a farmyard. One day while the
mouse was looking through the wall crack, he saw the farmer and his wife open a
package. “What food might this contain?” the mouse wondered. He was devastated
to discover it was a mousetrap!!
The mouse realized that he was in
big trouble. Hence he retreated to the farmyard and proclaimed this warning:
“There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house! ”The
chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said, “Mr. Mouse, I can tell
this is a grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me. THAT’S NOT
MY PROBLEM! I cannot be bothered by it.”
The mouse turned to the pig and
told him, “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the
house!” The pig sympathized, but said,
“I am so very sorry, Mr. Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it but
pray. Be assured you are in my prayers.”
The mouse turned to the cow and
said, “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!” The cow said, “Wow, Mr. Mouse. I’m sorry for
you, but it’s no skin off my nose.”
So, the mouse returned to the
house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer’s mousetrap all alone…
That very night a sound was heard
throughout the house – the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey. The farmer’s
wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see it. It was
a venomous snake whose tail was caught in the trap. Unfortunately the snake
went on to bite the lady.
The farmer rushed her to the
hospital. When she returned home she still had a fever. Everyone knows you treat
a fever with fresh chicken soup. So the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard
for the soup’s main ingredient – the chicken!
But his wife’s sickness
continued. Friends and neighbours came to sit with her around the clock. To
feed them, the farmer butchered the pig! But, alas, the farmer’s wife did not
get well. She eventually died. Large number of people came for her funeral and
the farmer had to slaughter the cow to provide enough meat for all of them for
the funeral luncheon. And the mouse looked upon it all from his crack in the
wall with great sadness.
-End of story
I leave each one to draw your own
inferences should we or should we not as individuals as a society, as a
community or as a congregation fend off this evil before it enters our living space.
Or do we ignore the mousetrap because we are too big intellectually and far too
affluent to get caught in its trap?
Robin Varghese
Robin_vargh@yahoo.com
14th June 2015
