It has been a tough last few rocky years with little battles exploding all over the nation due to targeted efforts by a political party’s agenda to divide and rule. The recent riots during Ram Navami only added fuel to the already blazing flames around the seven different states. It seems the political party succeeded in its target of polarizing Hindus, Muslims and others. Suddenly, it no longer was about BJP. When the public viewed horrific visuals of arson, murder and violence, a large section of minorities started accusing the majority of voting for BJP, enabling this hatred to unleash its full force.
Hindus too have been victims such as journalists and farmers; so it is difficult to clearly ascertain who voted for whom, and perhaps people are too quickly pointing fingers at each other without giving others a fair trial.
Things are degenerating into a “living hell” in 2022, exploding into fires of communalism, the situation is out of control and many are saying that Indians voted for hate and now they got their fate. Thing is, everyone wants to just leave it at that, there seems no solution and the country will keep on burning, if not with literal flames, it will burn with flames of religious hate.
Now in the midst of this toxic battle, let's quickly rewind to 2020. The seeds of communal hate were breeding in incubators then, but it was restricted to Delhi and Uttar Pradesh. However, in 2022 seeds are being sown across the nation rapidly. People from different religious communities are seething with rage against each other while sharing brutal videos of violence inflicted on each other which would naturally ignite more anger against each other.
The Communal Colors during COVID-2020
Back in 2020, the world was coming together to fight the COVID crisis, and millions of Indians joined hands magnificently as angelic warriors rising above all differences. Sikhs helped, Hindus reached out, Muslims opened parts of their mosques for patients to recover, Christians opened their centres and relief packets and medicine were provided.
In the midst of all this, certain groups in the nation and in media backed up by their political masters gleefully sought to create another Hindu–Muslim divide. With diabolic hands, they grabbed opportunities in the Tablighi Jamaat event. The Tablighi Jamaat meet annually, and this year as usual met, and were not restricted or checked in the airport or quarantined by the government despite WHO’s solemn death knell declaration that COVID-19 was now an international pandemic. In fact, the police station, not far from Tablighi Jamaat could have restricted this large gathering, which did not happen. After this event, constant testing on the participators discovered many were infected, and a certain chant went through channels in India that the Tablighi Jamaat people had conspired with China to bring COVID-19 to India. An inflamed section of society went further to make it a Muslim–Chinese conspiracy against India.
Fortunately, this was later busted as fake news, but unfortunately, great damage had already been inflicted on the hearts and minds of millions of Indians.
Simple homemakers watching the evening news told friends and family in shocking horror that the “Muslims” brought the virus to India. Highly educated Indians infected by the hate propaganda of certain sections of media swallowed up this bitter poison simply because some sections of media were sold for an agenda of deceit.
With the villainization of the Tablighi Jamaat group, many neutral citizens in the nation rose to defend them. Even Muslims who were generally not in agreement with the ideals of the Tablighi Jamaat stood up in protective support of the defenceless who suddenly were bewildered at this strange turn of events. When they were cured of the corona, they heroically gave their blood serum to be used as antibodies for the virus.
Forged videos and misleading articles were created by certain IT cells inciting WhatsApp groups to build a climate of burning hostility, insidiously construed by the makers to suit a political agenda.
The Mysterious Man Who Rose to Help During COVID-2020
In the midst of all the chaotic cacophony, a mysterious Good Samaritan rose up to commit himself to help during COVID-19. He did not look at the caste, religion, colour, creed, ethnicity, etc., of the victims of Covid. He rose in the garb of compassionate humanity to help others less privileged than himself. He did not want any spotlight on himself, so he was very insistent that his name or brand not be printed on the packages that were meted out to the people in the villages. While one does not want to make it a Hindu–Muslim event, the truth is 95 per cent of the people in the villages who were given provisions etc., were Hindus and this mystery man was a Muslim.
He did not want to be named or known when he donated food (rice and dal bags) and milk to seven tea garden villages in Bengal inThe May 2020. During this disaster, his foundation committed 1,125 crores to tackle the COVID-19 outbreak.
So who is this mysterious man? He is none other than Azim Hashim Premji. He is an Indian business tycoon, investor, engineer, and philanthropist, (and a Gujarati Muslim) who is the chairman of Wipro Limited. He is currently one of the richest persons in India with an estimated net worth of US$32.8 billion according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index as of 2022. In 2013, he agreed to give away at least half of his wealth by signing The Giving Pledge. Premji started with a $2.2 billion donation to the Azim Premji Foundation, which focused on education in India. Forbes magazine praised Azim Hashim Premji for his great generosity, there was rarely a word from Indian media about him.
He is informally known as the Czar of the Indian IT Industry. He was responsible for guiding Wipro through four decades of diversification and growth to finally emerge as one of the global leaders in the software industry. In 2010, he was voted among the 20 most powerful men in the world by Asiaweek. He has twice been listed among the 100 most influential people by TIME Magazine, once in 2004 and more recently in 2011. For years, he has been regularly listed as one of the 500 Most Influential Muslims in the world.
Today, we should say we are Indians first, not Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist, Christian, atheist, etc. Internationally, ethnicity should not divide us because if we are truly a democratic nation and follow the Constitution, we would say we are Indians first not Hindus, Muslims and others.
Azim Hashim Premji the great lionhearted man reached out to all Indians and incidentally, the majority in those villages were Hindus and he gave it all with an open golden heart. A big salute to him! We wish more such people would rise up to wash out the angry flaming communal colours and just blend as one with the colours of saffron, white and green.
Rita Farhat Kurian
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