Video Producer: Naman Shah
Video Editor: Purnendu Pritam
Some days ago, we saw a viral video from Afghanistan, wherein a schoolgirl was seen crying because the Taliban had shut her school, killing her dreams of an education, a job, a good future. And here in India, we are seeing Muslim girls forced to choose between a hijab and an education.
A girl from Bagalkot in Karnataka could not take her SSLP exam because she refused to take off her hijab. Our High Court is not the Taliban, but its decision has hurt several Muslim girls in the same way – it ended their hopes for higher education and snatched their right to livelihood by rejecting their right to wear the hijab.
Some weeks ago, we saw a viral video of a Ukrainian official stopping a young Indian from boarding a train carrying civilians out of Kyiv/Kharkiv, saying that Ukrainians would get first preference. It was racist, as the Indian was treated like a 2nd class citizen, and it was called out on Twitter. But a few days ago, a hotel in Delhi refused a room to a Kashmiri youth, simply because he was a Kashmiri. Can we treat our own people as 2nd class citizens and point fingers at others? No.
Some days ago, we saw Sri Lankan families arriving in Tamil Nadu. Mismanagement by their government has led to a financial crisis, thousands are without income, and many are coming to India as economic refugees. But what are we doing to the livelihoods of our own citizens?
In Udupi, Muslim shopkeepers are being stopped from doing business near temples.
Southern India is known for its temple towns – Belur, Kanchipuram, Tirupathi, Thanjavur, Hampi, Thrissur, and many more. Muslims have run shops there for centuries, selling flowers, clothes, sweets, prayer items... and now, do we want them to stop, destroy their livelihoods, make them economic refugees in their own country?
Yeh Jo India Hai Na… here, how can we hurt, humiliate, and hate our own fellow citizens? And do things to them which we find unacceptable when they are done to us?
So many Indians have rightly questioned why Russia has attacked Ukraine. It's like declaring war on your own people. Thousands of Ukrainians are dead, lakhs are homeless, hundreds of Russian soldiers too are dead… why? Just to feed the megalomania of one dictator.
And then, we see videos in India where anti-Muslim hate and slogans are openly spewed in cinema halls.
While the plight of the Kashmiri Pandits must tug at our hearts, should it become an excuse to call for the killing of our Muslim citizens?
Not only are we seeing such hate in cinema halls across India, but it is also going unpunished, with police and administration pretending they cannot hear the hate. And so, the question is – how are such hate and such aggression justified in India, even as we criticise Russia's aggression in Ukraine?
Yeh Jo India Hai Na… here, along with hate, many of us seem to be practicing hypocrisy as well!
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