When Dr Parvez Mandviwala shared a picture with the story behind the picture between him and a pandit on a train, citizens were stunned.
Dr Parvez Mandviwala, dentist and writer wrote, “Got into a seat tussle with a Pandit on the train today. Since I was wearing a kurta for Juma, he assumed I was a ‘moulvi’. Read on about the story of the “moulvi” and the pandit on a train.
The tussle: He wanted me to sit and I wanted him to sit on the only vacant seat. We then shared the seat for a moment before we both vacated it for a lady.
When another person offered to vacate his seat for the Pandit, he backed off saying “Aap buzurg ho; yeh to maiñ Moulvi sahab ke aadar me unke sath baith gaya”.
I then requested him for a selfie, saying: “Panditji, nafrate bohot phail rahi hai, thoda pyar bhi phailna chahiye” ❤️
Got into a seat tussle with a Pandit on the train today. Since I was wearing a kurta for Juma, he assumed I was a ‘moulvi’.
The tussle: He wanted me to sit and I wanted him to sit on the only vacant seat. We then shared the seat for a moment before we both vacated it for a lady. pic.twitter.com/wmNna0Smtj
— Dr Parvez Mandviwala (@DrParvezM) November 4, 2022
When citizens heard about this, they were touched because the escalating violence and rifts between especially Hindus and Muslims were frightening. There are youth who now say they don’t want to study or work in India because it is not a safe country anymore.
While the initial violence triggered in 2016, triggered by the new anti-beef laws, which initiated a terrifying lynching movement where extremists from the Hindu right-wing started lynching Muslims, all died after horror stories of violence inflicted on them for suspected of smuggling cows, it turned out most of them had licenses and were farmers, a profession they held for generations was suddenly marked and attacked.
The new bulldozers roll out on Kanpur streets to demolish the properties of rioters that were involved in the violence that broke out on June 3 also turned into international news, stunning the world.
A first-time rage and violence were flaring on Ram Navami. Earlier, there was a fight in the Jawaharlal Nehru University campus in Delhi that erupted on a Sunday after a dispute over non-vegetarian food being served on campus that left several left-wing students wounded and bleeding.
In other parts of India, one person was also killed in Khambat town in Gujarat’s Anand district and houses, mosques, and shops were set on fire in Khargone as the communal violence, after an attack on a Ram Navami procession, spread to different parts of the city by late Sunday night.
Curfew was clamped in Madhya Pradesh’s Khargone city and at least 84 people were arrested there. One person was also killed in Khambat town in Gujarat’s Anand district while there were some reports of violence in West Bengal’s Howrah district, adjoining Kolkata, after a Ram Navami procession.
There is a concern all over the world over the treatment meted out to minorities in India and especially Muslims at this time. In April in 2022, this year, Mehdi Hasan television host from Washington DC spoke on his show, clearly disturbed about how the BJP is trying to create a lost Hindu Kingdom called Hindu Rashtra, openly championing Hindu nationalists’ supremacist ideology. He said in horror that scholars are now literally warning about an impending genocide in India.
Mehdi Hasan ended soberly by asking, “What will it take for Western governments to speak out on this issue? He asks on a final strong note that hits hard, “How many more Indian Muslims or Christians need to die?”
A dangerous politics of divide and rule is being played out which is destroying the harmony, balance, safety, foreign policy, and economy of the nation.
Therefore it is very heartening when “normal” people in India witness acts of kindness twinkling between Hindus and Muslims or Hindus and Christians, especially, brightening up the nation with the hope that it is possible these walls of division can crumble and the nation can become healthy and whole. The main ingredient is respect for each community as is in the fabric of the Indian Constitution and the ethos of the nation. Extremists should never be allowed to change it.