Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Identity politics

I read this news today in BBC about hounding out Bangladeshi Muslims by indigenous population of Assam.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7603984.stm
It is true that Bangladeshi immigrant crisis is one of the many Gorillas sitting in the room, and no one wants to talk about it except Hindu extremists- probably because no one knows what to do about it and how to do it. Ultra liberals of the society and the ultra leftists will appeal to humanism and would like to see all of them as members of one great "South Asian Identity", while at the same time supporting Kashmiri Separatism. Others, while would like to see all of them deported, would concede the impracticality of this monumental task, and may feel compassionate to the poor Bangladeshis.
I have in past written about kicking Kashmir out of Indian Union. Now, I realize that we should have done that long ago. Keeping such separatist and divisive creeps amidst our society and supporting them, and singing the praises of conjured up "kashmiriyat" of the people who lack basic "insaniyat" and who successfully carried out 'ethnic cleansing',has only watered the tree, whose seeds were planted by Muslim nationalism before independence and whose fruits we are witnessing in the incidents like the one mentioned in the above news at one hand and in the rhetoric of Raj Thakarey at the other.
The march of millions of poor Bangladeshi into India, is a testimony to the failure and hypocrisy of Islamic nationalism and lesson to all those indulge in or silently support the identity politics as well as those who ignore and tolerate it. While these agitation are politically initiated and supported by middle class or working people, poor people, the daily bread earners are mostly sidelined and are left without a voice although they constitute a majority (People living under a dollar a day are more than 50 % in India). While India has its own voiceless poor, who usually come on the street and participate in violence for just what they fail to earn on such days- a dollar paid by the organizers to show their democratic muscles. These are the poor people- completely unaware of everything- they are the ones who are beaten down daily in India, and they are the ones who come from Bangladesh. No one asked them before partitioning this land and those who asked gave them the golden dreams full if confidence- that Hindus are the only obstacle in their way of achieving the promised paradise. And they bought it, and got betrayed. And while we can not say that masters believed it completely or whether they were hypocrites just deceiving poor to get powerful in the smaller land which will only be for Muslims; one thing is certain- they were not aware what monsters they would are raising.
What about Kashmir, if it separates from India, within years, it would be another battle ground of Kashmiri Taliban (surprised! we did not hear about Pakistani Taliban before some years) and Jammu region will be flooded with the refugees trying to escape the insane Talibani jihad. It will be a poetic justice, those who ethnically cleanse, will be cleansed similarly.

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