In all such cases, like that of Akhlaq, Pehlu Khan and Riazuddin Ali, there was not only public outrage, witnesses were identified, FIRs lodged and the cases proceeded in the courts. But this case was different. As the Indian Express reported on the front page on Sunday, June 25, of the about 200 people who were there on the Asaoti platform while Junaid bled to death, not one of them had seen anything. The police could not muster a single witness to Junaid's killing. Even now, two weeks after the lynching, there have been some arrests but no great leads in to why and who killed Junaid. The footage only captured three men boarding a motorcycle and fleeing from the area soon after the train in which Junaid was killed came to a halt at the station. This indicates unmistakable intention, but nobody, wants to identify the killers.
 
Aarti Sethi writes searingly in Kafila Online, that the police cannot find a witness because something very peculiar and uniquely terrifying seems to have happened to those present at Junaid’s death :
"the totalising force of an unspoken, but collectively binding, agreement between Hindus to not see the dead body of a Muslim child"  Aarti Sethi in the same piece draws a stark conclusion : " On June 22, 2017, the  Republic effectively ended. India is no longer a secular constitutional republic but on the precipice of being transformed into a majoritarian state…" 
 
However, here, I argues that there is still hope. If the civil society comes out loudly and unmistakably against such mob lynchings and if this is the beginnings of a united democratic movement.
 
I could not believe the descriptions  of Junaid's lynching in full public view inside the train, no one coming to held, no one admitting to have seen anything as the child's body lay on a platform where it had been thrown.
 
I also suddenly remembered the video of the lynching of the sons of Balu Sarvaiya, a  SC by caste who traditionally skins and disposes off dead cows , who were flogged with belts and sticks on suspicion of having slaughtered a cow. One of Balu's sons was dragged by a car on the road, till the video went viral (it was the assailants that used social emdia) and thousands of Dalits protested the next day. Fortunately, the sons of Balu Sarvaiya survived. 
 
My next reaction was to  take out my ruffled, yellow-paged  copy of Lee Harper's " To Kill a Mocking Bird" to check what lynching meant in the racially charged southern States of America.
 
In this memorable best-seller, there was no description or scene of any actual lynching. Only two in which the mob had gathered . One in which the African-American gentleman drove his car fast past a mob inching to lynch him and his family. The other near-lynching  scene was in which Atticus Flinch, the lawyer defending Tom Robinson, the  man accused of having raped a white girl, guards the main door of the jail in which the accused is lodged. A seemingly drunk mob gathers outside the jail, it seems with the clear intention of  breaking the prisoner Tom Robinson out of the jail and lynching him., the purpose being to send a message to the African-Ameican community and to prevent Tom from going to trial. The mob comes very close to Atticus and asks him to move away which the lawyer refuses. Atticus' children manage to reach the jail and talk the mob into dispersing.
 
When I consider these fictional accounts of  lynch crowds in the United States in the racially charged 1920s and 30s, and compare them with what is happening in the cases of Muslims and Dalits in India at present, I am liable to agree with Walt Disney when he  remarked " Truth is stranger than fiction" and even more grim and cruel..
 
The silence over Junaid's lynching on Thursday, June 22,  was both eerie and frightening This silence was finally and firmly broken on the evening of June 28,  when there were #NotInMyName protests in Delhi and 18 other cities of India, like Mumbai, Chennai,  Kolkata, Bengaluru, Pune, Faridabad, Chandigarh,Thiruvanthapuram, Lucknow, Patna, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Gaya, Allahabad and five cities abroad.(The Economic & Political Weekly gives a vivid and live account.)  
 
I was present in a 2000+ strong gathering (Dr. PS Sahni of PIL Watch group puts the number at 3000 while another estimate says it was 3500) as activists from all walks of life gathered in drizzling rain, during the '# Not in My name' protest meeting full of songs, poetry, memoralia and mono-acting, at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi, The protest was a great success as the rain as well as the support and enthusiasm of the gathering brought much relief both to the beseiged minority community as well as the educated middle classes all around. It was a most moving and powerful show of cultural resistance to emerging fascism. 
 
I soaked in every moment of the cheerful solidarity expressed by the protest with the victims of the ongoing lynching tyranny. The meeting began with a strong and combative introduction by Saba Dewan, on how the # Not in My Name campaign originated and moved forward after 15-year old Junaid's lynching last week Thursday and the reign of silence and fear that followed.
 
Though the immediate families of Junaid and Pehlu Khan could not arrive despite every intention, they were represented by relatives and vocal members of their village. The audience were in tears when Mohd. Azharuddin from Junaid's neighbourhood, read out a 'fictional' letter from heaven from Junaid to his mother on earth.
 
The meeting was spruced up with Gandhiji's favourite Bhajan 'Vaishnava Jana' sung by Mohd. Haneef Khan and group, recitations of nazms by Dr. Padmawati 'Chhinna' Dua, Gauhar Raza, Sabita , Akhil Kumar and Vinod Dua, the song-with-guitar 'Bullah ki' by Rabbi Sher Gill and a powerful performance by danseuese-cum-actor Maya Rao.
 
The audience cheered and clapped throughout, undeterred by the drizzling rain. Soon news trickled in that similar 'NOT IN MY NAME' protest meetings were simultaneously going on in 19 Indian cities and were scheduled that day in 5 cities abroad. I could spot some of the faces I knew of well-known women activists, journalists, human rights activists, Professors, lawyers, student leaders.
 
Particularly noticeable were the skull caps and beards of people who were for once feeling at home. Also noticeable were. the emerging  faces of resistance to tyranny and incoming facism. Must congratulate the visible faces of the organising team, particularly film-maker Saba Dewanand Rahul Roy.
 
I say visible faces because I do not think it was spontaneous. It was so well planned, organised, co-ordinated and executed beautifully. Plenty of resources – human, moral, material, temporal – seem to have gone behind it. It gives us hope. Congratulations to the emerging faces of #NotInMyName event in 19 cities in India and 5 cities abroad. I fully agree that#NotInMyName is a much-needed step forward from the prevailing fear and silent acquiscence to frequent lynchings of our Muslim brethren. It has unmistakably and firmly broken that silence. But it needs to be taken forward and broadened in scope. 
 
Even now the public protests continue. There was a massive protest on July 3 at Dadar, Mumbai, led by filmmaker Anand Patwardhan and supported by various organizations, political parties and trade unions like AITUC. Kolkata witnessed a fiery torchlight procession on July 4, organised by the Young Bengal group. On July 8, despite non-cooperation by the police, Ahmedabad saw a massive demonstration organised by Gujarat Jan Andolan with people from all walks of life holding placards – 'Not In My Name', 'Shed Hate Not Blood' and 'Democracy Not Mobocracy'.
 
As I sit to complete and release this piece, news comes of 100+protest actions across Delhi on August 27 : Say NO to Hatred!#NotInMyName.

State and civil society were both quick to  respond to these  protests. Electronic and print media  gave better coverage than usual. For days, these protests were the only talking point over social media, both Facebook and Twitter. 
 
The very next Saturday after the Wednesday 28 June protests,  the President of India who is the Constitutional Head of State used strong words when he remarked :“When mob lynching becomes so high and uncontrollable, we have to pause and reflect, are we vigilant enough? I am not talking of vigilantism, I am talking of are we vigilant enough, proactively to save the basic tenets of our country.”  
 
Prime Minister Narendra Modi broke his silence  the day after the nation-wide  protests , making general remarks, expressing "sadness on some of the things going on…..killing people in the name of protecting cows is not acceptable….As a society there is no place for violence…. No person in this nation has the right to take the law in his or her own hands… " These words of the Chief Executive appear significant but the general public reaction was,  it was too late, too little.
 
Facebook was aflutter with a retired English Professor Javed Mullick's Hindi poem :
" Dekho logo Modi boley
Dhol bajao, jashn manao,
Uchhlo, Koodo, khushi manao
Dekho, dekho Modi boley.
Modi boley, Modi boley
Jab duniya ne, phatkaar lagaee,
Janta cheekhee aur chillaee
Gussey mein sadkon par ayee
Tab kahin jaakar,
Bahut sambhal kar,
Ghuma phira kar,
Thoda sach jhoothon mein milakar
Zara -zara sa muh ko kholey.
Modi boley, Modi boley."
 
From the evening of the #NotInMyName protests on June 28, Facebook was full of cheerful photos and optimistic reports of how much relief these mass secular protests had brought to the minority community and common citizens.
 
Writing in the online journal, Countercurrents.org, Dr. P. S. Sahni of the PIL Watch group said " A thousand seeds of resistance got planted yesterday evening at Jantar Mantar, national protest site, Delhi on the blood shed by Junaid". Dr.Sahni thought this was the largest public gathering at Jantar Mantar for a long time. He observed, significantly, that it has brought much solace and confidence to the Muslim community , as did the public meeting in June 1984 at the Constitution Club against  'Operation Bluestar' at the Golden Temple in Amritsar, bring a sense of relief to the Sikhs at that time. Sohail Hashmi, cultural Historian, wrote on Facebook : "
 
What a great feeling of relief, lifting of the shroud of despondency and a rekindling of hope".
 In sync with tough laws recently passed by the British and German Parliaments, and the US Congress against  hate crime and hate speech, an online petition was launched last week in India too. Veteran journalist Kuldip Nayar, Dalit activist Jignesh Mevani, Tehseen Poonawala, student leaders Kanhaiya Kumar, Shehla Rashid and Bollywood actor Swara Bhaskar jointly launched a national campaign against mob lynching last week. They urged the Government to pass a law against mob lynching to be known , in short, as MASUKA or Manav Suraksha Kanoon. 
 
There were some negative or critical comments too. I cannot  agree at all with Shivam Vij of Huffington Post that  #NotInMyName protests did more harm than good. Like the rain which accompanied the 3000+ strong protest at JANTAR Mantar , it reduced the political temperatures, tension and brought an immediate sense of relief to the Muslim community, that they are not alone in their suffering and that they belong to this nation as much as the others. Shivam Vij also seems to be completely oblivious of the amount of left-liberal support received by the Dalit movements of Una as well as Shaharanpur, the Adivasi struggles of Chhatishgarh and the farmers' struggles.
 
His seem like cynical comments. To say that these protests were basically the act of the Left Elite and that they did not touch upon the life of the common man – ignoring completely the daily  legal/police  lynching of the workers, peasants, Adivasis and Kashmiris. I cannot bring myself to agree. Lynching , whether by the State or the mob, cannot be tolerated at any cost and must be resolutely and strongly protested and opposed. Every such protest is valuable and cannot be minimalised. 
 
Gautam Benegal, eminent graphic designer, painter, writer,  documentary filmmaker from Kolkata, made an apt comment on Facebook, which went viral – 
"The mob lynchers have a B Team. These are educated, English speaking Hindutva supporters who provide cover up fire to the backward mob killers. They keep silent at the violence of the mobs, but have a million critical things for people protesting the killings.

-"Oh but why didn't these people protest against Malda or WB killings?"
-"Oh but these siculars like NDTV will only speak of Junaid and never of police officer Pandit"
-"Oh, where were you when the Kashmiri pandits were being chucked out."
-"Oh if you speak out against the communal killings, you are the one polarising India."

Before you know it you will be defending your positions against their whataboutery and the targeted hate killings will become just another thing. These people are no less responsible than the brutal and crazy mob, for the hate-hole India finds itself in."
 
We also sought the reactions of people active on the Facebook and this is what they said.
 Harbans Mukhia , retired Professor of History at JNU, was forthright :"a march here and some slogan shouting there touches merely the fringe of the vast problem. But Not in My Name gave voice to what was being felt by a mass of people. The fact that even the PM had to respond to it and some small steps are being taken puts the regime even more open to charge of misconduct the next time a lynching happens. Unfortunately political parties have lost their legitimacy. Thus such protests leading to a movement at the level of civil society need to be organized by different groups at different levels. But the protest did show that India is ready to resile from the extreme to which it is being driven. Some hope still lives on."

John Dayal, writer, human rights activist and former President of the All India Catholic Union asked on Facebook : " Is a #MillionMarch possible before 2019?" When asked pointedly on his view of the mob lynchings and the ensuing protest, he issued a common appeal to all religious leaders, particularly his own,which runs thus :
" We as a people  have not shown, or voiced,  our love and support for our brothers and sisters in distress. We have remained silent, or subdued,  in the face of lynchings of Muslims and of Dalits by the cow vigilantes.
 
We have not spoken truth to power on many occasions in recent times.
 
We have not shown our oneness and solidarity with civil society which has shown courage to protest.
 
On the other hand, many in the leadership have made common cause with Ceasar, pleading that this capitulation will secure the community against persecution and targeting.
Can we be safe when our brother is targeted ?
This must weigh heavy on our conscience.
Our statement of preferential option for the poor, our policy on the Dalits, our new focus on the Tribals of central India, and our code on gender justice ring hollow, otherwise.
Our proven track record of service, in education and health, already  dwarfed by the massive infusion of resources into these sectors by the government, corporate sectors nd other faith groups, will no longer be sufficient.
 
Religion is a moral and ethical watchdog.
It empowers the poor. 
And makes us a pillar of  civil society, which today plays an important role in safeguarding the constitutional values that underpin the Idea of India.
This Idea of India is based on Values of dharma. 
In joining civil society and the common citizen in reclaiming citizenship and pristine constitutionality, we proclaim these values. 
We call upon you to give the leadership India requires at this hour to strengthen its courage and resolve."
 
Krishnendu Sarkar, who is a senior management consultant presently in the Middle East, makes very  definitive and clinching remarks : "Person who is lynched is Indian . The person who lynches is also Indian. The lynching must stop saving life of both. The Hindus who are misguided and participate in lynching must be educated and informed that they become criminal inviting legal punishment and community exclusion and shame for their family and children. They must stop becoming cold blooded murderer and play in hand of politicians. Also bystanders in group must intervene to stop such situation. Looking for some effort to save India. "
 
Khaja Jamaluddin, retired tea-planter from Kerala, now located at Hyderabad is very concerned when he says : " I definitely stand with all those who oppose this oppressive violently-bent regime.I wish we can dislodge this unholy ruling junta and replace them with what we as a United India were always used to."
 
Dr. Tripta Wahi, political scientist and former Professor at Delhi University takes up the issue of the extent of palpably false and unhistorical brain-washing that the mob is subjected to , when it engages in lynching an unsuspecting member of the minority or Dalit community : " Also one has to begin to address the question of historic facts. You go to any temple anywhere in India you find it being continuously stated that the temple was destroyed by the Muslim rulers. It is not denied that temples were demolished by some rulers,but majority of temples were not . It also needs to be remembered that shariat did not have provision for treating Hindus as zimmis,that is, people who were protected by the state on payment of a tax. Yet it happened. In response to the exigencies of the situation new developments took place in India despite opposition in the Islamic world. I personally think that short topical and relevant questions must be taken directly to the people . After all what is happening needs to be countered. Also Hindu rulers were doing the same kind of things in Java Sumatra etc which is regarded as greater India with pride by the self same persons/ideology . Hinduism also wiped out Buddhism and absorbed bhakti movement and made it caste ridden."
 

The important role of independent intellectuals and social groups to act as a 'safety valve' and mobilise strong public opinion against the break-down of law and order and the vanishing of the rule of law, cannot be minimized at all. I asked my respondents the pointed question : When there is such mob lynching of our Muslim and Dalit brethren and the State deliberately looks away, while appreciating the positive role of civil society, are some meetings and protests enough or do all secular and democratic forces need to come together in a strong, mass-based political movement to meet the challenge of the fascist, anti-democratic forces ?
 
Walter Fernandes, Jesuit, well known scholar, human rights activist and presently Senior Fellow at a Gauhati-basedResearch Institute, said : Yes Aurobindo I to believe that we should come together in a strong anti-fascist coalition though at my age I can give it mainly moral support. Please go ahead. The main objective is not winning the elections but providing ideological and moral support to the anti-fascist forces not based on any party."

Moolchand Sonkar, Dalit poet and writer responded : "a mass-based strong United anti-fascist democratic front is needed to meet the challenge but before going ahead a proper strategy be chalked out. "

Arun Maji, Advocate at Supreme Court and Convenor of India Against Fascism, said : " We urgently require to form a joint platform to resist the fascist Hindutwa forces."

Professor Ravinder Goel of Delhi University was conclusive, while limiting himself to the question of an united front to meet the fascist challenge : " In my view progressive forces ( left of all colours and socialists along with liberal individuals) should try to forge a unity and united front among themselves. Currently no need to join with various bourgeois parties. but support pro-people action of all. The question of all secular and democratic forces need to come together in a broad, mass-based strong United anti-fascist democratic front to meet the challenge of RSS and Hindutva forces should be taken up at a future date. In the absence of a united front of left forces it will essentially lead to tailing behind one or the other bourgeois parties and it will split when the chips are down. Remember the experience of PUCL days."

 
(The writer is a human rights activist, general secretary, Peoples' Rights Organisation, a human rights body)

The post I live in Hope # Protests against Mob Lynchings # Not in My Name appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Delhi

A large number of academics, writers, artists, students and political activists came out in protest on a humid evening at Jantar Mantar, Delhi.

 

Organisers of the protest at Delhi preferred cultural performances over slogans and speeches.

Bengaluru

It was a vibrant protest in Bengaluru with creative "Not in My Name" banners in front of the Town Hall.

 

Benny Kuruvilla says "All kinds of folks were there (in Bengaluru), which was good. Some wanted to shout slogans but organisers wanted a silent protest."

Mumbai

Image Courtesy: india.com
Protestors braved the heavy showers and gathered on Carter Road in Bandra, Mumbai.

 

Image Courtesy: Hindustan Times
Bollywood actors Shabana Azmi, Konkana Sen Sharma, Kalki Koechlin and Nandita Das came out to protest in Mumbai.

Chandigarh

Image Courtesy: Sameer Singh
Though the protest at Chandigarh was called at short notice, it saw a good number of protestors.

 

Image Credit: Sameer Singh
Amy Singh says "It was raining. We had traffic jams," but "people made it loud and clear that citizens would not allow any kind of hate crimes, violence against minorities or Muslim mob lynching anymore."

Trivandrum

Image Courtesy: Anu Arunima
At the protest in Trivandrum, people registered their anger and anguish through songs and poetry. The protestors pledged to fight fascism in every possible way.

 

Image Courtesy: Korah Abraham
Professor G Arunima says, "There were people who travelled from Trissur and Kottayam to come to Trivandrum for the protest – it was so heartening!"

Gaya

Image Courtesy: Shaqir Akhtar
In Gaya, the protest was called by the youth and most of the participants were also youngsters.

 

Image Courtesy: Shaqir Akhtar
At Ambedkar Chowk, Gaya, protestors formed a line and held placards for everybody to read.

Kolkata

Image Courtesy: Aatreyee Das
In Kolkata, the protestors made brief speeches expressing their anger at the culture of mob lynching.

 

Image Courtesy: Anuradha Kapoor

Abu Sohel, student of Jadavpur University, comments on something that the mainstream media overlooked: "As an atheist person born in a Muslim household, I have felt for long that the larger population in India doesn’t know how to respect cultural practices of the minority communities residing in India. Anyone with a basic understanding of Islam would know that ‘namaz’ (the ritual prayer observed by practicing Muslims) is an extremely personal thing with nothing but the idea of the invisible Allah standing in front of them, yet when a dozen of Muslims chose to offer namaz at the protest site to make a political statement, photographers and media personnel stood in front of them, all huddled up trying to get a ‘million dollar shot’ thus disrupting their prayer, while turning the whole act into an exotic spectacle, reducing the presence of the few members of the Muslim community to sheer ‘tokenism’. And yet the mainstream media, which seemed to be more preoccupied with celebrities present at the event, were lauded by the organizers for their media coverage! "

Titi Roy, who joined the protest in Kolkata, said "it was a day when you wanted to do something against the terrible atrocities happening around you".

Jaipur

Image Courtesy: Not In My Name Facebook Page
Not in My Name protest was held at Gandhi Nagar in Jaipur

 

Image Courtesy: Not In My Name Facebook Page

 
London

Poet and Academic Nitisha Paul at the protest in SOAS, London

The protest in London was held at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

 

Writer Meena Kandasamy at the protest in SOAS, London

Toronto

Image Courtesy: Atreyee Majumder

At Toronto, the protestors delivered a press release asking the Consulate to issue a statement against the killings in India. The protest was a call to the diaspora to engage in sustained action, because as Ree puts it "we need more than one protest".

 

Image Courtesy: Maithili Venkataraman

Sara Abraham says that over 50 people attended the protest in Toronto for a full 2 hours, and close to 30 sent their regrets. Flowers were left in memory of Junaid in front of the Indian High Commission at Toronto, Canada.
 

The post Don’t Kill in My Name: A Report on the Protest appeared first on SabrangIndia.

 
With less than a day of prior notice, the city carried a socially and politically active crowd of arguably 500 at its peak, and immersed itself in the trending hashtag #NotInMyName hovered by the media gaze. I stood at a distance and absorbed the eccentricity of passions culminating into chains, songs, and posters as a mark of spontaneous resistance.
 
Mumbai’s young and old gathered from 5-7 pm to distance themselves from incidents of mob lynching and communal hatred disproportionately perpetrated by Hindu extremist factions and against Muslim citizens. As a spontaneous reaction to Junaid’s lynching on a train from Delhi to Ballabhgarh, the Mumbai protest was one among 13 others organized across the country today. The protests, in the limited capacity and time that they could, successfully questioned State complicity, and the condonation of communal hatred and lynching of a religious minority by the ruling government.
 
The crowd refreshingly comprised of many new faces, and their engagement with political and social activity was reflective of a growing consciousness amongst a youth that has often been dismissed as complacent and apathetic. The protest was arguably a display of elite resistance, witnessed by sheer composition of the protesters. But notwithstanding the problematic of representation, the movement was important even to showcase the discard of apathy by the socio-economically privileged section of the society.
 

As everyone put their networking skills to test, I smiled at the rare acknowledgment by some of why they had come; the hashtag that attempts to distance Hindus from countless murders of Muslims in the name of conceited Hinduism and what it ostensibly stands for some is a silent avoidance of savarna Hindu-perpetrated attacks on low-caste Hindus. But the debate of semantics where everyone is complicit in acts of violence, physical or otherwise, cannot and should not hinder resistance against a government that is placing its bets on exactly that.
 
Divisive politics and divisive politicization should not stand in the way of symbols of unity and social harmony. This protest, hopefully the first of many, served the purpose of a symbol, of calling out silence as an act of violence that is as active in mob lynching as the overt act of stabbing Junaid on the passenger train.
 
(The writer is a student with the Jindal Global Law School)

The post Breaking Silence, Pushing Boundaries, a Newcomer to Mumbai, Writes on #Not in My Name Protest appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Image Courtesy: Times of India

Mallika Sarabhai

“If this be our culture may it perish at once. If this be our sanskriti, may apocalypse come now.”
I live in a time that I could never have imagined. I live among people I could never have thought could be. I live in a space that leaves me wordless. Bestial? No, animals don't behave like this. Barbaric? Even the Berbers had codes of conduct. How shall I describe the depravity of the spirit that leads us into becoming lynch mobs, condoned, in our indifference and silence, by all of us. What culture are we harping on preserving? What sanskriti? If this be our culture may it perish at once. If this be our sanskriti, may apocalypse come now.

It was 'enough' after the first death. What can we do but scream soundlessly at where we stand? And incite a trillion screams till we regain our senses.

 
Geetanjali Shree

“Words fail. Our protest must not!”
That sections within our society can be so insanely intolerant and so unabashedly cruel is alarming enough. Even more alarming is the impunity with which these murderous public outrages are perpetrated, an ominous confirmation that they are allowed, even encouraged, by people in authority. We do not even have the consolation that these sections constitute a lunatic fringe. They are getting centrestage. These murderous acts and the instincts leading to them will be suicidal. Words fail. Our protest must not!
 

Mandakranta Sen

“The train carried India from light to utter darkness.”
The ill-fated journey was on 22nd June 2017, just a few days before sacred Eid. Ill fate? Whose ill fate? Ill fate of a young boy of 16 and his family? Yes, of course, but more than that, it’s the grave ill fate of us, of all Indians. The train was travelling from one place to another. It was travelling from life to death, from peace to violence, from fellow feeling to intolerance, from love to hatred. The train carried India from light to utter darkness.

We all know what happened. The murderers needed just a fabricated excuse or nothing at all. The four brothers, including Junaid who died in the attack, were carrying new clothing for the family. Apparently, the killers ‘accused’ them of carrying beef and attacked them. We have been going through this dark phase for quite some time now, and we must see the end of it NOW.

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum
 

The post “If this be our culture may it perish at once. If this be our sanskriti, may apocalypse come now.”: Mallika Sarabhai appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Shahane, known for her liberal views, said that she did not care what religion did the 16-year-old Junaid belong to nor was she bothered about the religious background of the Harayana boy’s murderers.

She wrote, “I don’t care what religion those lynchers belonged to. Nor do I care what religion Junaid belonged to. I only care about one thing. A group of mean, cruel human beings killed a teenager and assaulted three other young men brutally!”

Sharing her personal fear, Shahane said that her heart ‘breaks for Junaid’s mother because her own elder son will turn 16 next year.

“My elder son will turn 16 next year. My heart breaks for Junaid’s mother. Not only did a group of cruel human beings kill Junaid, another group of cruel human beings egged them on. Junaid was also killed by those cruel people who witnessed the insanity & chose to remain silent,” Her Facebook post said.

Read her full Facebook post below;

NOT IN MY NAME

Junaid was lynched by a mob of cruel human beings. I don’t care what religion those lynchers belonged to. Nor do I care what religion Junaid belonged to. I only care about one thing. A group of mean, cruel human beings killed a teenager and assaulted three other young men brutally!
Junaid was 16.
My elder son will turn 16 next year.
My heart breaks for Junaid’s mother.
Not only did a group of cruel human beings kill Junaid, another group of cruel human beings egged them on. Junaid was also killed by those cruel people who witnessed the insanity & chose to remain silent.
There are some cruel people who justify this lynching.
Yes! Hate allows for all sorts of justification.
There has been a long list of these lynchings. It has become so common that no one talks about it. Nobody asks questions about what happened to the perpetrators. Whether they were caught & given the strictest punishment or whether they were released to unleash more violence!
I cannot fathom how anyone can kill unarmed, innocent human beings!
I cannot fathom how people can justify this horrific violence!
Instead of taking law into their own hands why are police complaints not made?
Is it because the lynch mob knows that there is no reason behind what they have done?
All they want to do is to kill in the name of hate.
Whichever religion, ideology, language, ethnicity you belong to, lynching done in any name cannot be condoned!
We’ve suffered so many riots, terrorist attacks, pogroms, lynchings but we haven’t learnt anything.
The bottom line is that innocent human beings become the target of that hate. They are usually poor. They are usually those who are incapable of fighting back. It is really too, too disheartening.
Innocence dies when hate rules!
I cannot be a part of those who encourage hate.
I was with the Ekta Manch marching from Parel to Azad Maidan singing ” Hum hongey kaamyaab….” to promote brotherhood between fellow citizens of all faiths in 1993 after the horrendous riots followed by the heinous bomb blasts in Mumbai.
I marched to the Gateway of India to protest the utter failure & crass mishandling of 26/11 by the then Congress Govt in the State and the Centre in 2008.
I supported the Anna Hazare anti corruption movement when he waged the civil battle against the UPA 2 Govt at the Centre.
I was vocal about women’s safety after the horrendous rape & murder of Jyoti Singh as well as Pallavi Purkayastha as well as the sickening hacking of Swathi.
Today I stand firmly against the lynch mentality that has an active political patronage in our country.
I do not belong to any political party. I am a citizen of one of the finest democracies in the World. That is why it is so important for all of us to respect & protect the tenets of our Constitution.
I, as a proud citizen of India, do not conform to the views of anyone who actively or passively supports this lynching.
My allegiance lies with the Constitution of India.
If the Govt or any other body does anything to undermine the basic tenets of democracy in our country, I will vocally oppose it.
I so wanted to be a part of the peaceful civil protest at Carter Road today but I can’t. But I will not be a part of this hate!
I do not want my children to inherit this hate.
I will not have the blood of innocents on my hands.

NOT IN MY NAME!

Courtesy: Facebook Post
 

The post #NotInMyName: Renuka Shahane’s gut-wrenching post will make you cry appeared first on SabrangIndia.