It’s not conducive to healthy community life or politics that BJP-Sangh Parivar activists should stage Ram Navami processions in West Bengal on Sunday in which the specific instructions of the state government not to display arms were disdainfully flouted. In Purulia, an armed procession chose to course through areas inhabited largely by Muslims. This tells its own story. The Mamata Banerjee government shouldn’t lose time in taking appropriate action against those who violated its directives intended to maintain peace and harmony. When the BJP is in mobilisation mode, and this is often to prepare for elections or to give itself an organisational boost, it seeks to create a confrontational situation over Muslims. This often leads to a communal situation and violence and death, as in Purulia.
On January 26, in a small UP town, raising anti-Muslim slogans, a BJP-Sangh Parivar procession on motorcycles rode through a narrow Muslim locality where youngsters were preparing for a local flag-hoisting ceremony. Again, someone was killed and the atmosphere of peace vitiated. In Bengal’s case, the local BJP leaders took the plea that raising arms was traditional to Ram Navami. This may be so, but traditionally Ram Navami is not publicly celebrated in the state. In any case, in our times the idea of arms-bearing should remain symbolic. In UP, the BJP said patriotic Hindu youth cannot be prevented from taking out a flag procession on motorcycles. If this is going to be the way of our democracy, something is rotten in the state of Denmark, to recall Shakespeare.
