For an Inter-Jesuit schools essay competition way back in 1978, the topic was Martin Luther King's quote "The ultimate tragedy is not the brutality of the bad but the silence of the good". Every time India goes through a civic convulsion - major or minor- that quote returns to haunt me. Now, it does not stop haunting me!
A significant section of the great Indian middle class 'seems' to be apathetic and indifferent,cocooned in their glass houses of prosperity, remaining silent in frustration, unprepared for someone throwing the first stone.
Meanwhile, there is a simmering anger amongst the youth frustrated by the poverty of leadership and direction by the generation that ought to be showing them the way forward. They are angry, insecure and afraid - a lethal combination that requires to be harnessed and provided direction.
Mangalore has been the beacon of secularism for centuries. Communities have co-habited and co-existed with each other in mutual respect, doing business together, participating in each others' festivities till very recently, when communal rifts were engineered. The same elements have now upped the ante, engineering the segregation of cultures.
Mangalore is their laboratory where they are 'beta testing' their madness before proliferating their programme of cultural sanitization and segregation elsewhere the country.Soon, we shall all be required to prove our 'Indianness' by wearing saffron swastikas!
If we reduce our social action to exchanging email and Youtube clips about the Mangalore pub attacks, raving and ranting on social networking sites and doing precious little, then we shall become silent participants in a repeat of the occurrences in Germany in the 1930's. History ought to help us learn from the previous follies of mankind not allow them to be replicated in meticulous detail in the presence of our silence.
These extremist forces emulate the tried and tested structure of numerous organisations that have previously propounded change through violence. There is a political organisation well established within the mainstream providing sanction to sleeper cells ready to execute acts of violence.
If the situation goes out of control there is an immediate public statement of dis-association and denial. The modus operandi followed in Mangalore leaves the 'mother ship' without blemish but the illegitimate intimacy of these political bedfellows continues unabated under saffron sheets.
So, it seems rather pointless targetting the Shree Ram Sena and seeking its ban as that would proliferate two more Senas - as has happened ad infinitum. It is time to keep 'mother ship' in our cross hairs especially with elections around the next corner.
The institutionalised segregration of Black and White in the town of Nashville gave birth to the Civil RIghts Movement under the leadership of Martin Luther King. it began with a group of black students from Fisk University in Nashville peacefully defying segregation. They were introduced to and inspired by the non-violent strategies of our very own Mahatma Gandhi.
It is now time for the youth of India to defy the cultural segration imposed by a few on the many. Mangalore is India's Nashville and the time is ripe for a similar satyagraha.
The youth of Bangalore and elsewhere should join hands in solidarity with the youth of Mangalore in a show of solidarity at the earliest opportune date. The demands should include the trial and prosecution of Pramod Muthalik and his lumpen outside the state of Karnataka withn 30 days, owing to a lack of confidence in the government of Karnataka. Also required is an apology from the Chief Minister of Karnataka for not providing citizens the safety and security of state machinery.
If no action is taken within the stipulated time, then we step up civil action; set aside our political differences and rally behind independent candidates against the ruling party of the state and defeat them in the constituencies where we can manage to do so.
If Mangalore leads the way, Bangalore and Mumbai will follow.
