By Abdul Sattar Shaik

In the last few years Hindu festival celebrations have become incessantly awful—where for certain groups of individuals it has become a habitual routine to show callousness, religious superiority, and a beastly attitude toward other religions contrary to the teaching of Hinduism and its principles. The world has witnessed how fringe and extremist Hindutva outfits have been bringing down religious structures and monuments, and burning down religious seminaries, in particular mosques, libraries, and churches during the festive processions in India.

The harassment has not just been limited to firing rockets aimed at religious structures but has reached the next level where Muslim women were targeted during Holi celebrations and hit with water balloons, while some foreign women were manhandled and groped. Hindu Festivals have become a new tool for organized assault and a platform to showcase muscle and cause havoc over other religious groups. The interesting part about these celebrations is that they are carried out in a mob lynching style where one doesn’t have to fear of being caught as the crime is done in a large group. The chances of letting them go after serving a term are high since collecting evidence against groups of people becomes tough than a singled-out individual.

It doesn’t come as a surprise that the violence is also taking place in states where the ruling party is not in power. Off late the violence that occurred in Bihar, Jharkhand, and West Bengal during the Ram Navami celebrations of 2023, and the Jahangirpuri violence in Delhi during Hanuman Jayanthi of 2022 are prime examples of states that are deliberately being targeted to spread the toxicity of communalism in the air, and destabilize the peace and create turmoil to take hold of the ruling seats of these states.

So far, we haven’t seen any religious scholars of Hinduism or any mainstream politician who have criticized these blatant acts of terror and clarified to the world that Hinduism is against these acts and has no place in Hinduism, rather these acts are misrepresenting and violating the religious principles of Hinduism. Although recently CM Yogi Adityanath has admitted openly that there were no riots in UP due to a robust administration and government showing sensitivity to these issues; But there was no condemnation from him of the blatant acts that were carried out. Also, this acknowledgment points fingers at the ruling governments of respective states to assert that the BJP is better than other parties.

The Muslims have come up openly on many occasions and have been vocal about any kind of terror activity done by any Muslim or any group around the world and have been critical to categorize it as un-Islamic and against the principles of Islam. In practice, they have shown zero retaliation for the intimidation and the loss that has occurred to their properties, mosques, and lives during the recently taken place incidents.

The celebration of Eid has been somber, peaceful, and carried out in the spirit that it should have been carried out. It has been hardly two days since Eid was celebrated in India and throughout the world, and we haven’t heard of Muslims on the day of Eid have fired rockets aiming at temples or climbing on top of them to bring down the loudspeakers of the temple or burn any religious library with the principles of Islam reflecting in the behavior and nature of the Muslims. This is a great example of stoicism and uploading the true values which the day of Eid stands for, to forgive people and show them how to coexist together in harmony with mutual respect and tolerance.

The path that we are on, there is already enough humiliation and backlash that is echoing from different parts of the globe with such incidents occurring in India. If the trend continues forward; the word Hindu will become a slur and the chunk of peaceful, tolerant, and mainstream Hindus will have to suffer because of the other.