The dehumanising factor
Business Standard|March 01, 2024
Growing up, the phrase that G always came up in some context or the other was Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, which means that the world is one family.
CHITTAJIT MITRA
The dehumanising factor

The phrase certainly shaped my worldview. But when we live in post-truth reality, where words are being dissociated from their meaning, does this phrase retain its essence? Noted social commentator and writer Ziya Us Salam in Being Muslim in Hindu India has tried to chronicle the events that are gradually leading to the disintegrations of India's promised family.

The writer starts by stating certain indisputable facts. In 2014, for the first time in Indian electoral history, the ruling party didn't have a single Muslim Member of Parliament; by mid-2022, the Union government did not have a single Muslim Union minister, again for the first time. This is just the introduction to what the book attempts to portray the gradual disenfranchisement of the largest minority in India.

The initial chapters debunk certain popular myths around history and its misrepresentation into conferring a communal turn to what obviously has layered realities. Being an Allahabadi, I was happy to see that a chapter was dedicated to illogical changes being made to the names of certain cities and even railway stations. Just as Allahabad always carried the essence of Prayag within, it becomes difficult when politics tries to dissociate the two from each other.

This story is from the March 01, 2024 edition of Business Standard.

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This story is from the March 01, 2024 edition of Business Standard.

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