December 13, 2015
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Our Composite Culture Is Being Wounded: Salim

The second part of CPI(M) MP Md. Salim’s speech in Lok Sabha during discussion on “situation arising out of incidents of intolerance in the country”. Salim delivered second part of his address after repeated disruptions by the treasury benches and adjournments that erupted after he quoted from a reputed magazine reported remarks of Home Minister Rajnath Singh on “Hindu ruler”. (The deputy speaker), allow me to continue. I am not going back to that. I am not going back from my words. What I have spoken, I have spoken. Let the speaker take a decision... I go by the ruling. She said: "You pause. Do not put it on the record." I quoted in response to that because of authenticity and so many (other) things. I am a member, a private member. I cannot go and enquire. Let the government do that. Let the secretariat do that. I go by the rules. I have not made any allegation. I have no qualms personally with Rajnath Singh. In fact, I would have been happy if instead of Modi, Rajnath Singh would have been the prime minister... Is it that there is a ban on saying this?... Can't I have such a wish?... Have you become so intolerant?... Can't I, as a citizen, speak out?... Arun Shourie has said in an interview. He is our former minister, he was a minister in the (Atal Bihari) Vajpayee-led NDA government... I won't repeat what he said... He said a couplet... Lines of the couplet of Habib Jalib: Woh jo ek shaks tujhse pehla yahan takht nasheen tha/use bhi apne khuda hone ka itna hi yakeen tha (The one who was enthroned here before you also had illusions of being our god)... I wanted a discussion. Our people wanted a discussion... Can I quote from Lok Sabha proceedings?... On June 11, 2014, the prime minister said in his address...At that time, he just became the prime minister. “This slave mentality of 1,200 years is troubling us. Often, when we meet a person of high stature, we fail to muster courage to speak up.” For 200 hundred years, from India’s adivasi and the Chapekar brothers to Bhagat Singh, Ashfaqulla Khan, Chandra Shekhar Azad, Khudiram (Bose) and Kanailal (Dutta) embraced the gallows but they spoke with the British, seeing eye-to-eye. They never bent their heads. We are proud of that. There is Alluri Sitarama Raju, I won’t take all names,... (they are there) in every corner of the country, from Manipur to Kerala... There is a couplet of Kabir, hear it out. Mera tera manwa kais ek ho re/Tu kehta kagaz ki likhi, main kehta aankhe ki dekhi (How can our hearts meet/ you talk out of scriptures, I speak from my experience). What is happening in the country in the past few months, I am not describing that, instead the reality is in front of us and your leaders are also admitting it... What happened with the Sikhs in 1984, did the country tolerate it? During UPA-I (government) when the Nanavati Commission report came, Manmohan Singh was the prime minister; we discussed implementation of laws and implementation of the committee’s recommendations. Didn’t we discuss it? Now if anyone commits a sin and says that the previous one also committed sin...so will this series of sins continue? Somewhere it has to stop. Whether a sin is committed by you or me, a sin is a sin... When I was in school, we often used to recite this poetry: Hao dharmete dheer/Hao karomete veer/Hao unnotoshir, nahi bhay. Be firm in your faith, be courageous in your action; then you will have no fear, your head will be held high. Where the head is held high, the mind is without fear. But what has happened today? What has changed? What is being heard? Now the opposite is being said. This is lowering our country’s prestige; we can’t hold our head high. Is it not that our prime minister said our head has been down for 1,200 years?... What Supreme Court justices (TS) Thakur and Kurian (Joseph) have said when people from the Jain community sought ban on meat? They said this cannot be an issue. You can’t make someone’s food habit (an issue). Everyone practices their own religion. The prime minister has also said this. The Constitution guarantees everyone (the freedom to practice one’s own religion). We have no antagonism towards religion. Everyone has the right. If you set up one against another, look at the whole world. Be it Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism or Christianity, whatever the religion might be, if your try to change its stands from soft to hard as (you might think) we have remained soft for long, we have tolerated a lot and we won’t tolerate anymore. What is the fundamental question? What has happened in Afghanistan? Islam was there. It was soft. Taliban, Mujahideen came and said soft Islam won’t work, we have to harden stand. The whole world was changed. The Buddhas of Bamiyan, which represented the style of Gandhara art, many statues were demolished. Has it helped Afghanistan? Has it helped Islam? Has it helped religion?... What is happening today? The ISIS force... Whoever in this world tries to commit a sin using religion, it also burns down the perpetrator. Now you say it is not “dharm-nipeksh”, it’s “panth-nirpeksh”. It has been said in this house. When the prime minister addressed this house on Friday (November 27), he said all 12 active religions in the world are there in our country. This is a good thing. Then it was ‘dharm’, it was religion. But when we say separate State and politics from religion, you say “panth” (sect). There are different faiths...Rajnath Singh has himself said Muslims have 72 firqas (sects). The State should separate itself from firqas... This seems wrong. We have to correct this wrong. I’m talking on the issue of intolerance we are discussing... The basic thought is wrong...I’m saying they use religion, community, I’m saying this being a secular. See what is happening in Bangladesh. Here (MM) Kalburgi has been murdered. (Govind) Pansare was murdered. (It’s a matter of) rational thought, it’s not a question of Hindus or Muslims... Even in a country where cent percent population belongs to one particular community, rational thinkers, liberal thinkers and people with scientific temperament have to fight with obscurantist and reactionary forces... You don’t need people from all religions everywhere (to create trouble). The people of such thoughts who want to take our country backwards, the people of this country won’t permit this. Like Vigyan (science) is called visheesh gyan(special knowledge), similarly Bihar means visheesh haar(remarkable defeat). Now after this remarkable defeat, try to understand. Shatrughan Sinha understands, (that’s why) he is smiling... Our culture, it takes thousands of years for a culture to take shape. No minister of culture can change our culture... You talk about (APJ Abdul) Kalam so much. You have handed over to him (minister for culture) Kalam’s bungalow, instead teach him Kalam’s thoughts. Then what he said? I don’t want to repeat it, everyone knows. What is this culture of the minister for culture?... Now you must try to understand why this is happening. This is temple of democracy... In temples, people do upasana every day, not just on the day of its opening. Democracy teaches us this. Freedom struggle handed us down a composite culture, it’s a mixed culture, it’s like an ocean... There if you search for stream of Ganga, stream of Yamuna, stream of Narmada, Godavari, Cauvery, Brahmaputra, in ocean you won’t find separate stream, you will go mad looking for them. This country has only one stream... This composite culture is being hurt. Those who took part in the freedom struggle they tried to assimilate these streams from northeast to west, from north to south. And those who have no interest in this stream, they are trying to break it apart. It is clear. Swami Vivekananda… there are too many swamis today. Swamiji had taken a march throughout the country and tried to understand the spirit of India. Those whom you are calling ‘dogs’ they are also human beings, they are also Indians. They also have rights. Those dalits also have to be taken along. Mentioning people of our community, they had said that everyone has to live together in harmony. For this a bridge has to be built... Some people build a bridge, some destroy it. If we discuss this here, there will be altercations. What is happening today in villages, roads, railway stations, tea stalls? People are being divided. Minds of people are being poisoned... Whether it is Muslims or Christians, they are so big. Where will you push them? Everyone cannot be sent to Pakistan. Pakistan is not that country where Indian Muslims want to go. If that was the case, everybody would have gone there in 1947 itself. We have rejected it. Our forefathers had rejected it. We have made this land our home. We have watered this garden. You are saying if we eat this, we should go to Pakistan. If we say something, we should go to Pakistan. Where will you send Narayana Murthy, Raghuram Rajan, Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan? What have you given to Kashmiri Pandits? You have formed the government in Jammu and Kashmir with Mufti Mohammad Sayeed. You have betrayed them also. You divide people and join together to gain power... We don't want division of people or hearts. Don't provoke fights in the name of Hindus and Muslims. If you want to fight, do it against poverty, unemployment, backwardness, and atrocities against women. If you have courage, launch a fight against India's biggest challenge today. Then we all can be together in that fight... Whose interests are you serving? When Manmohan Singh was prime minister, he would say that we are a proud nation during his foreign trips. There was no ISIS then, al-Qaeda was there. No Indian youth joined al-Qaeda then. We are proud of that... Today when the prime minister goes abroad, what will he say? Whoever is going is not correct. But some countries are scheming to pull them towards it. Beyond our borders there are such schemings, their agents. You please don't do anything that will make their job easier and push our youths into their camps there. We are not able to stop Kashmir militancy even though there are 10 lakh troops there... Today again, Punjab is burning. It is not a question of Hindus or Muslims... It is burning for the past one, one-and-a-half months. The Akalis there should ponder what they have done along with the Sangh Parivar. Our most beautiful, strongest, patriotic Punjab which had seen most bloodshed for our freedom struggle, is burning today. Why?... If politics is done in the name of religion, the results will be very bad. I come from Bengal... Today tension erupted in our area over a small piece of land. Today, a small theft of chicken can trigger riots... Madam, on the Ashoka Pillar we have, there is a writing which says:Satyamev Jayate (Truth Always Triumphs)... Truth cannot be hidden even if you scream or hold a procession of some artists. Truth is coming out. There is a shloka on truth. This has been taken from the Mundaka Upanishad: 'Satyamev Jayate Nanrutam, Satyen Pantha Vithatho Devayanaha' (Only truth prevails, not untruth; by the path of truth is laid out the divine way). This is our national religion. Truth will win and our political vision from Buddha and Jainism to Gandhi: ahimsa paramo dharma (non-violence is our ultimate religion). But what is happening today?... Instead of Ahimsa (non-violence) is our ultimate religion, the 'A' has been taken out and placed in front 'Satyamev Jayate' and 'Asatyamev Jayate, Himsa Parmo Dharm' (Untruth will triumph, violence is our ultimate religion) is being propagated today. This is unacceptable in this country.