By Pritam K. Rohila
For the last few years, intolerance, extremism, and oppression of women and minorities in India and Pakistan have been rapidly growing. People there are being pushed back centuries to lifestyles, which are neither appropriate nor desirable for the 21st century world.
The extremists humiliate women, kill people, and destroy places of worship, schools, theaters, music stores, libraries, books, art objects, and other icons of civilization and culture.
They denounce science and technology. They condemn them as instruments of Satan, as tools of the colonial and the imperialist West. Yet they do not hesitate to use scientific instruments to heal, when they or their loved ones are ill or injured. They use technological devices freely to inflict their beliefs and practices on others.
They hate others if they come from another part of the country. They accuse them of stealing their jobs. They manhandle the hapless victims to demonstrate the “superiority” of the language, region and culture of the natives.
They are unable or unwilling to control their own evil thought, impulses, and actions. For their motivation and behavior, they blame clothing, grooming of their victims.
They claim that they do it to defend their language, culture, their religion, and their God. But what really motivates them is the lust for power, power to control others, or to make them feel helpless.
It is time for all of you, the patriotic Indians and Pakistanis, to arise, and to do your duty for your beloved motherlands.
To secure the future of your motherlands, you need to shake off your indifference. You cannot just watch from the sidelines the ever-growing victimization of innocent citizens of your nations. Neutrality is no longer a viable option.
Time has come for you to act. Act you must, and act now, decisively, effectively, and in a deliberate, planned, sustained, and organized manner.
Let the extremists know, in no uncertain terms, that your faith, your religion, and your community have survived and thrived for centuries, without their kind of “protection.”
You must let the extremists know that they do not represent you. You have not permitted them to speak or act on your behalf.
Tell them not to kill, maim, rape, humiliate or oppress anyone in your name. Tell them not to destroy any house of worship, regardless of who prays there and to whom the prayers are addressed.
You may be a Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian, Buddhist, Zoroastrian, Jain, Jew, or a non-believer, your faith lives in your heart, and is reflected in your day-to-day actions. The Power you believe in is all-encompassing, compassionate, benevolent and forgiving.
Start your nonviolent resistance campaign against extremism by respecting, defending and promoting the rights of
-Girls and women to express their natural abilities and interests;
– People to dress, groom, live and pray according to their own beliefs; and
-The poor and the oppressed to have a decent life with enough to eat everyday and to provide for their families;
Additionally it would be nice if you also actively support a peace or human rights organization of your choice.
All Patriotic Indians and Pakistanis, Arise, and Act!
Dr. Rohila is the Executive Director of the U.S.-based nonprofit South Asian peace organization, Association for Communal Harmony in Asia (www.asiapeace.org). He can be reached at asiapeace@comcast.net