Spirits of threatened journalists rose across the world earlier this month when the Nobel Peace Prize was given to two courageous persons in their profession: Maria Ressa of the Philippines and Russia’s Dimitry Muratov. Commenting on the Nobel Committee’s move, independent columnist Kalpana Sharma reminded us of the daily bravery of unknown reporters in India’s dimly lit hinterland.
Raman Kashyap, 35-year-old father of two young children, was killed in a brutal incident on October 3 while trying to cover a rally of protesting farmers in Lakhimpur Kheri in U.P., a place lying about 40 miles south of the India-Nepal border. Kashyap had been working as a freelancer. When a local TV channel used a story he sent, Kashyap would receive seven dollars.
Unsung Kashyap may have been, and poorly rewarded as well, but fact-hunters like him prevent society from destroying its soul. In honoring Ressa and Muratov, the world also salutes Kashyap and his counterparts elsewhere, living and dead.
Given recent word of travails for minorities in Pakistan and Bangladesh, it is a solace to find at least some reporters and commentators in both countries who are willing to confront ugly realities.
“Pakistan’s social and moral trajectory is alarming,” writes columnist Huma Yusuf in Pakistan’s Dawn, referring to the rejection by a parliamentary committee of a bill aimed at stemming forced religious conversions. The bill was written by Pakistani legislators troubled by the non-enforcement of an existing law that prohibits Muslim males from forcibly marrying minor or non-Muslim females.
Adds Yusuf: “Reportedly, some 1,000 girls from religious minorities, primarily Hindus, are forced to convert each year. These conversions can involve abduction, rape, violence, human trafficking and extortion. They also enrich clerics who receive payments for solemnising such marriages, corrupt police officials who take bribes instead of investigating, and magistrates who look the other way. By rejecting the bill, our lawmakers are condoning these other activities. How does this serve Islam?”
https://www.dawn.com/news/1652646/intolerance-grows
Yusuf’s frank comment makes her, and the others who have written in a similar vein in Dawn, valuable allies for defenders of human rights elsewhere, including journalists in India who raise their voices against the continuing marginalization and persecution of the country’s Muslims and Christians.
On October 17, India’s eastern neighbour, Bangladesh, saw mobs attacking huts of humble Hindus in the town of Cumilla (formerly Comilla), close to the border with Tripura, one of India’s northeastern states. There were several deaths. Many homes were gutted.
“Spate of communal violence must end,” Dhaka’s Daily Star headlined in an editorial. And a front-page news story covered the attack in detail.
https://www.thedailystar.net/views/editorial/news/spate-communal-violence-must-end-2200561
https://www.thedailystar.net/news/bangladesh/news/chronicle-hate-unleashed-2200801
Attacks on Hindu temples intensified in Bangladesh after an alleged post blaspheming Islam surfaced on social media. According to reports, Bangladesh’s Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, has “instructed her home minister to initiate immediate action against those who incited violence using religion”. She has also asked Bangladeshis not to trust anything on social media without fact-checking.
Meanwhile, the ruling Awami League party is holding “harmony rallies” and taking out peace processions across the country against the recent communal violence. “Do not fear, Hindu brothers and sisters. Sheikh Hasina's government is a minority-friendly government,” the Awami League general secretary, Obaidul Quader, evidently told a rally. An editorial in the Daily Star calls for a wider introspection:
“While we hope that the law enforcing agencies would find out the actual culprits and administer the severest of punishments, we would also like to appeal that we as a society should pause to think why such incidents keep on occurring from time to time…. Fixing this situation will need a whole-of-society approach,… rather than just a law-and-order approach.”
It appears that lines on maps, fences on the ground, and labels of religion cannot hide South Asia’s similarities.