ROOTS OF DISCRIMINATION

They say that in today’s world, the most dangerous animal is MAN.
We have heard stories of predator killing men as well as man killing the beast (Who hasn’t seen Jungle Book) but in reality today it’s the man (predator) who’s killing the man (prey).

We all know that wars kill thousands of people. But if we give it a thought, who in the first place initiates a war. It is we the people who are killing the people. Be it of jealousy, desire, discrimination, hatred or any other stupid reason.

Sometimes I think what makes a man hate another human being so much that he takes such a grave step.

Being an Indian I have seen and lived in all kinds of religion, culture and casts.

Getting on to my point, who doesn’t remember the Mumbai riots and of’cos Godhra.
We have read about it, seen it even spoken about it. But how many of you have thought about it.

In west it is considered wrong to comment or behave in a certain way with some one based on their skin color.

But in my homeland we all have one color, if you leave out the fair-n-lovely users.
So we have 'religion' here and now-a-days ‘cast’.


Here I would like to quote an incident that startled me.


It actually opened my eyes to the grave reality about how deep pr should I say how young the roots of discrimination have infected our so called ‘secular’ country.


A young boy in his shorts playing with another boy wearing exactly the same shorts. Having a ball in the stagnated fresh rain water.

They didn’t care about the fact that they were half naked as they looked to like were from the lower strata of the society.


Out of nowhere comes a girl in red frock about 11-12 years old. She pulls one of the boys possibly her brother and starts scolding him. And tells him never to play with that boy again.




I asked to myself…

->Is the other kid selfish (may be the sister wants to protect her brother).
->Or does he have any communicable disease.
->Or is it b’coz the boy has lice in his hair (believe me that can be a reason).


Before I can think of anymore of reasons the girl gave me the answer…

“ISKE SAATH MAT KHEL YEH TO MUSLIM HAI…”

I was stunned. I didn’t know what to say or how to react.


But that gave birth to a few questions…

1. Does the little boy know who’s a Muslim and who’s not?
2. Even if he knows, does he know why he is being asked to be a part of this discrimination?
3. Who ever taught the girl who might have just puberty to discriminate against a 5-6 year old child just b’coz he goes to mosque instead of a temple?
4. And what’s the fault of the other child who is referred as Rahim instead of Ram.


Well the answer to question no-3has to be parents who have taught their girl to discriminate against a 5 year old without ever bothering about her education.

The look on that kid’s face told me that he had a broken heart, a hurt self respect which he might have to bear a number of times as he grows older.
And after 10-15 years of discrimination and humiliation, if he looses his mind one day and does something irrational, would it entirely be his fault. I’d say no.

People in this country have a tendency to blame Non-Hindus (after politicians’ of’cos) for anything that goes wrong.
But are they really responsible for such regrettable incidences.

Why do we forget that before being a Hindu or a Muslim or a Sikh………..
We are Indians and even before that….. We are Human Beings.



We were born humans, why can’t we stay human.


If only we could just be humans, we might be able to save a childhood from the unwanted hatred and may prevent another GODHRA from happening...