Ban bans for the sake of communal harmony

Last weekrsquos unsavoury developments especially the row over ban of animal slaughter and sale of meat and demand for renaming certain cities in Maharashtra takes me back to my childhood days when I had my first lesson in communal politics Itrsquos still relevant and may help us to understand further what we want as a peaceloving societyMy native place Mangrul Dastgir a nondescript small town in Amravati district of Vidarbha continues to carry Dastgir in its name with great pride It has a definite history of communal harmony If we were to go by what is happening around us the very model that is synonymous with my native place and many more unknown and known places faces an imminent threatMy native place home to some 20000 people has sufi saint Baba Dastgir as its presiding deity The gadhi a place that each town or village would build on a hillock or in absence of hillocks they would create one to be used as a shelter during attacks from aggressors of old times houses Dastgirrsquos small dargah People of all religions reach up to his kabra to seek blessings and not just during Dastgirrsquos Urs but whenever they wish to Itrsquos a symbol of secularism that stands tall even as the remaining part of the gadhi has been flattened to construct a roadOpposite the grave is a vast ground that hosts a parent branch of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh Beyond the RSS venue stands a magnificent temple of Hindu deity Dattatreya People affiliated with the Sangh Parivar manage the Hindu temple People from all religions manage the Dastgir dargah And when all appeared well between them mdash the dargah the RSS and the temple mdash I remember how a group of people had attempted to create a communal rift by trying to rename our tiny place after Lord Dattatreya as Mangrul Dattgir While these people wrote the name differently the rest were more than happy with DastgirWhen asked my late father who studied to become a teacher in a Nagpurbased school run by an RSS ideologue gave me my first lesson in the countryrsquos communal politics which later escalated in the wake of the Ayodhya episode Several instances that have taken place thereafter have had me revisit the insight he gave me then Thankfully my town still carries its original nameThis example makes me believe that the majority of the countryrsquos population does not want any communal disturbances even as Delhirsquos Aurangzeb Road was renamed and the Shiv Sena revived its demand to change the cities of Aurangabad to Sambhajinagar Osmanabad to Dharashiv and Islampur to Ishwarpur In Islampur the Sena has tied up with Shiv Pratishthan a hardcore Hindu outfit patronised by Sambhaji Bhide who is an adarsh purush to top leaders in the RSS and its political offshoot the BJPThe CongressNCP government had scrapped the renaming of Aurangabad and Osmanabad in 1999 when the high court had asked to maintain the status quo Back in power after 15 years the Sena has upped the ante yet againLast week the BJP retreated after extending the period of the ban on slaughter and meat sales during the Jain communityrsquos Paryushan Parva because the Sena and other political parties did not approve of a prolonged ban People may want to know who pressurised the municipal authorities Are the individuals who feel empowered because of their close proximity to the BJP responsible for thisSuch ill designs speak volumes of the mind games certain people are playing to tarnish our social fabric Their sole aim is political gain Of late Maharashtra in particular has seen a series of controversies over the beef ban scrapping of reservation for Muslims death sentencing of terror convict Yakub Memon and the meat ban Such rows do not augur well for Maharashtra where the BJP had promised voters unparalleled development and quality of life If such acts continue the people who are not interested in any form of politics and believe in leading a peaceful life are likely to shy away from supporting the BJP The Sena too needs to be consistent one doesnrsquot understand why it fails to be uniform in policy when it comes to any kind of banThe writer is Political Editor of midday