The enemy within
The terror in Gujarat is a South Asian calamity. It is also a reminder of the calamities of the past and a forewarning of manmade disasters ahead. The restraints of civilisation are sometimes all too thin. The targeted mass killings of Muslim children, women and men is an expression of the violent urge that can be stimulated in a mass of people who have been systematically reared to think of others as less than human.
Everywhere in South Asia, there are people who nurture the desire to conduct pogroms and wipe out of existence those who are supposedly different. The energies and urges of such forces are generally kept in check by the weight of law and social sanction. But every now and then, they spring out through the cracks and contradictions of civil and political society. That is when the lives of others are consumed to settle imaginary scores with history. When the beasts prowl among citizens, communal riots and sectarian killings happen – be it in Nellie, Surat, Bhiwandi, Bhagalpur or Bombay.