{"id":60315,"date":"2024-05-28T05:12:05","date_gmt":"2024-05-28T05:12:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/28\/leaflet-by-leaflet-a-few-aging-activists-fight-indias-tide-of-bigotry\/"},"modified":"2024-05-28T05:12:05","modified_gmt":"2024-05-28T05:12:05","slug":"leaflet-by-leaflet-a-few-aging-activists-fight-indias-tide-of-bigotry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/28\/leaflet-by-leaflet-a-few-aging-activists-fight-indias-tide-of-bigotry\/","title":{"rendered":"Leaflet by Leaflet, a Few Aging Activists Fight India\u2019s Tide of Bigotry"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"549\" src=\"https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/05\/12\/world\/00india-activists\/00india-activists-facebookJumbo.jpg?fit=1050,549&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Leaflet by Leaflet, a Few Aging Activists Fight India\u2019s Tide of Bigotry\" title=\"Leaflet by Leaflet, a Few Aging Activists Fight India\u2019s Tide of Bigotry\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">One recent morning, Roop Rekha Verma, an 80-year-old peace activist and former university leader, walked through a north Indian neighborhood prone to sectarian strife and parked herself near a tea shop.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">From her sling bag, she pulled out a bundle of pamphlets bearing messages of religious tolerance and mutual coexistence and began handing them to passers-by.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cTalk to each other. Don\u2019t let anyone divide you,\u201d one read in Hindi.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Spreading those simple words is an act of bravery in today\u2019s India.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Verma and others like her are waging a lonely battle against a tide of hatred and bigotry increasingly normalized by India\u2019s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">As Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his deputies have <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/04\/22\/world\/asia\/modi-speech-muslims.html\" title=\"\">vilified the country\u2019s minorities<\/a> in a yearslong campaign that has escalated during the current national election, the small band of aging activists has built bridges and preached harmony between religious groups.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">They have continued to hit the pavement even as the price for dissent and free speech has become high, trying to keep the flame alive for the nonsectarian ideal embedded in India\u2019s constitution and in their own memories.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">More than three dozen human rights defenders, poets, journalists and opposition politicians face charges, including under antiterrorism laws, for criticizing Mr. Modi\u2019s divisive policies, according to rights groups. (The government has said little about the charges, other than repeating its line that the law takes its own course.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The crackdown has had a chilling effect on many Indians.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThat is where the role of these civil society activists becomes more important,\u201d said Meenakshi Ganguly, a deputy director at Human Rights Watch. \u201cDespite a crackdown, they are refusing to cow down, leading them to hold placards, distributing fliers, to revive a message that once was taken for granted.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The use of posters and pamphlets to raise public awareness is a time-tested practice among Indian activists. Revolutionaries fighting for independence from British colonizers employed them to drum up support and mobilize ordinary Indians. Today, village leaders use them to spread awareness about health and other government programs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Such old-school outreach may seem quixotic in the digital age. Every day, India\u2019s social media spaces, reaching hundreds of millions of people, are inundated with anti-Muslim vitriol promoted by the B.J.P. and its associated right-wing organizations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">During the national election that ends next week, Mr. Modi and his party have <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/04\/23\/world\/asia\/india-modi-muslims.html\" title=\"\">targeted Muslims directly<\/a>, by name, with brazen attacks both online and in campaign speeches. (The B.J.P. rejects accusations that it discriminates against Muslims, noting that government welfare programs under its supervision assist all Indians equally.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Those who have worked in places torn apart by sectarian violence say polarization can be combated only by going to people on the streets and making them understand its dangers. Merely showing up can help.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">For Ms. Verma, the seeds of her activism were planted during her childhood, when she listened to horror stories of the sectarian violence that left hundreds of thousands dead during the partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Later, as a university philosophy professor, she fought caste discrimination and religious divides both inside and outside the classroom. She opposed patriarchal attitudes even as slurs were thrown at her. In the early 1980s, when she noticed that the names of mothers were excluded from student admission forms, she pressed for their inclusion and won.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But more than anything else, it was the campaign to <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/01\/22\/world\/asia\/modi-india-ram-temple.html\" title=\"\">build a major Hindu temple<\/a> in the town of Ayodhya in her home state of Uttar Pradesh that gave Ms. Verma\u2019s life a new meaning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In 1992, a Hindu mob demolished a centuries-old mosque there, claiming that the site had previously held a Hindu temple. Deadly riots followed. This past January, three decades later, the Ayodhya temple opened, inaugurated by Mr. Modi.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">It was a significant victory for a Hindu nationalist movement whose maligning and marginalizing of Muslims is exactly what Ms. Verma has devoted herself to opposing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The Hindu majority, she said, has a responsibility to protect minorities, \u201cnot become complicit in their demonization.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">While the government\u2019s incitement of religious enmity is new in India, the sectarian divisions themselves are not. One activist, Vipin Kumar Tripathi, 76, a former physics professor at the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi, said he had started gathering students after classes and educating them about the dangers of \u201creligious radicalization\u201d in the early 1990s.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Today, Mr. Tripathi travels to different parts of India with a message of peace.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Recently, he stood in a corner of a busy train station in northeastern New Delhi. As office workers, students and laborers ran toward platforms, he handed information sheets and brochures to anyone who extended a hand.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">His materials addressed some of the most provocative issues in India: the troubles in Kashmir, where the Modi government has rescinded the majority-Muslim <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/08\/05\/world\/asia\/india-pakistan-kashmir-jammu.html\" title=\"\">region\u2019s semi-autonomy<\/a>; the politics over the Ayodhya temple; and ordinary citizens\u2019 rights to question their government.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cTo respect God and to pretend to do that for votes are two different things,\u201d read one of his handouts.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">At the station, Anirudh Saxena, a tall man in his early 30s with a pencil mustache, stopped and looked Mr. Tripathi straight in the eyes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cSir, why are you doing this every week?\u201d Mr. Saxena asked.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cRead this,\u201d Mr. Tripathi told Mr. Saxena, handing him a small 10-page booklet. \u201cThis explains why we should read books and understand history instead of reading WhatsApp garbage and extracting pleasure out of someone\u2019s pain.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Saxena smiled, nodded his head and put the booklet in his handbag before disappearing into the crowd.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">If just 10 out of a thousand people read his materials, Mr. Tripathi said, his job is done. \u201cWhen truth becomes the casualty, you can only fight it on the streets,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Shabnam Hashmi, 66, another activist based in New Delhi, said she had helped distribute about four million pamphlets in the state of Gujarat after sectarian riots there in 2002. More than 1,000 people, most of them Muslims, died in the communal violence, which happened under the watch of Mr. Modi, who was the state\u2019s top leader at the time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">During that period, she and her colleagues were harassed by right-wing activists, who threw stones at her and filed police complaints.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In 2016, months after Mr. Modi became prime minister, the government prohibited foreign funding for her organization. She has continued her street activism nonetheless.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIt is the most effective way of reaching the people directly,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat it does is, it somehow gives people courage to fight fear and keep resisting.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWe might not be able to stop this craziness,\u201d she added, \u201cbut that doesn\u2019t mean we should stop fighting.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Even before Mr. Modi\u2019s rise, said Ms. Verma, the activist in Uttar Pradesh, governments never \u201cshowered roses\u201d on her when she was doing things like leading marches and bringing together warring factions after flare-ups of religious violence.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Over the decades, she has been threatened with prison and bundled into police vehicles.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cBut it was never so bad,\u201d she said, as it has now become under Mr. Modi.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The space for activism may completely vanish, Ms. Verma said, as his party becomes increasingly intolerant of any scrutiny.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">For now, she said, activists \u201care, sadly, just giving proof of our existence: that we may be demoralized, but we are still alive. Otherwise, hatred has seeped so deep it will take decades to rebuild trust.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/05\/28\/world\/asia\/india-activists.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One recent morning, Roop Rekha Verma, an 80-year-old peace activist and former university leader, walked through a north Indian neighborhood prone to sectarian strife and parked herself near a tea shop. From her sling bag, she pulled out a bundle of pamphlets bearing messages of religious tolerance and mutual coexistence and began handing them to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60316,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/05\/12\/world\/00india-activists\/00india-activists-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[24935,1112,58498,4822,925,58497,15711],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60315"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60315"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60317,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60315\/revisions\/60317"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}