[Reader-list] Shahidul Alam detained by Indian Border Security Force

[Rakesh Iyer]

Dear Shuddha and Malik

This is addressed to both of you, and I hope you don't mind that I address
both of you in the same mail.

First, to you Shuddha jee. I think you are being romantic in believing your
conception of the world where people can move freely without breaking laws.
We are living in times where nation-states (and a few state-nations like
India) are a reality. I personally feel it would be great enough if we can
have people crossing without any fear and problems. But there are numerous
problems associated with such issues.

The sovereignty of a nation is one aspect. In a democracy like India which
has been reduced to a competitive exam (on the lines of IIT-JEE or other
entrance exams), parties just want to secure about 20-25% of the vote (like
saying a student needs to solve 25% of questions to get selected in IIT's),
and then win the elections and form a government. And for doing so, all
kinds of permutations and combinations are tried (here of course there is no
comparison with IIT-JEE, except that permutations and combinations are a
part of the syllabus of IIT-JEE). These are done with communities and castes
before elections and with different elected members after elections. The end
result is a disaster.

In such a kind of democracy where to gain power people resort to competitive
populism and not substantive issues, any such kind of migration would lead
to a disaster as Malik jee is indirectly pointing out, because those who are
migrating would clash with those who currently live for voting and other
rights. And already the migration from Bangladesh is proving out to be a
heart burn for many.

And being a humanist doesn't mean that we can allow people to come here and
then make them live in shanties or slums in the most utterly disgusting
conditions, on encroached land, illegally for getting votes cheaply. This is
not what humanity believes in.

And we can't wish away the reality of a nation state, so therefore what we
do need to do, is to institutionalize the migration of people for employment
or business or other basis (maybe say migration after marriage), so that
such people can come in, but get voting rights say after 10-15 years
(through process of naturalization). Why not do this? May be you can come up
with some other step. Let such people till then have labor cards or cards
which guarantee them the chance to live in the country, but not get voting
rights till they become citizens legally.

Being a romantic will not help in such a case Sir. My suggestion may not be
practical as it is mentioned, but why not think of a variant of such a
method or even a new method which can ensure peaceful migration without
problems, is my moot point.

Now for you Malik jee. First of all, when people come to your place and live
there, not only would you lose your former identity, but even they lose
their own identity. The tribals of India, when forced to migrate because of
displacement due to development schemes like dams and destruction of
forests, have lost their identity too. Similarly, when Indians migrate to
America, not only would America lose its former identity, but Indians too
lose their Indian identity (and here Indian simply refers to the
geographical entity called India and the culture and different
sub-identities associated with it at different levels).

Ironically, what comes out of it is a new identity in many cases. Take the
example of the rule of Muslim kings over India. The identity of the then
Hindu would have been lost in certain ways, the identity of a Muslim would
also have been lost as they interacted with Hindus, and now we have a
situation where Hindus use Urdu and Muslims also have the caste system among
them! What a transformation! Isn't this too a loss of identity in some ways,
and a modification of identity in some other way?

Secondly, I don't want people to migrate only for menial jobs. Even if they
do so, I would like them to come up in their life, as all of us would want
to. And more importantly, while I agree with you that the current global
situation would not allow us to do so, migration of people across the entire
earth is a right which we should strive to achieve to. Making nation-states
hasn't helped the majority of people, and we should look to do something
different. The middle class anathema of anarchy probably makes them
subscribe to an Indian state, but an anarchic state (which our Indian
democracy is in and Gandhiji actually wanted this) is any day better than an
oppressing system which the Indian state indulges in. India is mine, but not
the Indian state.

And last but not the least, Pakistani state has also started fooling its
people like our state since its independence, which is why we have the
problem of global terrorism (Our state specializes in fooling on development
paradigm, Pakistani state is specialist in fooling on Islam and jehad). And
it's our responsibility as human beings to fight against the foolishdom and
useless propaganda being carried out in the name of terrorism and extremism,
or other ideologies. Instead, it seems we are being washed away by such
ideologies to become exactly like the enemy.

And this is why the RSS wants Hindus to be organized like the Muslims, so
that like the Muslims organize together in a riot, Hindus can also do so and
conduct genocides like those in Gujarat. In other words, the RSS wants
Hindus to live like extremist Muslims. And the extremist Muslims would like
Muslims to be like the way the RSS wants Hindus to be. They are not
different, except for their religious and organizational affiliations.

Regards

Rakesh