Ivoried Glass Houses

 No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.Ever. That's just how most of us have been engineered and count yourself in this lot because no matter how much you deny, you must have starred in atleast one of the mentioned motion pictures.People discussing trivia at the crossroads and armchair intellectuals slapping facts ratified by the cursery readings of the elite newspapers on the faces of their nonchalant family members, alike. All it takes to create a good movie or start a war is an us and a them . Let's put the facts first and then view them through the  prisms of truth or chicanery .Last week , two state  governments came out with their population policies for the ensuing decade- Assam and Uttar Pradesh. We have had a National Population Policy for over half a century and it has paid great dividends with 24 out of 29 states having achieved total fertility rate (TFR) of 2.1 which is considered the replacement level (no further population growth). The remaining states, popularly called BIMARU states, though lagging, are also on the right course . Why then the need for a two-child norm? Why then the need for fixating on one particular minority community  the sole onus for population control? In UP ,why an year before the elections? Who has been predicting population explosion? Without adding more to this, let's see the next fact.Last week , a few terrorists who allegedly have some links with Al-Qaeda were taken in custody from the Kakori area of Lucknow.Allegedly. The official statement says that they had plans for independence day . Accepted but what about the innocent families that are being churned in this now terrorist cum political ploy? Are all those people who just happen to live in the vicinity and be born in a particular community,to be blamed? It's not a hidden fact that a person wrongly accused of a crime becomes tempted to do it later .  Not only the person but his entire family. Imagine being eyed with suspicion everywhere you go. We take pride in our accommodative culture but ask yourself if that adjective applies to the person in the mirror.As you read,I'm sure many of you will still not accept how subtly we allow and approve of the atrocities our fellow neighbours are being subjected to.This subtlety can take many forms- indifference being the bestseller here.We take nanoseconds to start suspecting the minority community the moment something unusual happens .As a child do you remember being accused of something you didn't do but then went on to do it the next time as a symbol of revolt and for that gratifying taste of victory? Fellow intellectuals who claim to be promoting fraternity need to revise their facts and clean their glasses perhaps.In Assam, in particular, the TFR has, in fact, dropped from 2.2 in 2015 to 1.9 in 2020-21. Thus, the population “explosion” explanation is a sham . The use of modern contraceptive methods by women is highest amongst Assam’s Muslim women, at 49 per cent. Unmet need for contraception is also the highest among them, at 12.2 per cent. The problem, clearly, is not uncontrolled population increase amongst the community. Last year, around April some members from the Jamaat were found violating covid norms and the whole nation was foaming at the mouth . I'll not mention the number of cases when people were lifted from their residences for "committing" love jihad after all love is a dangerous disadvantage (in UP).There's been Kumbh and now we have Kanwar Yatra coming up but there's absolutely no cause of worry because the community is prone to neither  infections nor infectious statements.If there's anybody who's prone to these , it's them . Let us become them for a while and feel what runs in their nerves .Let us for once see things through the prism of humanity and justice irrespective of the glasses we already have on.Lastly ,let us start acting now instead of waiting for power to knock at our doors first.

 I may have missed out on a lot of facts and stories but it becomes absolutely justified when you see the whole gamut of cases under the Sun .