Reader's Page

In our August issue Delhi based activist Rashneek Kher had reacted to Parvez Kabir’s article on the students struggle in Baroda. In this issue we publish a letter from Parvez Kabir, who demands a more informed debate on the Baroda issue. We welcome our readers to comment on the Baroda issue- Editor.

Dear editor,

You have asked me to respond to a reader’s letter with regards to my July article. I’ve just read it and I believe it is not worth responding, since it has little to do with my article and much more to do with the reader’s own views and opinions about religions and religious difference in our country. There are all in all 28 references made in the letter about the Islamic religion, or Muslims in general, each time demanding my reaction towards them. The whole thing has nothing to do with my article, but the implication is clear: “if you do not react against Islamic fundamentalism, you have no right to talk about Hindu fundamentalism [“charity begins at home”-the reader advises]”. He even has the audacity to write something like “…his own maulavis”, holding me as a representative of Islam who is responsible and answerable to anything and everything that Muslims are doing all over the world. We all know that Niraj Jain does not represent Hinduism, just like some fanatic Muslim does not represent Islam. Even a fool understands that they are all criminals and one Muslim’s crime does NOT justify one Hindu’s crime. Niraj jain has made a constitutional offence and we have all the rights to protest against that and seek justice. however much the reader [and I do not care which religion he belongs to] tries to bring in comparisons between one religious evil and another, he will not be able to give a communal angle to the Baroda matter because IT IS NOT A COMMUNAL FIGHT WE ARE FIGHTING. I pity him, but since I do not live by either the Gita or the Quran, but by the constitutional laws of our secular nation, I use my right not to answer his letter sentence by sentence or answer in his own malicious language of communal hatred. Besides, what will I argue with a person who is capable of confusing a description of Chandra Mohan’s  sculpture of Jesus with a biological human body and write “Parvez says it was pure water which was actually flowing from Jesus’s penis.[….]. Does a penis actually flow pure water? […] To a normal mortal like me, penis either flows urine or semen […].
Dear editor, I am glad that you encourage dialogues between your writers and readers, and I respect that. Yet it is difficult to have a dialogue with someone who lacks the basic human respect that we all have for our fellow citizen and countrymen. We even have the basic human respect for people we really despise. If you ensure that very minimum human respect from your reader, [who has the dignity and self respect of not branding others as infidels, fanatics, flimsy etc on the page of a reputed website] I am open to any questions and clarifications, but certainly not before that. I also have a request; if possible- try to organize an online seminar where issues like this [the Baroda matter] will be discussed. Where civilized people would be given a chance to put forward their different viewpoints, without going in the hateful, communal way. It would save your writers from the compulsion of reading trash and responding with dignity.

Parvez kabir. Baroda.