Modi and mythology

Updated on: 09 July,2009 09:00 AM IST |
Daipayan Halder |

There's an Amar Chitra Katha story I remember about a guy called Angulimal who spent his youth robbing people on the highway and cutting off their fingers as memento

Modi and mythology

There's an Amar Chitra Katha story I remember about a guy called Angulimal who spent his youth robbing people on the highway and cutting off their fingers as memento. After a chance meeting with the Buddha, Angulimal had a change of heart and became a saint or suchlike. Problem was other people were not ready to forget his past even if he was. Angulimal was stoned to death by villagers he wanted to give non-violence lessons to.

Angulimal's story came to mind as I read a news report on a commission of inquiry that has been set up to study changes in the demographic pattern in Gujarat since independence and identify the "reasons behind the polarisation and migration" of populations belonging to different religions.

The national outcry that followed didn't deter the state government. In Surat and elsewhere, the experiment continued, in other forms. Like denying Muslims the right to rent houses or set up businesses.

Only last year, policemen at the Sardar Sarovar Dam site in Narmada district turned away groups of Muslim holiday-makers from the popular picnic spot. Reason: They were Muslims. Simple.

Which is why when the same Modi government gives a go-ahead to a commission of inquiry to look into the reasons for polarisation, it's du00e9ju00e0 vu for me. Mass murderers make bad saints.

Maybe Modi should pick up some old issues of Amar Chitra Katha.

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