Yesterday's regional media reported communal disturbances in four districts of Uttar Pradesh and one of Gujarat.

Muzaffarnagar

Bulandshahr

Khurja

Saharanpur

Vadodara
These events were attributed to various provocations. In one case it were Student Union elections during which candidates clashed on communal lines another case was torn pages of a religious book being used to wrap pills at a pharmacy. Another incident was reported where one community indulged in stone pelting during the religious gathering of another. Flaming passions were remarks attributed to 'firebrand' MP Yogi Adityanath, such as 'Wherever Minority population is more than 10 percent communal riots take place. Wherever it is more than 35 percent there is no place for non Muslims' His concluding sentence is 'Agar mere ek hath mein mala hai to doosre mein naiza bhi hai' (If in one hand I hold prayer beads, in the other I also have a spear').

This atmosphere is hurtling across UP, the most populous, complex and most diverse part of this land. It saddens me that these events find no space in mainstream media.

I just attended a joint Seminar held by National Commission for Women and National Foundation for Communal Harmony. The latter is a semi independent entity of the Ministry of Home Affairs. The subject of discussion was 'Promoting Peace and Harmony: Social Exclusion of Women of Minority Communities-- Challenges and Remedies'. The initiative was led by Shamina Shafi Member NCW and Ashok Sajjanhar Secretary NFCH. Their idea of creating a common platform on this issue was useful because as we have seen ever since 1947 and as reported in all of the above news stories, in all communal disturbances women are worst hit. Their lives become endless drudgery in rebuilding their broken lives and ensuring that children's suffering is minimal. I was eyewitness to this in 2002 at various camps across Gujarat

Speakers at the National Seminar referred to anti Sikh riots of 1984, Muslim killings in Gujarat 2002 and recently, the ubiquitous targeting of Muslims in Muzaffarnagar. The Foundation, closely affiliated with MHA, was asked to play an important sensitizing role for government. NCW was asked to take up for women across the cast and communal lines and within the context of pre election communalization and use of gender to push the polarization process.

Since 1997, when I became Member NCW, I have been watching this endless march past of ideas which remain on pages of reports and are rarely woven into sectoral policies. In cases where some policies derive from them, they are either not implemented or implemented with such feeble measures that they are bound to fail.

As the meeting progressed, I watched with worry the changing dynamics of such gatherings. One heard the grainy rhetoric of ultra conservatism during discussions. The fact that this was a forum within human rights frameworks did not hold back comments around Minority appeasement. No one actually used the expression but it was ringing everywhere. When the subject of VAW in North East came up one venerable questioner did not know who was Irom Sharmila. Someone questioned Muslim parents' reluctance to allow daughters to attend far off schools by saying, 'Why don't their religious leaders urge them during Juma Khutbas; after all they have a ready made platform'.

It is difficult to recognize in these discussions the India in which I grew up.

I ask myself what direction are we taking and where will we be five, ten years from now? Personally, all my struggles of the last ten years are being first diminished then trivialized. Since I have served ten years as Member Planning Commission, TV channels want my presence at endless postmortems of PC. Rubbishing our work by using pejorative expressions has become a favorite past time of channel pundits. Professional denouncers incite the invited audience, mostly youth who sit on benches to clap on cue. 'Where are the promised jobs for these millions of Indian youth?' (One sweep of the arm over the 20 odd 'millions' sitting on either side of the studio) Thunderous applause from the 'millions' who immediately begin spinning dreams of 'achche din'. So it goes.

It was Jalauddin Rumi who said words which I wish to share with all those wordsmiths referred to in the above paras, who by their cleverness in speech and writing, in seminars and symposiums, leave us speechless and tongue tied:

'Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderedness'.

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