I was surprised by the question for a moment to be honest.

Should our identity as Indians not

suffice to condemn such a heinous incident. Or framed another way, do you think some
Bengali Born Muslim person would tell you this was a long time coming? To be completely
honest I am ashamed today, as a Bangali and as a native of Bengal. My upbringing has
always forced me to look at all men as equals, the very fact that even in 2016 we as a
collective society could be divided by something as personal as religion is shameful. What’s
next? People dividing us on Eye colour?

In my personal opinion the average youth in Bengal has very little to do. The latest
unemployment stats show that Bengal barely makes the India average figure for
unemployment of 50( for 1000 employable people). The ones who are working are majorly in
the informal/semi-formal sector doing grossly underpaid jobs. They have no charted growth
trajectory and have lost touch with the idea too and thus can afford to spare time to such futile
thoughts.

When I look back on my years in student activism I realize that the transition (which I was a
part of at an esteemed south Calcutta college) from the communist ideals (which are more
heavily pronounced in the sub 25 developing mind) to the new ideal of ‘Monotheism’ or one
God-or Goddess in this case was not complete. Or more specifically, it was appended,
because the new cult lacked principals and ideals, necessary for any political belief system.
Initially they enjoyed momentum for change but the excitement among the masses died down
and was replaced by the previous apathy, but elections are still being won, partly due to the
over whelming support from the unemployed local youth who need their local
Bhai’s/Dada’s(Gunda’s) support to carry on the illegal trades/ extortion rackets that earn
them their living. And I count my gut instincts cultivated as a Hindu in a Christian Convent in
a Muslim dominated part of the city when saying that the undercurrents of tension and
communal discord was always rooted in our system. We, as school goers, used to discuss
about the differences between us and what was preached to us.

Although graduating from school I realized it was a taboo and one was not supposed to talk
about it in public. To the effect that, everyone would know there was a problem with our
‘mindset’, some stoked it’s flames, but mostly no one spoke about it in the open. I think
Society goes a long way in shaping us & the Kolkatan culture of having very unique close
knit societal structures(‘Paras’) created varied mind sets in the process, in all religious
groups. And the group involved in this particular case was the Rowdy sort, fairly common
behavior for both major religions in and around the port area although the distribution is
skewed.

To then think that, our militant activism as One United People, for One Free Nation forced
the British to move their Capitol to Delhi in the early 20th century. Then on, it has been a
downward slope, as subsequent governments robbed us of our conscience, our ability to
discourse, our ability to take criticism and most importantly our ability to coexist peacefully.
We let our moral fabric wither as our famed Adda’s which used to be logical discourses on
varied topics let go of its intellectual content, got unnaturally misogynistic and vulgar. So, did
our tongue as we let the perversion poison our language, the sweetest language in the world
to the extent that Profanities became an almost integral part of the local Parlance.

Now, when I hear the poetry of Sri Atal Behari Vajpayee, I wonder how ‘We’ as a nation
failed ourselves by not discovering a man as Self less and as devoutly devoted to the Idea of
India, Akkhad Bharat as he called it. Or when I read a book by my idol A.P.J Abdul Kalam
who worked for his ‘Vision of India’ as he called it ‘That didn’t let him sleep at night’ every
day till his death, I feel a deep regret as an Indian. I feel my predecessors failed me. For, had
they done a better job of selecting whom to hand over the reins of the country to, perhaps we
would have never come to such a Question in the first place.