Hate, Hope and Citizenship: Four Years Without Junaid
THE HINDUS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS BLOG IS A SPACE FOR A HEALTHY EXPLORATION OF IDEAS PERTINENT TO OUR MISSION. THE VIEWS AND OPINIONS EXPRESSED IN THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR AND DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE OFFICIAL POLICY OR POSITION OF HINDUS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS.
June 22nd, 2021 is the 4th anniversary of the Hindutva mob lynching of 15 year old Junaid.
HfHR cofounder Sunita delivered this message at an event organized by Muslim advocacy organization Strive UK to screen a documentary about Junaid made by journalism students at Jamia Milia Islamia, “Hate, Hope and Citizenship: Four Years Without Junaid.”
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I am the mother of three boys and the godmother of two girls.
My youngest son, Satya, is about to turn 14. He is a boy on the cusp of becoming a man. He is asserting himself more than ever, expressing opinions, articulating desires and ambitions, being honest about vulnerabilities, and more and more, making decisions that diverge from mine and his father’s. It is thrilling to see my child mature and grow, and there is a bittersweet feeling of loss -- loss of the small child, vulnerable, adoring, dependent.
One of my goddaughters is a Muslim girl from Afghanistan, Nilab. I first met her when she was 15 - she is 26 now. She has valiantly made a home so far from home, and is trying to cherish the memories that are precious, while navigating memories that are traumatic. Eid is one of those memories she cherishes. We just celebrated Eid with Nilab.
When I think of 15 year old Junaid, a boy also on the cusp of becoming a man but wasn’t allowed to, a boy who would make his siblings laugh, a boy who was telling his family about his dreams and aspirations, a boy who was coming home joyously after buying sweets and new clothes for Eid, my own Satya and Nilab’s faces appear before my eyes.
I respond as a mother first and foremost, and while I cannot possibly know the pain of Junaid’s mother Saira Bano, I feel some version of it deep within me. Junaid was India’s son, my son, our collective son. None of us will thrive in a country, a world which lynches its young.
Bearing witness to Sister Saira Bano’s pain in this film takes my mind to Emmet Till, a 14 year old son of America, a Black boy who was lynched in August 1955 because he was accused of whistling at a white woman. Emmett’s mother, Mamie Till, chose to have her dead son displayed in an open casket so that the world would see her darling boy’s mutilated face. Saira Bano has the brave fighting spirit of Mamie Till.
Junaid was stabbed to death and thrown out of a train because of a squabble over seats in a crowded carriage. Some of us will immediately think of an incident over 100 years ago, June 7th 1893, when Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was thrown off a train in Pietermaritzburg station, South Africa, for refusing to leave a “whites only” compartment. This was Gandhiji’s first act of civil disobedience.
In March 1955, nine months before Rosa Parks famously sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott in Alabama by refusing to give up her seat for a white man, a brave 15 year old girl, Claudette Colvin did the exact same thing, and spent time in jail for refusing to give up a seat for a white person on a Montgomery bus.
Bayard Rustin is an often forgotten civil rights leader in the US. In 1942, thirteen years before these acts of civil disobedience by Colvin and Parks, Rustin boarded a bus in Louisville, KY, and sat in the second row instead of the back seats that were relegated for black passengers. Rustin was beaten and arrested. Rustin traveled to India a year after Gandhi was assassinated in order to learn more about Gandhi’s nonviolent resistance movement and methodology, in order to bring the teachings back to the civil rights movement in the US.
Junaid was just a boy at the cusp of manhood, dreaming of a bright future and excited to celebrate Eid. But he takes his place among the martyrs who gave their life for standing up for their civil rights, and their right to dignity as human beings.
We think of the Emergency in India as the dark years between 1975 and 1977 when democratic rights were put on pause by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. What is happening in India today is also an Emergency, perhaps an even more devastating one.
An openly Hindu nationalist government has spent the past seven years decimating the Indian constitution and democracy. We have seen hundreds of lynchings of Muslims and Dalits, by Hindutva mobs. We are seeing beef ban laws, so called love jihad laws, a blatantly anti-Muslim citizenship law, and so many other laws and policies which target India’s minorities, particularly Muslims.
And while thousands of activists, journalists and intellectuals languish in jail, bail denied, for participating in peaceful and lawful protests and other expressions of dissent, the six men arrested for Junaid’s lynching are out on bail, free.
In recent weeks we have seen more anti Muslim atrocities.
In Barabanki, Uttar Pradesh, a mosque was illegally demolished by local authorities. This is possibly the first mosque demolition by the state rather than by a mob.
Three young Muslim men were lynched by a Hindutva mob in Agartala, Tripura a few days ago, allegedly for smuggling cattle.
Just about a week ago an elderly Muslim man in Uttar Pradesh was beaten up and forced to chant Jai Shri Ram. A video of one of his attackers cutting off his beard went viral. Three prominent journalists are being investigated by the UP police simply for sharing this news on social media.
And Asif Khan, a young man in Haryana was out to buy medicines a month ago with his cousins, when they were all beaten and Asif was lynched by a mob of Hindutva men.
As humans, as Indians, as mothers and fathers, we need to say Not In Our Name.
In every one of these cases the perpetrators were Hindutva mobs. As Hindus we need to say Not in Our Name.
Hate knows no boundaries. Hindus may feel that Hindutva ideology is a good path because they feel victimized in their own country.
First, I would ask them to search their souls and ask themselves who is truly being victimized.
Then I would ask them, even if there is any injustice against them, do such lynchings really make anything better for them? For anyone?
I would ask them if their God, their Bhagwan, their Devi Maa, would permit such atrocities.
I would ask every Hindu, in fact everyone, to consider these words of African American writer and civil rights leader James Baldwin:
“What you have to look at is what is happening in this country, and what is really happening is that brother has murdered brother, knowing it was his brother.
White men have lynched negroes, knowing them to be their sons. White women have had negroes burned, knowing them to be their lovers.
It is not a racial problem. It's a problem of whether or not you're willing to look at your life and be responsible for it, and then begin to change it.
That great Western house I come from is one house, and I am one of the children of that house. Simply, I am the most despised child of that house. And it is because the american people are unable to face the fact that I am flesh of their flesh, bone of their bone, created by them.
My blood, my father's blood, is in that soil.”
I will leave you all with these chilling numbers from the website of the NAACP:
Between the years of 1882 to 1968, there were 4,743 documented lynchings in America. 3,446 or 72% of those lynchings were of African Americans. Almost all of the remaining lynchings -- 1, 297, a FULL THIRD third of them -- were of white people involved in racial justice work or who loved black people.
Hate targets us all.
Every school-going Indian has chanted, “India is my country, all Indians are my brothers and sisters.”
My final message to my fellow Hindus: While love is infectious and spreads across borders and boundaries, hatred never just targets just one community. Only by rooting out this cancer that is Hindutva ideology, will we save our brothers and sisters, and will we will save ourselves.
To Muslims and other non-Hindus listening, I humbly offer my love and solidarity in your journey.
My ask to any Hindu listening: join us at Hindus for Human Rights to build the best possible version of our religion and spread love not hate in the world.