A Taunt Goes Unheeded

A Taunt Goes Unheeded

1990 10 October 6 A Taunt Goes Unheeded (379) The proclamation, ‘Jesus is coming soon!’ inscribed in English – obviously by some Christian hand – appeared earlier this year on many of the walls and railings of bridges in Delhi. This stirred up a reaction among certain Hindu youths, who then saw fit to add after each proclamation ‘to become Hindu.’ (Not evidently the work of educated Hindus, because the correct version would be ‘to become a Hindu.’)

If any such rejoinder to a Muslim slogan had been written up on walls and railings in letters large enough to be seen for miles, the more shallow-minded among the Muslims would have started calling this “an insult to the Prophet!” They would have considered this “an injury to Muslim sentiments and a challenge to communal honour!” In no time at all, Muslim youths would have allowed themselves to be provoked into a mood of violent reaction which in turn would have resulted in Hindu-Muslim riots. The time would then have been considered ripe for the so-called Muslim leaders to make public statements to prove the inefficiency of the administration. Another group would have hastened to open a relief fund purely to get the credit for coming to the assistance of their community. Muslim newspapers would have had the opportunity to publish burning sensational news which would boost their circulation. But so far as the general Muslim public was concerned, their lot would only have been further destruction.

The Christians, on the contrary, took no notice of this provocative act, with the result that this event was turned into a nonevent.

On February morning I watched this incident from the flyover near the Oberoi Hotel in New Delhi. On both sides of this very broad avenue heavy traffic hurtled past, at such a speed that it is doubtful if any of the drivers could have taken in the sense of the words. None of them had the time to stop and read them. The words themselves were only waiting to be obliterated by a shower of rain or a few gusts of wind. How futile it seemed to react to them or to want others to be aware of one’s reaction.

The most foolish of men are those who, willingly or unwillingly, cause full-scale riots by their mindless reaction to paltry provocation.