For all those sitting in their privileged homes, thinking they’ll never come for you, you are wrong. They will. And sure enough, no one would be left to stop them.
Remember, as an educated, “upper” middle class (a very Indian invention, which literally means having a roof, 3 square meals, a steady job, and enough to save a bit…which actually means the top 10% of India), mostly Savarna Indian who revels in the rise of the Hindu right, believing naively that s/he’s a part of it, here’s a wake-up call: You aren’t.
The mobs that will come for you will not care for your Hindu credentials. They won’t care for your patriotism and desh bhakti. They won’t care for your “sanskar” and “kaalchaar”.
Because they hate you. To them, you are the out-group. You are part of the problem. Your education is part of the problem. Ditto your “western” clothes. Your nominal knowledge of English. Your children’s schools. Your fancy (to them) car. Your SIP and shares. Your vacations and pilgrimages.
Your protestations and displays of piety and faith won’t sway them. Nor your “janeu” and sandalwood tilak. Nor your “Ganapati” on the car dashboard or the “Jai Maata Di” saffron cloth with gold embroidery tied to the steering wheel.
Your Facebook friends won’t come to help. Nor the local police wallah. Ditto the politician smiling from the hoardings.
The media will not take up your cause. For they’d already be enslaved by the time they come for you. The courts won’t listen. For they’d already be compromised by then. As for your patriotic, incorruptible army, they won’t care because they’d be reduced to puppets parading in fancy dress.
Your relatives and friends won’t rush to rescue you, for they’d already be dead, in prison, or exiled…many of them because you reported on and denounced them yourself. Your children won’t support you, because they’d be the ones reporting and denouncing you, having been indoctrinated at their schools and universities. The intellectuals won’t defend you, for there’d be none left. The artists and performers won’t protest, for there’d be no art remaining.
You will be alone.
I can assure you this. They WILL come for you one day. And I can also guarantee you this: that your last thought before being dragged out of your house will be, “But, why me?”
And the answer is staring at your face today, if you care to remove your blinkers, dispose of your earplugs, and stop baying for the blood of “anti-nationals” for just one moment, and think of the consequences of your refusal to think beyond your nose.
But you won’t. And that is the real tragedy.
