Communal harmony in great danger, save it before it is late

There is an underlying tension in the hearts and minds of minority people living in the country and that tension reaches its peak, particularly when there are elections around the corner and this is the factor that the political parties use to appease their vote banks. The process of instilling fear and making the masses take decisions based on these tensions is high these days across the country and with that the communal harmony of the country is not only exposed to extreme dangers but goes for a toss all together.
Bihar these days is in the grip of self-styled cow vigilantes who have instilled fear among the people of minority communities living in the state. The height of their goondaism is such that they ended up killing a Muslim JDU leader Khalil Ahmad in the state’s Samastipur for allegedly eating beef. The case was earlier linked for a different reason, but with the emergence of video evidence, the case has turned out to be the handiwork of cow vigilantes in the state.
The irony is that the person who has been killed is associated with the party of Nitesh Kumar who happens to be the Chief Minister of the state and the present scenario suggests that he has not been able to do much to address the rising cases of cow vigilantism. Even some have gone further to state that the incident might turn out to be disastrous for the CM as it suggests that even his party people are not safe in the state.
Khalil’s incident is not the first-of-its-kind in Bihar, but such acts have been carried out earlier as well. In 2017, over seven Muslim men were beaten up by a mob after rumours of them having consumed beef. Then in 2020, a man was lynched for eating beef in Patna even as the two more were killed in the same year over the same suspicion.
While there will be visible effects of such incidents in Bihar itself, the country, in general, cannot remain immune to the same. There already is a suitable environment being provided for carrying out such incidents across the country, but that’s going to be disastrous like never before. Such shameful acts are not only jeopardizing the country’s communal harmony but are also bringing home a shameful and violent image painted across the globe due to such dastardly acts.
At this point of time, the responsibility lies on the shoulders of the political leaders who have to call spade a spade if they at all care for the harmony across the country; if they at all they stand for protecting the secular nature of the country. If not, then God bless this country that once stood for nothing but peace, harmony.