URGENT-ATTENTION: PLAN TO ENGINEER MUSLIM VS DALIT-BUDDHIST RIOTS!!

Bharat Bachao Andolan
(Movement to Save India)

URGENT-ATTENTION: PLAN TO ENGINEER MUSLIM VS DALIT-BUDDHIST RIOTS!! 
WARNING TO ALL!! BE VIGILANT, DONT FALL INTO HATE CAMPAIGNS OR FALSEHOODS!!

There is a planned & concerted attempt by certain right-wing & state forces to create Muslim vs Dali-Buddhist riots. We appeal to the entire Dalit-Buddhist & Muslim community, as well all patriotic Indians. An anti-Buddhist sentiment is being fostered amongst the Indian Muslim community due to misinformation & sheer ignorance on Myanmar. 

Yesterday there was an attempt by Muslim youth in Lucknow to target Buddha statues. Also on facebook & sms - there are a lot of hate-messages being circulated. 2 Buddhist Viharas in Bombay have been stoned. The Dalit media & activists have kept all this under wraps & are not reporting it for now, so as to contain the rising tensions & anger. 

We thus appeal to the leaders & activists of both the Muslim & Dalit-0Buddhist communities to immediately come together, stand on 1 platform & expose this entire plan to engineer Muslim vs Dalit riots, which will then transform themselves into Muslim vs Hindu riots, and eventually it will be Muslims vs everybody else as we well know from decades of experience. 

Immediately after Eid, we are holding meetings & press conferences both in Bombay & in Lucknow to awaken the people about this design. Then we are launching a series of public meetings across Bombay especially in the Dalit & Muslim areas, so as to strengthen the existing unity of the Muslim & Dalit masses as well as that of the OBC & the working classes. We will also be meeting the CM both of Maharashtra & UP, with a meeting with the Police Commissioner to seek the cooperation of the state machinery to protect the people of all communities. 

The agenda is very clear as the ruling elite in the Congress & BJP require riots to polarise the electorate along Hindu & Muslim lines as we head for the general elections of 2014. With the economy floundering, the mega scams of unprecedented amounts of money, rising prices & a general anger & seething discontent seething amongst the masses, the ruling elite will resort to their timeless strategy of fomenting nationwide riots, as we head for the general elections of 2014. 

The ongoing month long pogroms in Assam, more than 40 riots in Uttar Pradesh, the mob violence in Bombay, Kanpur & Lucknow & the fear & hate-campaign against the students of the North-East & the Dalit Buddhists. With the attendant fall-out of the isolation of the Muslim community is a recipe for a massive disaster & planned pogroms on a scale that will surpass the Gujarat genocide, as since then the right-wing Manuwadi militias are far better equipped, well trained & organized. If the Muslim community & their allies in the larger Indian secular society, especially the Dalits & OBC's are not taken into confidence, if the Muslim leadership & youth don't start behaving in a politically mature manner, we are in for real spell of anti-Muslim riots that will not be contained as they will spread like wild fire across the entire nation. And a nation that has already been prepared to believe the worst due to the dominant paradigm on the politics of terror that pervades our media & our security establishment.

So lets wake up & start the process of countering the nefarious design by reaching out to all the communities, by creating awareness & by mobilising & organizing at the bastis across our cities, towns & villages. Since the dark days of 1992-93 & the Gujarat genocide, we have learnt our lessons with much pain & blood. Now there is far more communication at the grass-roots where leaders & activists can counter hate & rumour mongering, but there is a limit, a limit if the state itself has deicded to plan & foment the riots. A pall of fear looms large & hate campaigns are visible over the internet & the media, thus the odds against us are truly enormous. 

But we have faith - faith in the people of India, faith in the basic secular ethos of India & an undying optimism & hope.

Thus lets awaken before its too late.

Feroze Mithiborwala & Kishore Jagtap
(National Convenors)