The government, unfortunately, has raised no objections at all about the nasty attitude of the US to Indian Muslim visitors
The Manmohan Singh government is extremely incensed that film star and Rahul Gandhis friend Shah Rukh Khan
was questioned by the immigration authorities at a US airport. And what was worse that he was made to wait. Even the normally apathetic Minister for External Affairs S M Krishna was moved into reaction, and the government registered its protest with the US mission here in categorical terms. So at least the newspapers were told.
Of course, we are all very happy. SRK, as the newspapers so familiarly call him, is a top shot actor, the darling of the masses, and if any indignity comes to him the nation as a whole must register its protest. But one wonders why this government is silent when scores of Indian Muslims travelling to the US are picked out for similar, and actually worse treatment. And many are fearful of visiting their relatives or holidaying in that great democracy as they do not know what alt39 treatmentalt39 they will get at the hands of the rough and tough immigration personnel manning the airports.
Muslim surnames are programmed into the computers to ring bells that galvanize the rather moronic immigration chaps into over- action, as the poor visitor is summoned out of the queue as if he were the terrorist everyone had been looking for.
So if the mighty men in the government of India recognised this fact, took it on board, summoned the US officials in the mission here and protested loudly about the treatment meted out to innocent citizens on a daily basis perhaps the SRKs could also benefit in the process. Unfortunately, the UPA government has raised no objections at all about the nasty attitude of the US authorities to Indian visitors, and more particularly in recent years Indian Muslim visitors, with the result that this drum beating over SRKs plight really does not evoke much sympathy here. Of course he did make the point at the Yale University where he was speaking and dancing, that his Muslim name and the colour of his skin were responsible for the humiliation, but then if he had turned the spotlight from himself to all those hundreds who are interrogated for hours at various US airports for doing little more than travelling to that country, he might have done a great deal of good.
One also wonders at S M Krishnas indignation, as the US- inspired racial profiling is being so diligently followed by the Union Home Ministry and its agencies.
Every other day innocent Muslim youth are being picked up and locked in prisons across the country, as someone somewhere thinks they are terrorists.
That someone somewhere has no proof, but who cares as long as sufficient Muslims are locked up as part of the India- US- Israel global war against terror. So every now and again young men are picked up from their homes for cases registered now in other states, for instance a Kashmiri is picked up in Delhi for a crime the cops say he has committed in Gujarat, and he is locked up without a word to his family or friends. Draconian laws are slapped on them, bail is denied, and if they are fortunate 14 or 20 years later they might be acquitted by some judge in some court.
So when the Nehru- Gandhi clan make the government jump up and down for their friend, the big actor of Mumbai fame, perhaps they can direct Prime Minister Singh and Home Minister P Chidambaram to get together a list of the young men facing charges of terrorism, and re- investigate their cases. But that is too much to ask. For the ruling elite speaks only for itself, the poor of India have long since been factored out of their reckoning. And justice is injustice only when it affects the chosen few, otherwise injustice is justice for the common person.
It is surprising how indifferent the government is to the anger and resentment sweeping through the poor of India.
The lessons of Uttar Pradesh have clearly not been learned, with Rahul Gandhi holding just o
