Mir Ayoob Ali Khan
Hyderabad: Amirullah Khan and Abdul Shaban, the two experts on economics and society, said that the future of communal harmony which had been the hallmark of Indian society is in grave danger.
“Political scenario is changing not only in India but across the world. New Right has created a situation where inclusion of certain minority groups is problematic…Somehow India had escaped that process because it was so multi-cultural so involved that we thought it would not happen here.
We thought that phenomenon of the rise of the Right was only peculiar to Muslim societies or parts of Europe. But now this worldwide phenomenon is also found among Hindus, Christians, Buddhists etc…
I hope that our political class rise to the occasion and tackle this threat…,” Shaban opined.
To this observation Khan interjected by saying, “My opinion on this is quite tangential. I think that India needs just another election. India is peculiar in the sense that hatred was mounted here faster than in many other countries.
For India this kind of dissonance has punctured the fast rise to economic growth. That is something the people are not willing to sacrifice. The economy that was running away with great speed has slowed down.
It is now trudging along like a punctured car. The entire population of the country cannot be ready to give up jobs, livelihood for some vague militant ideology.”
He further added, “We are already one of the hungriest nation in the world. 200 million people in India go to sleep hungry every day. If that 200 million becomes 300 million then we would become the hungriest nation in the world. Then the people will not be swayed by this rhetoric any more.
Amartya Sen, Raghuram Rajan and Abhijit Benerjee—the three biggest economists have said this. They are saying that India’s social dissonance is the cause of slow economic growth. Every other fundamental is strong.”
Shaban agreed with Khan’s views and said that there is lot of despair among people.
“If you concentrate on this kind of political innovations it would affect all dimensions of life, including economic
On the question of National Register of Citizens of India (NRC) Shaban pointed out that people “…Have lived in this country with hardly any documents. If you ask people to bring some old documents to prove their nationality who would have it? ..It is not a cold climate country.
How could the documents survive? The campaign is leading to fear and despair,” he added.