By Rohit Kumar / The Wire
For many years now I have conducted a workshop called ‘Finding You’ for high school students. It is aimed at helping teenagers find their own unique voice and identity, and deal with the existential angst that invariably accompanies the adolescent years. One of the activities during this workshop involves students cutting and pasting pictures from magazines and newspapers and making individual collages depicting their hopes, dreams and unique personalities. For this purpose, I ask them to bring old magazines and newspapers from their homes.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the resultant closure of schools, however, brought a two-year hiatus in these sessions. As I resumed workshops once again this year, I wondered just how much the students’ worldviews have changed over the last couple of years, considering how Hindutva propaganda has now all but saturated print, electronic and social media.
I found my answer soon enough. In the years before the pandemic, students would bring magazines like India Today, Conde Nast Traveller, Vogue, etc. for the aforementioned collage-making activity. This time, to my consternation, I saw something I have never seen before in the pile – copies of Panchajanya, the RSS publication that openly advocates the idea of a Hindu rashtra. I decided to hold my peace and see how things developed. And develop they did!
As they were making their collages, the topic of ancestry came up amongst a couple of them. One of them cheerfully remarked to the other, “My grandparents came from Pakistan and I wouldn’t mind visiting it for a bit. I’ve heard the people there are quite hospitable and the food is great!”
The other student, a girl, immediately retorted, “I would never go there! I hate Muslims!”
Overhearing this, I said, “That’s a strong statement! Why do you hate Muslims? Have they ever done anything to hurt you?”
“Well, no…” she responded hesitantly, “but my parents tell me they are dangerous people.”
“But have you personally interacted with any Muslim people to know this for sure?” I persisted.
“I haven’t,” she replied with a tone of finality, “but my parents hate them, and so do I.”
This story was originally published in thewire.in . Read the full story here