“I had a great distrust of Indian businessmen until I met a delegation which had come to Lahore.”

It was the aftermath of the ’93 riots in Mumbai. Several months after peace returned, the children in the large slum, Behrampada, in Bandra East, were still cooped up within its precincts. Mothers were afraid to step out on the streets and take the children to school.

Khorshed Gandhy

A few volunteers, many of them young practicing artists, decided to go on Sunday mornings to Behrampada with paper and crayons and get the children to draw and paint. It proved to be enjoyable and happy release for the young ones. It was on that first Sunday, that we saw written on the white wall of a building this poignant message, “Don’t hait me!”

This cry of anguish is still present in thousands of hearts even today and perhaps increasing because of the constant ‘mistrust’ propaganda — the very antithesis of Gandhiji’s life and also of our constitution.

Why is this ‘don’t trust’ propaganda gaining ground? Has it also something to do with a careless remark by an elder in the family that gets embedded in a young mind? For instance I remember an uncle saying, “Trust a snake but not a Sindhi”. He, I believe, had no experience of a Sindhi but out of an inflated opinion of his own community, such slogans get repeated which I believe prejudice the growing generation.

Let me quote here my experience of hearing a Pakistani businessman talk to an Indian businessman at a conference in Asia Plateau in 2001. He was saying how important it was that India and Pakistan started direct trading with one another instead of the goods going via Singapore. He then said, “I had a great distrust of Indian businessmen until I met a delegation which had come from India to Lahore. They were so nice, friendly and helpful.” His prejudice disappeared, wanting him to do business directly with India.

It is important, I believe, to really look within one’s own heart and search for these unexplained prejudices. Not only in India but everywhere in the world hate and prejudices are growing out of all proportion.

However, there are also rays of hope when people, as a nation, begin to deal with their own prejudices. The Whites in Australia, saw the terrible injustices they had done to the Aborigines who were the original inhabitants of that continent. It was a nation-wide campaign to say SORRY to a whole generation of the young Aborigines, to put right the wrong steps that had been taken by the Government and by individuals, which brought tremendous healing.

Talking of healing, reminds me of Sushobha Barve’s book, Healing Streams: Bringing back hope, recently published by Penguin. Sushobha’s experience of seeing two Sikh men being dragged out of a train after Indira Gandhi’s assassination so traumatized Sushobha, that to bring sanity to hate-filled hearts became her purpose in life.

In conclusion I would say that every individual has to decide whether he/she is going to be “a part of the disease or part of the cure”!

Khorshed Gandhy