"Get out of my country." shouted Adam Purinton, shooting Srinivas Kuchibhotla, 32, wounding Alok Madasani, also 32, and wounding American Ian Grillot, 24, who was shot as he tried to intervene at the Austins Bar and Grill in Olathe, Kansas. We in GCIC join the entire nation in mourning the death of such a bright, young man, whose life was cut down by the bullet of a mad fanatic, causing immense sorrow and irreparable damage to the members of his family.
"Get out of my country," say supporters of Ms Le Pen, screaming also, “We must make France free again.†"Get out of my country," say followers of Dutch far-right politician Geert Wilders. "Get out of my country," say followers of Golden Dawn, a neo-Nazi Greek party that endorsed Trump last month from the floor of Parliament in Athens, and cheered Trump's victory. "Get out of my country," says a Russian in Moscow, and don't think I'm influenced by Trump, I've been saying this for decades.
Hardly anybody can ever forget the terrible words, “Get out of my country," screamed by Dara Singh of the Bajrang Dal at Graham Stuart Staines, an Australian Christian missionary who cared for leprosy patients in India ever since 1965. He was then burnt to death by a gang while sleeping in his station wagon at Manoharpur village in Keonjhar district in Odisha, India, along with his two sons, Philip (aged 10) and Timothy (aged 6), on 23 January 1999. And now these words keep echoing throughout the length and breadth of the world. However, odious the comparisons are, it is inevitable that people would start comparing situations and incidents. Some say whether the case of Adam Purinton would also go the same way as that of Dara Singh who was responsible for the murder of those three innocent human beings in India in 1999.
The Supreme Court of India had said in the case of Dara Singh that “It is undisputed that there is no justification for interfering in someone’s belief by way of ‘use of force’, provocation, conversion, incitement or upon a flawed premise that one religion is better than the other,†making it appear that Dara Singh had been provoked enough to do what he did. In the same vein what if the American Judge were to say, "It is undisputed that there is no justification for taking away someone's job by forcing employers to give them to you by asking for less money, agreeing to longer working hours, offering other such inducements that provoke citizens of that country to take extreme action." Fortunately, that would not happen.
Adam Purinton will be tried for simple murder and accordingly sentences if they prove it as a case of "hate crime".
The attacks in the US on Indians working there have deepened the fear among South Asian and immigrant communities and they allege that President Donald Trump’s aggressive rhetoric and executive orders are encouraging violence against them. Indeed, we feel very much saddened with what is happening to our Indian citizens in the US. One thing is very clear Trump never mentioned the names of Indians whenever he allegedly used aggressive rhetoric or passed executive orders. We also don’t think he ever had Indians in his mind. The very fact that he has absorbed a number Indian Americans in his governance shows that he is not against Indians as a race. But then, when he takes some decisions to fulfill his promises, and if some Indians in the bargain also get affected perhaps nothing much can be done about it.
However, as recent as 30th of last month, in a departure from the previous government, the Trump administration has said that it would raise human rights issues with the countries concerned privately as it is “the most effective way†to deal with it looks like a positive step. “Human rights are always an issue of concern to the US and they are first and foremost in our talks,†a senior White House official said. “Our approach is to handle these types of sensitive issues in a private, more discreet way,†the official said on Thursday. (30-03-2017) PTI. We are sure that would also mean that the lives of individuals who are in the US as per law would always be protected. And also, the relationship between the US and India has been quite cordial during the last few years, and we are very hopeful that it would continue to be so in the years to come.
Every citizen of a country has a primary duty to work for the welfare of his nation. Nobody can ever refute or deny this basic principle since it involves the very survival of the individual and of his nation. However, it is an accepted fact that nobody can live in an island of his own making, since the entire human race today is dependent upon one another for its very survival. So, no country can survive for long cut off from the rest of the world, however self-sufficient and powerful it may imagine itself to be. Also, the very idea of one’s nationhood and patriotism has been undergoing drastic changes with all the modern scientific developments, the means of communication and transport. The entire world has become a global village today, and a modern man is no more a cave man to confine himself to his own cave. He is a social being, and so, mutual respect for one another is of paramount importance, to whatever clime or colour he may belong.
However, what does the ground reality in the world today look like, and why is it so? When you try to have a bird’s eye view of the situation in the world, things don’t seem to be conducive either for peace or for harmony. There have been senseless attacks against innocent people based on one’s religious beliefs, physical features, colour, language and culture. As a result of the brainwashing done by the perverted neurotics, the mentally destabilized people run riot and kill the helpless victims without any qualms whatsoever. Strange religious beliefs are being used to murder the helpless victims as a mandate from God? In which direction are we moving? Aren’t we a sick people, members of a sick society, unfit and unworthy to live a full span of life in this world given to us by our Heavenly Father? Unfortunately, the tragedy becomes still greater when we see stoic and studied silence by those who should condemn such dastardly acts. Cunning diplomacy and selfish manipulations would only lead to the inevitable devastation of the entire world.
The fallout of such double standards is the repetition of strange behavior by people in different parts of the world. There have been fatal attacks on the lives of Indians working in the US, something very strange and not in-keeping with the culture and the civilization which that country has been able to achieve. This new phenomenon seems to be a sort of a xenophobia, slowly spreading in the world adversely affecting our people. There have been attacks against our people in the US, in Australia, and very recently even in a small country like Poland. All these tragic incidents are apparently for no specific reasons, though in some cases, the attackers supposed to have shouted at them saying, “go back to your countryâ€. They don’t seem to have been targeted against any particular individual, and if it were so, there was no need for them to shout and then also kill the very individual. The motive seems to be much deeper and sinister. For the culprits, the victims are simply Indians. It looks like a sort of a hysteric dislike, a hatred against a race that has a different way of acting or reacting to a given situation, arousing their emotions of fear, anger, or hatred, which unfortunately result in fatal attacks.
This calls for an impartial analysis from our side as Indians just as we ask the respective countries in which these attacks are taking place against our citizens there. It also calls for an examination of our own consciences. Sincerely speaking, are we Indians free from racism?
There have been regular attacks against our fellow citizens from North-east region almost regularly. What is happened in Noida against the Nigerians does not speak well of our racial records.
One thing should be very clear to us that when we are ready to leave our countries, we should be prepared to change, well prepared for adjusting ourselves for any eventualities that can keep occurring in the new environment. When we want to go and settle down in the US or Australia, we cannot carry all our baggage with us, however superior we may think it is, which can become repulsive to the inhabitants of that country. Our way of life must also change, or at least it should not be nauseating to the people of that country in which we plan to settle down. When an Indian becomes a full-pledged citizen of Australia or of America, he is expected to commit himself fully to that country. If he still wants one of his legs in the country of his birth, it is very unfair for that country, it is indeed criminal. And, also, the country of his birth has no right to poke its nose because he does not belong to it any longer.
Dr. Sajan K. George,
National President,
Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC)
