Back to Barbarism

Satyapal Singh, Maharashtra’s ex-additional director general of police and now minister of state for human resource development (responsible for higher education), drew flak with his proclamation that Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution was wrong. But after seeing the conduct of his cohorts from the Sangh Parivar in Kathua in Jammu and Kashmir, one can be forgiven for thinking that perhaps he is right. An eight-year-old child was kept locked in a temple, starved and gang-raped over five days. She was then brutally killed and her body thrown into a forest. All this was done in order to terrorise the Muslim Bakarwal community (to which she belonged) into leaving the area. This would shock and shame any human on the planet who believes in evolution. Following this, members of the Hindu Ekta Manch, those of the Bar Association of Jammu, and other outfits belonging to the Sangh Parivar took out marches led by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ministers in support of the accused, waving the national flag. This was proof enough that Darwin was wrong—having come through a long evolutionary process, people in human bodies could not be worse than the beastly beasts. There are numerous other acts too, if not literally comparable with this one, which would certainly mark the undoing of what little progress we lay claim to.

Eventful April