In Moradabad, where this whole problem started – and now it has spread almost all over the country – the cause was just ridiculous. Mohammedans had gathered to pray in their idgah, the prayer place. It is an open place; they just face towards Kaaba and pray. A policeman was on duty, and some cow entered the prayer space. Now the cow is the symbol of Hinduism and the Mohammedans became enraged. They said, “The policeman is responsible. He was standing there. Why did he allow the cow to enter?” In fact they said that not only did he allow it, he brought the cow in! And killing started.
Now one hundred and thirty people have died just because of that holy cow which may have entered innocently. They are roaming all over the country – they don’t know which place is Hindu and which place is Mohammedan. And because one hundred and thirty people have died there – and this is an official number…Official numbers are never right. Multiply by four and you will find the right number. That has always been my observation: multiply by four. At least five hundred to six hundred people must have died. Now in other places revenge has to be taken.
Can you see the cause, the stupidity of human beings? The excuse is not worth calling an excuse! But this is how things begin.
The real thing is that people are accumulating great violence, anger, in them. If you cannot release your love you will accumulate anger. Love standing on its head becomes anger. And when anger accumulates you are just looking for some excuse. If you cannot find an excuse you will invent one, but you will have to invent some cause so you can release, cathart. This is a catharsis – on what grounds it happens is immaterial.
Hindi speaking people start killing non Hindi speaking people; non Hindi speaking people start killing Hindi speaking people. The Gujaratis start fighting with the Marathis, the Mohammedans with the Hindus the Jainas with the Hindus, the Sikhs with the non-Sikhs. Anybody is ready to fight with anybody else; just a small excuse, real or invented, is needed. The fight happens first, then later on we discover why it has happened.
People are gathering so much poison, anger, that these flare-ups are bound to happen. And then politicians have no understanding, so they simply go on dumping the whole thing on “anti-social elements,” as if these anti-social elements appear only once in a while and then suddenly disappear. They are always there, but the riots are not always there. For years these anti-social elements become very peaceful and very Gandhian, very non-violent, and then one day suddenly they erupt, and they erupt all over, it is almost like a chain reaction.
The politicians have to say something. They don’t understand what is happening at all, and even if some of them do understand they don’t have the courage to say it.
The real cause is thousands of years of imposed fear on people, condemnation of love. And you are well aware of it here…if two of my sannyasins are just standing holding each other’s hands in the garden, it is obscene. Two people lovingly holding each other’s hands is obscene or two lovers embracing each other is obscene – and two people killing each other is not obscene!