A picture on social media last week said so much about India today. Wasim Shaikh of Khargone in Madhya Pradesh stands in front of a piece of land cleared of a settlement. Shaikh’s ‘gumti’ or tiny grocery shop was razed to the ground on April 11 because he was said to have thrown stones during a communal riot a day earlier. Shaikh has no arms; he lost them in an accident in 2005. This does not matter. He is a Muslim in an area where there was violence and that is enough reason for the state to destroy his only source of income.
This is where India is heading, or where India has already reached. A society seemingly without humanity, which is violent, targets minorities, and has the state acting above the law.
