The National People’s Youth Front (NPYF), the youth wing of the National People’s Party (NPP), has appealed to the public and various organisations in the State to exercise wisdom while dealing with the hate-mongering by outside forces especially in the social media.
“We appeal to the government to take a tough stand against the hatemongers of and at different levels. To the agents of communal hate, we will not allow such baseless propaganda to sway the peace loving people of Meghalaya, especially, at a time where the Puja festival is underway,” NPYF, working president Nickey Nongkhlaw said.
According to Nongkhlaw, for ages, Shillong and Meghalaya have had the honour and the heart to embrace all communities and ethnic groups.
“In a small cosmopolitan habitat, the people sans politics have learned to accommodate true friendship amidst tensions and they have learned the grace of living together based on mutual respect. We wonder why the outside world don’t talk about such bigger realities”, he said.
The NPYF working president also said that as peace has almost found its way back into the tryst of time and people have gradually started to come to terms with old wounds, it is unfortunate to see elements are trying to again polarise people based on creed and religion.
Nongkhlaw said that this potential communal standoff is a matter of grave concern for the NPYF and that there are reasons to believe that the hate-mongers are from outside the State had used social media effectively to spread animosity among the sections of the gullible public, therefore, believed to have led to racial verbal slurs and even more emotional outbursts based on right-wing ideologies.
“In a democratic religious diversified country like India and in a relatively peace loving state like Meghalaya, such voices packed with communal venom are in themselves anti-national. They are loose-speeches crafted to leave historical facts behind. To us, such half-baked truths and exaggeration tantamount to manipulation of messages to intentionally multiply communal hate. With that we strongly discredit those voices of disruptions once and for all,” Nongkhlaw said.
