Friendship and Frankness

This tiny website dares to hope. It wishes to contribute a mite to the struggle to preserve democracy and goodwill in the world. Some of our world’s griefs, however, are independent of that struggle.  I must start this column with the sudden Texas flood that took dozens of lives including of children camping beside a lake in the heart of that giant state. Waters that usually take months to accumulate crashed down within minutes from the skies, swallowing innocent young ones and their hopes and dreams.

I will nonetheless record four positives, two from South Asia and two from the West. Finally, I will make an exhortation to South Asians, to whom people like me are joined by blood and birth, and to communities in the West, where people like me live. 

The first positive is a story you can access in detail by going to the following piece in the spirited Indian portal, thewire.in.

“YOU ARE TERRORISTS”

Farooq Shah, a veteran journalist living in Srinagar, the capital, within India’s map, of what in recent years has become the “union territory” of Jammu & Kashmir (it was a state earlier) starts by relating that after this year’s April 22 tragedy in that UT, when 26 tourists, most of them Hindus, were killed by four or five terrorists, an old Hindu friend from Jammu had phoned and told him, “All you Muslims are terrorists who harbour and feed them.” 

Shah, who had felt grateful that everyone in Muslim-majority Kashmir had expressed solidarity with April 22’s Hindu victims, was wounded by this verbal assault. Then he received a phone call from London from a man he had never met, Sushanta Bishal, a Hindu with roots in India’s West Bengal state. “Come to London for a few days and stay with us,” said Bishal. 

Farooq Shah took up the invitation. Though not acquainted with Sushanta, he knew well Sushanta’s brother Prashanta, as also Prashanta’s wife Sunita, a couple who lived -- far from Kashmir -- in West Bengal. They had given hospitality to Farooq’s son Mehran, who was an engineering student in their vicinity. In turn, Prashanta and Sunita had not merely stayed in Farooq Shah’s Srinagar home two years previously; two other West Bengal couples they had brought along had also stayed there. (No one knowing South Asia will be surprised by any of this.)

Farooq Shah says in his story in The Wire that the warmth he received in London from Sushanta and his wife Moumita, and from other members of their family, restored the faith in humanity that he had lost after the Pahalgam tragedy and the phone call from his Hindu friend in Jammu. Shah’s actual words are that “London restored” what had been lost in J & K.

“I REGRET” 

After he was back in Srinagar, the friend who had phoned from Jammu messaged her regret. She said she had been “caught up momentarily” and “overwhelmed by disturbing WhatsApp messages and videos portraying Muslims as terrorists.” 

That friendship (and its practical expression, hospitality) is a key to healing, and that an “external” place can help, are two lessons I draw from Farooq Shah’s story. 

The other positive word from South Asia I wish to share is about the release in the coastal state of Odisha in eastern India of several hundred Bengali-speaking Muslims who had earlier been arrested after being falsely labeled as “Bangladeshis who had entered India illegally”. Intervention by the chief secretary of West Bengal, who wrote to the chief secretary of Odisha, which, unlike West Bengal, is a BJP-ruled state, seems to have played a part in the release, for which citizens of conscience in Odisha had tirelessly worked. 

While glad to be able to record this relieving word from Odisha, I must mention that the online journal Article 14 carries a troubling story about harassment and wrongful arrests of Bengali-speaking Muslims in more than one Indian state. 

JOHN MAJOR SPEAKS

Remember Sir John Major? Now eighty-two, he was Britain’s Tory Prime Minister from 1990 to 1997, when Tony Blair of “New” Labor defeated the Conservatives. Major’s predecessor as PM was the more recalled Margaret Thatcher. 

After years of keeping a low profile, Major has spoken out with sparkling relevance. Delivering (on June 26) the Heath Memorial Lecture (named after another ex-Premier, Ted Heath) Major said, among other things: 

“President Trump believes that enhancing American power takes precedence over the wellbeing of the wider international community. 

“No-one envisaged a President threatening to take over nations like Canada or Greenland against their will; casting doubt on the US commitment to NATO; introducing tariffs that disrupt the world economy; withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement; or treating immigrants ‒ even if illegal ‒ like trash to be thrown away. 

“Whatever frustrations she may feel, does America realize how all this is viewed around the world? The timid may crumble, the cautious may appease, but I hope the President understands that agreement under duress is false and unreliable. If someone has their foot on your neck, you may comply with their wishes ‒ but you will never forget the foot. 

“This is not America as I have known her. This is not democracy as I understand it. Perhaps I am too old and out of time, but should not politics – at its heart – be about high moral purpose? Is the concept of “MAGA” – of widespread national self-interest – going to poison the well of decency in international relations? 

“What of the crises in Syria and Sudan and the Congo? Or the plight of the Afghan women? Are they simply to be forgotten? Is starvation now a legitimate weapon of war? If so, to whom can the helpless turn?... Is barbarianism now acceptable if the barbarian is strong enough – or the victim without friends?” 

John Major’s unmistakable words are a reminder of the silence of others who should be speaking out. You don’t have to be a US citizen to express concern for America. You don’t have to be a South Asian to call out steps against democracy in India or Pakistan or Bangladesh. Farooq Shah’s story with which this column started was yet another confirmation that in the 21st century the UK, Europe, and North America too are home for South Asians. 

Which makes the silence about oppression in their home countries of prominent Americans or Brits of South Asian origin the more puzzling, apart from also being terribly disappointing. Zohran Mamdani’s energetic bid to be New York’s mayor is a reminder that a half-dozen members of the US Congress too are of Indian origin. All are Democrats, all outspoken about Trump’s flaws. However, on majoritarianism’s forward march in India their tongues seem mysteriously and sadly tied, an occasional mild utterance notwithstanding. 

VIEWS IN U.S. CHANGING?

The other positive signal from the western world I wish to record is taken from an opinion piece in the New York Times. There, citing polling by Pew and Gallup, two agencies that have acquired credibility over time, Peter Beinart writes of opinion changes in the U.S. regarding Israel and Palestine. 

Apparently, Gallup has found that at present Israel is viewed favorably by only one out of three Democrats in the U.S. In 2013, Gallup had assessed that Democrats preferred Israel over Palestine by 36 percentage points. In February 2025, Gallup saw a reversal: Palestine was being preferred by a margin of 38 points. 

As for Pew’s findings, Beinart reports that among Democrats older than fifty those with an unfavorable opinion of Israel have moved up 23 percentage points between 2022 and 2025. 

In addition, Beinart informs us of results from a survey jointly done in February of this year by two other bodies, The Economist and YouGov. Evidently this survey found that 46 percent of US Democrats wanted to reduce military aid to Israel, while only 6 percent wanted that aid increased, and 24 percent were for the level to remain what it was. 

Those around the world who have been shocked by declarations from influential voices in Israel that Palestinians will be forced out of Gaza and the West Bank will be encouraged by these findings, reported by Beinart, about opinions in the US. 

While on Palestine and Israel, I should point viewers to an article in The Telegraph of Kolkata by Zachary Levenson, sociology professor at Florida International University. Levenson underlines that objects and structures destroyed in Gaza include priceless archives and libraries, and that the killed include many professors. Levenson calls the process “scholasticide” and says it is “a central component of the erasure of a people.” He wants Gaza rebuilt “as a worthy embodiment of the multilingual, multiethnic, cosmopolitan vision” that used to lie at the heart of Gaza’s life. 

“BRAZIL ON THE STAGE” 

The exhortation I end with has to do with two vital continents this website has not managed to focus on: Africa and Latin America. Can anyone possibly understand our rapidly intermingling world without staying abreast of the peoples of those great spaces? Whether we live in the Western world or in South Asia, we can make more of an effort to stay in touch with Africa and Latin America. 

Last month, fortunately, We Are One Humanity was able to organize an informative webinar about Nigeria. Next week, on Friday July 18, “Brazil on the World Stage” will be the theme of another WAOH webinar. Details can be found on the “Webinars” page of this site. Please remember that one must register to take part.