Over the years, committed readers of Communalism Combat have constantly, and rightly, reminded us of the importance of bringing to light positive, real life stories that can instill in all of us fresh hope and faith. As you can see from the cover of this issue, our intention was to offer to our readers a big bouquet of good news to mark the special eighth anniversary of CC.

Our resources being limited, we have no network of correspondents who could be put on the job. Yet, as you will see from the contents, our co–combatants for peace from different parts of the country have generously contributed time and effort to put together very heart–warming accounts of people who despite years of aggressive mobilisation, remain immune to hate propaganda.

Barring a few persons, what we have here are not accounts of well known crusaders for communal harmony recognised for their social commitment in their respective cities or states or throughout the country. What we have instead are the extraordinary life stories of "ordinary people"; unassuming, unsung heroes and heroines situated in different parts of the country; whose home-grown compassion shone through on the nights of the long knives.

Mohd Omar Malik, Urmila Srivastava, Anees Khatoon and Laxmidevi Sonkar (Kanpur), Rooprekha Verma (Lucknow), Sophie James Joseph (Delhi), Bhanwar Megwanshi (Bhilwara), Madinaben Ganchhi Pathan and Harkant Natwarlal Patel (Ahmedabad), Feroze Abdullah and L Revannasiddaiah (Bangalore), Abu Backer (Kovai) and Professor Jeff Halper from the seemingly intractable Israel–Palestine battle–front. Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jews, atheists... You could identify them by their religion, but faced with situations when religious identity was literally a question of life and death, each one of them chose to stand by the side of the ‘other’.

In recounting their individual stories in this special anniversary issue, we pay our tribute to all those Indians, men and women, who at the cost of their lives say no to hate politics.

At the same time, we are deeply pained and saddened, having had to interrupt our printing schedule at the last moment and reopen some pages because as we were about to go to press, there came the numbing news that a group of terrorists, whose identity is yet to be known, had thought nothing of sending thousands of innocent men, women and children to a gruesome death merely to send a message to the American establishment. And it seems more than evident from the statements of President Bush and other American notables that concern for other innocent lives is for them not a major issue as they plan to wipe out terrorism from the globe.

Closer home, a top functionary of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad has reportedly issued a call to all Hindus to rally behind President Bush, even before America has come to any definite conclusion on the identity of the perpetrators of the dastardly crime. For those who have any idea of the communal dynamics at work in India today, the ominous meaning contained in the message should be more than obvious.

We apologise to our readers that having had to reopen the issue last minute to report on the terrorist assault on the US, we have had to drop some other stories from this issue. The hardly–known Lashkar–e–Jabbar’s despicable attempt at the Talibanisation of Kashmir, and disturbing echoes of similar sentiments from fringe Muslim pockets in Hyderabad and Mumbai is an issue we will address in the next issue.

Above everything else, we dream of a day when our bid to bring to our readers an issue devoted exclusively to good news is not violently aborted as it happened this time by some practitioners of blood and gore — from India or elsewhere in our Global Village.

— EDITORS