By
| 06 Mar, 2016, 08:08AM IST
The
country is passing through an intimidating and worrisome political
phase for peace-loving citizens. Such a situation was definitely not
unexpected given the ascendancy of the right-wing forces to power. It’s
deplorable that the nationalism and patriotism of citizens who think
differently is being questioned by the State and its agents. But we
should also not forget that the present situation has not arisen from a
vacuum. It is the outcome of an insouciant attitude in politics adopted
by us India’s citizens over the last decade. We as citizens took our
democracy for granted and were living in chronic denial that the
casteism and communalism were constructs of political parties for vote
banks. Apathy towards being socially and politically informed had
unknowingly crept into our civic behaviour and more attention was on
education for fat pay packets. In the run to afford a modern life style
we failed to realise the silent spread of a cancer called fascism
chipping at the roots of our democracy and now threatening to topple the
tree of Secular Democratic India. The intemperate street spectacle over
‘Nirbhaya’ which appeared to have been engineered by the scheming right
wing with tacit collusion from an egoistic left wing to rattle the
UPA-II government has now boomeranged as a nightmare for ‘Kanhaiya’. The
very snake which the leftist forces tolerated to avenge their hurt egos
over the betrayal on the nuclear deal by UPA-II has now grown into a
monster threatening to devour them. What was once about ‘Congress Mukht
Bharat’ has now mutated into “Communist Mukht Bharat’.
The
irony in this witch-hunt witnessed across several universities is that
it afflicts the very same aspirational and impatient Young India which
fell hook, line and sinker for the unrealistic promises of ‘acche din’
with zero corruption. The problem with a politically dormant secular
India is that it lives in the today and forgets the past. There could be
a sizeable chunk of young voters who are hardly aware of the horrors
and struggles against the emergency and the deceptive role of religious
fundamentalist forces during the freedom struggle. We seem to no more
have our feet on the ground but in cyber space thereby lending ourselves
as fodder for religious-economic fundamentalism. We citizens are hardly
aware that our thinking is increasingly being trapped in corporate and
government controlled propaganda, little realising that what gets
tom-tomed as right being progressive may not necessarily be so, and that
everything left is extremism, terrorism and anti-development could
actually be the other way round. The right wing can be as unpredictable
and a nuisance as the left wing in government which is exactly what we
have been witnessing for over a year now. After failing to brainwash
citizens through social media and eradicate naxalism through armed
encounters, the thrust is now diverted to destroying the educational
institutions which foster free thinking and develop young minds that
advocate and lobby on behalf of the poor and marginalized people.
Gandhiji had said: “In a true democracy every man and woman is taught to
think for himself or herself.” However, on the pretext of tackling
anti-national activity a mob mentality is being cultivated for a fascist
State and corporates to manipulate at free will for trampling human
rights and reaping financial profits.
So
as rightly pointed out by some thinkers, those who have their bellies
full and bank balances spilling over have nothing else to do but think
of national security. Therefore, when almost 30 percent of our fellow
citizens are afflicted by severe drought conditions, some retired
military commanders get agitated and sentimental over fake videos
showing anti-national slogans being shouted by a bunch of harmless
students at a university campus. While some right-wing oriented stooges
claim India’s culture to be extremely tolerant, TV channels beam images
of lawyers in black coats bashing up students and teachers in a court
premises and attempt to deny the constitutional right of an accused for
judicial remedy. The police reverse the principle of jurisprudence by
claiming that ‘one is guilty till proven otherwise’. And while the rural
health services in the country are in crisis because hardly any doctors
want to serve in these areas, a medical association is obsessed with
curing anti-nationalism on university campuses. Instead of taking steps
to prevent student suicides, the government and its hooligans are busy
scouting for student seditionists on campuses. A law maker appears to be
doing research on dustbins in universities by monitoring condoms,
liquor bottles, abortion injections, beedis and meat bones. The very
understanding of India’s nationalism has been reduced to ‘hooligans with
janda (flag) and danda (stick).’ What greater anti-nationalism could
there be than to render India, the world’s largest democracy, a laughing
stock in the eyes of the world?
http://www.heraldgoa.in/Review/Voice-Of-Opinion/Doctored-Sedition/99657.html
Herald Review, 6th march 2016
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