Country roads,Take me home , …..
So many patriotic songs have been sung for America by Americans , Victoria by The kinks also carries the same kind of passion or warmth, that a brit might go through , and a number of patriotic songs have been sung for our own country and the actual total of such songs is totally immeasurable (mere desh ki dharti, ye mere vatan …., jai ho , maa tujhe salaam and what not)and whenever we listen to those songs , the sentiment of patriotism overwhelmes us . But when a certain kind of MOB , which is nothing but a group of some people who have same sort of mentality in a particular context, tries to vandalize a city or a place , does this feeling of nationalism triumphs at that time as well or it just fades away. US Capitol riots might have drawn the world’s attention to America’s nasty political circus , but we as Indians have witnessed these sort of troubles a number of times, this little rant of mine is going to concentrate on such miserable incidents which must have embarrassed the NOTION of a great India.
1984…. BLUE STAR operation was carried out by government and many people from the Sikh community were infuriated because of the actions of our government which resulted into the assassination of Prime minister Indira Gandhi , the control went catastrophically out of control and we witnessed the most brutal massacre of people belonging to a certain community . Indira Gandhi was a controversial and yet a celebrated leader , her assassination ignited a flame of vengeance in those petulant minds of her supporters and this whole landmass went through the misery. And yet some controversial names went on to have one of the most colossal political careers(don’t you all know about Jagdish Tytler). And on the pile of her ashes her son took his oath and became India’s next superior most leader. But still there’s something which torments me and that trifling part is that how such sort of a mindset can be justified which forced one of the most frightful and terrifying annihilation of all times ?
2002… Gujrat’s riots …. do we really need to talk about this , I mean the bias or discrimination and the injustice against a specific community ,we observe in our daily lives started from that point of time , it won’t seem like an exaggeration that it was indeed the ground-breaking ceremony of the most anticipated and the most pious notion or movement of “musalman mukt bharat” . So many people lost their lives , sometimes two political leaders are usually held accountable for the slaughter . But it won’t seem like a prudent thing to say right now because both of them have immense power in today’s political scenario.
1992… Babri masjid …. mandir wahi banwaayenge , and drum roll please, ram mandir is getting constructed at the disputed land , the whole demolition of Babri was conducted by some majoritarian and right wing extremists , whole process led to an unfortunate mass murdering of the “people of this country by the people of this country” , as influence and facade of superiority became top notch priorities than the mere values of affection, mercy and fraternity .
2013 Muzaffarnagar riots, Sangeet Som the greatest thinker(greater than the likes of Plato, Aristotle ) of all time coined a term “GHAR-WAAPSI” as the Muslims were being forced to convert to Hinduism , and he was pursuing this great dream he had because he felt that these Muslims were once Hindus(at some point of time , around 1000 years ago and and is controversial in so many ways ), when the whole landmass went through a number of Islamic invasions and invasions are usually followed by mass conversion and thus it seemed to him that it’s his moral responsibility to introduce his countrymen to their real identity . The thing which seems most excruciating to me personally is that ,most of the people were from underprivileged background , their existence or identity revolves around the concept of the survival , religion and “ghar waapsi” barely matter for them.
2020 … Delhi riots ,,khair it was something which turned out to be the last nail in the coffin, as democracy was horribly wounded , as some of us do want to witness the making of “akhand bharat ”. And people from a particular community are not going to be a part of our great country (agar itna hi pyaar h to jaao na pakistan , chale jaao pakistan). The whole matter escalated when the government passed an ordinance which directly questioned the existence , identity or the citizenship of some people belonging to a certain community in Dec 2019 , and 2020 started off with a heinous act of communal violence when Kapil Mishra tried to instigate communal riots in north east Delhi.
But amidst of all these riots ,communal tensions , there’s something else which tortures every one of us , and it’s that mob which vehemently and constantly surrounds us , that fear which forces a person to stay awake at night as he speculates that he’s going to be lynched because he has dissented the government’s ideologies and its way of working . Eating beef has become a formidable thing to do nowadays , because a saffron mob will annihilate your whole existence if somehow they get to know about it, people will berate you on twitter as well just because you are not like them , it’s that fear which patronizes every one of us .
All this is happening with us because we turned a blind eye to every opportunity for dialogue, deliberation or discussion , Modiji went on to become the prime minister of India , Amit Shah is the home minister of India and it is totally conspicuous that he is the most important person today , LK Advani is spending the rest of his life in some sort of a forced political exile but with every privilege one could ever imagine , congress or should I say Gandhi family did enjoy the taste of power for a brief period of time or two terms in the office to be more specific(although no one from the Gandhi family played an important role in the cabinet for both the terms ) and many people pleasers got opportunities to secure a enlivening future for themselves . Sangeet Som is freely dwelling in this country and Kapil Mishra too is enjoying political pleasures of every kind . And our impetuous tendency to ignore or neglect these things gave birth to this era in which a mob always tries to petrify us . Those who try to hold on to their ground get murdered or get thrashed (Gauri Lankesh , journalist who got murdered , for obvious reasons )brutally or they succumb to that immense force and change their whole perspective . And that’s how a false citizenry emerges .
Now America has witnessed such sort of an event but , they have already forsaken trump because they do thrive for the notion of liberty or freedom , this is point where it gets different from our country , because many of us have already started expecting that yogi ji is going to be our next prime minister , the same person who said that Hindu culture and Muslim culture are two different sorts of culture and its kinda unfeasible for both of them to thrive together. In a democratic country these kind of statements should be criminalized but it dejects me tremendously that whole country hails him as one of the greatest politicians that has ever walked this earth.
Ideological conflicts are indeed a disappointing and yet a crucial part of a democracy but a sophisticated address to the complication might resolve the whole dilemma, but in a country in which consuming beef is considered a sin (and yes death is the only punishment for this heinous act ,the name Mohammed Akhlaq constantly rings in my head , I hope y’all haven’t forgotten this name ), even after knowing the fact that our country is the the 3rd largest exporter of beef , the whole drama seems nothing more than a classic case of irony.
khair we actually are surrounded by the dark clouds of despair ,dejection, bigotry and falsehood and these things might force you to become a pessimistic nihilist or a STOIC and y’all might begin jamming to “…..raahi manwa dukh ki chinta kyu sataati h, dukh to apna saathi h…….” but there’s one thing that I can assure you, pessimistic nihilism is usually followed by the attainment of optimistic nihilism……. So wait for the good times because it seems the king of good times is not going to return to the country anytime soon .
